25/04/2026
“We were talking to the government, having all these meetings, and I realized… the conversations just weren’t going anywhere. We were a thriving architecture practice, but we were hitting a ceiling. If we wanted to actually cut the urban infrastructure deficit, we had to stop waiting for someone else to build the vision."
We had to become the developers ourselves.
I sat down with Issa Diabaté recently, and he was remarkably candid about that 'gutsy move.' It’s one thing to design a singular object for a client; it’s another to design the finance, the heritage, and the infrastructure for a continent.
When I invited him to participate in our ‘600 Million African Super City’ exhibition at the University of Lagos, I wanted people to see that progression. It wasn’t just a theory. It started with 6 units of housing. Then 32 at Les Chocolat Residences. Then 226 at Abatta Village. Now, they are promoting a 50,000-unit model in Venice.
As Issa puts it: ‘When you get to that scale, you have to look at the things architects usually don’t like—energy, waste, and governance.’
He’s also proving that if we trust the ‘village model’—the established developmental logic of Africa that was so often erased—we can create places where people actually live, work, and play together. It’s why the jury led by Viavo Hunponu-Wusu reasoned that Koffi + Diabaté Group should be awarded the Cutstruct Prize for 600 Million African Futures. They aren't just designing buildings; they are designing the makeup of the firm that produces the work.
We applaud Issa, as well as the brilliant teams at StudioNeida and HTLAfrica. They are showing us that if the infrastructure deficit is to be met—from Nigeria to Congo, Togo to Kenya—it will be because we had the guts to change the scale of our ambition.”
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Want to dive deeper? Explore the "Village Model" and the rise of the Architect-Developer in The Unknown 3, featuring Diabaté and other visionaries reshaping our urban future on . Out on 30 April 2026.
