Webinar on Climate Change Realities: Experiences from 'Traditional' to 'Modern' Nigerian Architecture.

00:00:09:24 - 00:00:32:18
Speaker 3
Good afternoon, everyone. And it's really exciting to be here launching our new webinar series all about the lessons the Global North needs to really learn from the global South in the climate emergency. And as Will said, we've been working on this together with the Climate Heritage Network, which we're part of, that connects people working on climate change in conservation and cultural heritage from right around the planet.

00:00:33:08 - 00:01:11:16
Speaker 3
Now, we launching this series in the run up to COP 27, which will be in Egypt in November, because it's seen the perfect time for us in the global north to be finally getting out of our business as usual, Rach, which has got the world into such a mess. And start listening to those parts of the world that aren't just bearing the brunt of the impacts of climate change, but also have the tiny carbon footprints, not least because they haven't forgotten how to construct and operate a built environment in a low energy and low carbon way and in a way that's sensitive to the local climate.

00:01:11:16 - 00:01:33:17
Speaker 3
The messages that we're finding by looking at things in this way link so closely to what we also know from history, from looking at the built environment before and after we started throwing fossil fuels at every problem, whether it's real or invented. And it's absolutely thrilling to see, for instance, how similar a Cobb cottage in Devon is to a dwelling in South Sudan.

00:01:33:21 - 00:01:53:09
Speaker 3
And my niece lived in one of these for six months when working for Médecins Sans Frontieres and said it was incredibly comfortable, no matter how hot it was. Unlike the hospital which had been made from imported cement and steel and was unbearable. So when it comes to overheating with climate change, I don't lose any sleep over the Cobb cottage.

00:01:53:22 - 00:02:16:23
Speaker 3
But the grade one listed Lloyd's of London building. Now that's different issue in this series. We don't just want to look at the building fabric, but also the way buildings are constructed and how they operated in low carbon ways in places where energy has never been cheap. There are so many lessons for us here as well, and also on how to transmit knowledge and learn from practice.

00:02:16:23 - 00:02:44:04
Speaker 3
I was very glad to see that one of the people on this call is a lady who'll be speaking about some of this with us in a few weeks time. Again, these are things we once knew in the Global North, but we've forgotten them. So over the next few months, up to and beyond, we're going to be looking at all aspects of this and we'll be showing that the net zero problem isn't anything like as hard as we've been making it, that we do have the knowledge and tools to be tackling the climate emergency quickly and effectively.

00:02:44:10 - 00:03:02:10
Speaker 3
It's just that we've been looking for them in the wrong place. Each fortnight we're bringing in an expert speaker to talk about their work, and then we'll be discussing with them the lessons we should be learning from what they found. And I want you to join in this discussion as well. So please post your questions and thoughts for discussion into the chat.

00:03:02:14 - 00:03:24:03
Speaker 3
And if you could preface them with something like a Q for question so that we can recognize them easily, that would be super helpful. And with that, it gives my colleague Joanne Williams and me from the building climate adaptation Team here at Historic England, the very greatest of pleasure to be welcoming our first speaker, Cordelia Osasuna. Now, Cordelia is a professor of art.

00:03:24:03 - 00:03:45:17
Speaker 3
If the history of architecture here at the OAU in LFA and was the first female fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Architects. She was, in fact, the first female graduate of the University architecture department. But she went on to head that department and to become the vice dean of Environmental Design and management. And she's also the pioneer head of architecture at the University of Ibadan.

00:03:46:08 - 00:04:21:18
Speaker 3
She's published lots to not least on vernacular architecture, and she researches the conservation of Nigerian really and houses. And as if that weren't enough, she also makes revivalist experiments in vernacular building features, which makes Cordelia the perfect person to launch our new series. So Cordelia, the floor is yours. I'll get Will to load up your presentation. And off we go.

00:04:22:19 - 00:04:31:06
Speaker 3
Hi, Cordelia. How you able? We can see your mic, but we can't hear you.

00:04:33:17 - 00:04:40:05
Speaker 2
Oh, I'm okay. Yeah.

00:04:40:06 - 00:04:42:06
Speaker 3
No. Yeah, that's it. That's got it.

00:04:42:15 - 00:05:22:05
Speaker 2
Brilliant. Yeah. Hello, everybody. So I'm very happy to be here. And I thank you for being for that. Very, very. I don't know how to describe it. It almost sounded like you introducing somebody else, so thank you. So basically, I want to I want to talk excuse me and put this on. Okay, good. And I want to talk about what our experiences in Nigeria have been in terms of how we transited from the purely traditional through the nucular.

00:05:22:14 - 00:06:01:05
Speaker 2
And now we find ourselves in real time, contemporary, our own brand of modern architecture. So I'll be, you know, taking a panoramic view essentially starting from the north of the country and then, you know, highlighting some specific work that I have done in the area of early heritage architectural conservation. So. Okay. Oops. Sorry. Yeah. So basically, I, I mean, it's like stating the obvious.

00:06:01:24 - 00:06:42:01
Speaker 2
No matter how sophisticated this society is right now, every society, every culture had a traditional past. And this actually evolved based in interactions with other, you know, cultures and things and people influencing each other. And responding to the reality of the physical. This issue, cultural environments. So most building cultures have also like the Nigerian world, going through the traditional to the vernacular and to whatever the present day expressions of the architecture might be.

00:06:42:18 - 00:07:29:22
Speaker 2
So I just have some illustrations and this particular slide shows, you know, the first these four illustrations are from Uganda showing us the nightclub architecture, showing us the traditional. And this particular one was from a university environment, using traditional techniques to give it contemporary hall space, hall atmosphere, a university environment. The other pictures are from Nigeria. We have our traditional from the north, from the Benin area.

00:07:30:02 - 00:07:58:24
Speaker 2
And then right to our modern metaphor, if you like. So this is our experience. This is a journey in Africa. So looking at the strengths of the traditional, because the traditional, like I said, was a starting point. The reality was it was needs the needs of the people. That prompted building response. So people needed to be protected from the weather.

00:07:59:13 - 00:08:33:16
Speaker 2
They needed to service their daily living agenda. Sleeping, eating recreational procreation. And then, of course, they related with the natural habitats, the immediate environment, geographic location in terms of the climate, in terms of the actual physical terrain. And of course, these issues generated the materials that were available for use. The climate was a major determinant of how they responded to the environment.

00:08:34:05 - 00:09:03:15
Speaker 2
It was a major factor that needed to be factored into the believability of whatever they came up with at the end of the day. So consciously, this had to be provided for. And at the end of the day, the form that was generated was determine actually needs. So essentially the eventual form followed function. This is I mean, all too often we credit the founding fathers of the modern movement with the cliché form follows functional.

00:09:03:20 - 00:09:31:06
Speaker 2
Yes, but traditionally form has always followed function. So with that as a general background, if we start from the north of the country, which is home to the house of the Fulani, you know, and many other, you know, ethnic groups, I'm just zeroing in on the house and of learning the terrain with respect to the house, mostly flat, gently undulating.

00:09:31:06 - 00:10:09:22
Speaker 2
The building materials, you know, buildable lots. Right. And then a preponderance of the palm tree, particularly the male one, which is split up into length, referred to as Adara, and of course, plenty of grass. So in terms of the social predispositions, the house up live living large groups, they're very sociable animals traditionally and polygamous. And in terms of occupation, mostly arable farmers growing cotton grown and all manner of greens and also specializing in various crops, many of them based on cloth and on leather.

00:10:10:13 - 00:10:41:17
Speaker 2
The climate hot, dry, 35 to 40 degrees centigrade throughout the year. Rainfall seasonal like all over Nigeria light most of the time, but occasionally, particularly at the peak of the rainy season, you could have storms. So the building in response to these issues comprised thick walls, thick walls and large rubbing talked about the thermal insulating capacity of a lot of these traditional buildings.

00:10:41:17 - 00:11:10:01
Speaker 2
You referred to Sudan the same thing of things. Most walls are more than two feet thick and is tapering to the top. Very small windows are used for reasons of privacy and also heat control. The privacy issue was greatly played up later when most of the north, you know, came under Islamic rule. So for reasons of privacy, of the womenfolk, openings had to be very, very circumscribed.

00:11:10:18 - 00:12:02:10
Speaker 2
The shallow domed structures with parapets and spouts for rainwater runoff were the order of the day. So this next slide shows basically takes us gives us an overview of what we have the so the basic unit is the Adobe. This piece shaped well it's called to Bali as a basic unit comprising well a trodden on the foot, you know, well paddled with length of straw, legs of grass used as a binder, arranged to form the actual structure and then clustered over with more earth.

00:12:02:21 - 00:12:30:10
Speaker 2
So here we had the Hazara, the male timber farm used for lintels and structural elements, and we had the Adobe arrange. The two Bali adobe bowls arranged in this structure. In this picture we see the massing at the base of the wall tapering to the top where we have the lintel. Here you have a typical house. There is this very, very small window.

00:12:30:21 - 00:12:59:03
Speaker 2
Even the doors are not your requisition. You know, 2.1 meters by 8.9 meters. No, a much smaller than that. And then the shallow door with a parapet and the spout. This is called a room. It's the granary for storing the grain. And we can see, you know, the configuration with the members brought together, the Russian members brought together at the top but protected from rain.

00:12:59:06 - 00:13:36:14
Speaker 2
Penetration by this port turned upside down. So we now look at the Fulani again, another location, grassland area, and we use watercourses as the terrain, mostly flats comprising silos of building materials, essentially grass and, you know, light timber, cane, whatever readily came to hand. The social life was that of animist living. These small nomadic groups polygamous. And I mean, that's the traditional thing in this part of the world.

00:13:36:24 - 00:14:17:06
Speaker 2
The occupation was, of course, cattle reading and the tale of dairy products that have undergone minimal processing into local cheese, that kind of thing. And some of the products, the local milk. So again, the climate located in the hot, dry billet temperatures as high as 40 degrees in frequent rainfall when it was cold, mostly as light showers. So the type of built for this generated temporary A-frame straw structures with mats rolled out occasionally.

00:14:17:06 - 00:14:59:20
Speaker 2
Sometimes it was totally, you know, straw structures, the structural supports. Of course, we of more substantial wood materials like bamboo poles, like saplings are the selling point of this brand of architecture was that the buildings were very, very easy to erect and equally easy to dismantle to facilitate movement to the next location. So we had these images. These are the very skeletal A-frame structures.

00:15:00:12 - 00:15:39:19
Speaker 2
This is a more substantial one, predicated on bamboo posts forming a ring and then matching made from woven palm fronds. And we could see the inside, you know, the how the bamboo members were brought together at the top and bulged together to give this apex. So massing of the grass constitutes the roofing. So we look at the Yoruba and the location of the Yoruba is in the southwest.

00:15:40:11 - 00:16:18:02
Speaker 2
So the area is rainforest vegetation. The terrain is highly varied from flat to very rugged. There are a lot of mountain ranges, Yoruba land, so essentially the building materials are very rich, building cane, heavy timber, broad leaves, the whole spectrum actually of traditional materials. So again, the Yoruba traditionally were essentially animists living in large sedentary groups. They very sociable to today that's a phenomenon recognized worldwide you know about YouTube as they are today.

00:16:18:02 - 00:16:51:22
Speaker 2
There is social, very sociable people became polygamous like all the other ethnic groups so far discussed then the occupation, arable farming, these crafts so encompassed weaving and beadwork carving, so many different crafts. So here the climate is hot and humid, temperatures sometimes as high as 35 centimeters centigrade and to five degrees centigrade. The rainfall like all over Nigeria, is seasonal.

00:16:51:23 - 00:17:27:06
Speaker 2
We have a dry season, we have a rainy season and then you can have showers ranging from you can have the actual rain coming as light showers, but also as really, really serious storms. We had one day before yesterday, there was something else. Normally we had these storms the but with the climate change phenomenon that is global, all these studies that even from the textbooks we learned in secondary school that they're changing before our very eyes.

00:17:27:18 - 00:17:55:14
Speaker 2
Things just don't operate the way they used to anymore. So in response to these environmental conditions, the walls are built thick, either of sun dried adobe balls or called construction again thick at the base very often, you know, right up to about 12 and a half feet, not just the one foot, you can get them as thick as one and a half feet, but then always tapering to the top.

00:17:56:02 - 00:18:51:00
Speaker 2
Again, very small windows for reasons of thermal control and also for producing the roofs are necessary these deep to encourage quick rainwater runoff and they could be clad in leaves or grass over a timber supports such as supports. So in these images I have a typical traditional Yoruba household is educated on the improvement courtyard. This is just schematic the courtyard in the middle, the rooms flanking that courtyard and the kitchen usually close to an outlet, you know, a lot of the cooking actually can be done in some kind of tunnel.

00:18:51:00 - 00:19:15:01
Speaker 2
So right there, if the weather is good, right there in the open. So this is a schematic just to give an idea of how it used to work. In these two pictures, we actually see a real life in the courtyard. This is where the water was collected in various clay pots, you know, at the interface of sloping roofs.

00:19:15:22 - 00:19:48:06
Speaker 2
I didn't I couldn't lay hands on any really, really traditional buildings still sporting leave roofs or straw roofs or anything like that. No, everything has gone. The corrugated metal sheet we saw apart from the include the courtyard typology. We also have freestanding units that could be of and daub like in this picture full of cob construction like what we have here.

00:19:48:15 - 00:20:26:12
Speaker 2
So it's a whole range. Just like we have a wide ranging geographical sprawl of the Yoruba. There are very many different traditional typologies even in the, you know, the original context, not even talk of the migration through vernacular. Now we are looking at riverine cultures and I mean as the name implies, they are located where we have a lot of water in the delta areas of the country.

00:20:26:23 - 00:21:11:08
Speaker 2
So the terrain is flat, you know, gradually sloping to the water body, swampy, sometimes totally waterlogged. So building materials are essentially the mangrove swamp vegetation that's available comprising pliable rods, cane, you know, large sized leaves, that sort of thing. So again, in terms of the social characterization they live in, small groups are polygamous and the word animist then occupation as employed, fishing and making the crafts that they need, you know, to service this main occupation.

00:21:11:22 - 00:21:47:01
Speaker 2
So it's a hot, humid region. But then the heat, the daily, you know, sheets build up is moderated, ameliorated by the cooling breezes from the water front. So there's a very wide temperature range. The rain, too, is seasonal, but again, can go from reasonably light to tempestuous. So how do they respond to then, you know, the local environment?

00:21:47:01 - 00:22:23:14
Speaker 2
The main issue is how to keep the buildings above water so they build on platforms just like we had in Venice with the hard water resistant timber constituting the piles that go into the water. So the main structures are on these platforms and there's the roof door steep to allow for quick rainwater runoff. So just like before, nothing really, truly traditional.

00:22:24:00 - 00:23:04:00
Speaker 2
But we can get a sense of what then built form looks like. The platforms are there always holding the buildings above the marshland, the swamps, you know, on the various piles we see in this particular picture, the cladding is actually plywood. Here we see cane, but then we also see synthetic materials like sheets, plastic. We see corrugated iron sheets, also useful cladding, outhouses.

00:23:04:12 - 00:23:44:18
Speaker 2
This one is, you know, the conveniences bath, the toilets and all that. So here we have planking comprising the cladding to form the building exterior. But this gives a sense of the kind of built form in the traditional context, in that environmental location, the means of transportation, the means of coming by a livelihood. We see that in the pictures, the canoes.

00:23:44:18 - 00:24:23:03
Speaker 2
So now moving to vernacular, I mean, when we talk about vernacular architecture, essentially we are talking about transformed, traditional, something that has a very, very high traditional content boat, which has been influenced because over time the particular culture under discussion has interfaced with other cultures and has seen things that it liked from those other cultures. And we started to selectively borrow certain features and combine with the old traditional expressions.

00:24:23:13 - 00:24:52:23
Speaker 2
So at the end of the day it's a portfolio of different things, but the people are extremely comfortable with it. There is no sense of unruly whatsoever, it may say, but I mean, we may want to define it as an upgrade on the purely traditional, be that as it may be. But at the end of the day, the average person going vernacular doesn't even may not even realize that he has borrowed anything from anywhere.

00:24:53:07 - 00:25:52:03
Speaker 2
What he knows is I'm comfortable with this because my forefathers have always built this way. This is what I'm used to, all the rest of it. So of course, cultural diffusion is responsible for the kind of exchanges I have described. And for us in Nigeria, the major sources have been trade and colonization, majorly British colonization. So if we concentrate on the major influences, we have the very direct one based on what the British built when they were physically present to Nigeria, then we have influences that the British were responsible for facilitating, mostly in terms of repatriates from the Latin Americans and other countries, even from Sierra Leone, where repatriates from Great Britain had originally been,

00:25:52:11 - 00:26:25:14
Speaker 2
you know, relocated only for some of them to recall that their forefathers came from Nigeria and they would love to come back to Nigeria. So we had the direct and then we had the British facilitated influences then in the northern parts of the country, owing to trade between the northern fringes of the country and the trade front, Timbuktu, another, more and more the northern locations in Africa.

00:26:26:04 - 00:27:17:06
Speaker 2
We had a very, very strong Arabic influence, but by and large, the British influence is dominant because we were under their colonial administration. So they could impose, if you like, or they could affect policy, they could affect orientations. All across the country. So looking at the characteristics of Nigerian vernacular, the traditional elements were any understandably predominant in terms of materials, in terms of social orientations, in terms of, you know, just those very basic and obvious things.

00:27:17:18 - 00:27:55:07
Speaker 2
Then, like I said before, there was no compulsion to what they borrowed. Everything they borrowed was complementary. So there was no alienation. So even though not all the materials were indigenous, they were locally available and reasonably affordable. But the at the end of the day, there is a characterization in Nigeria and that one has been the predominant position influence of the Brazilian, the double loaded corrido.

00:27:55:13 - 00:28:23:22
Speaker 2
This has worked from almost every ethnicity in the country. So as far as the average man, the man on the streets is concerned, it's Nigeria. There's nothing borrowed about it. If you are telling him this came from Portugal, he will walk you to school because this is what they had adopted for decades or even centuries, maybe not quite two centuries.

00:28:23:22 - 00:29:09:09
Speaker 2
Luckily, they were a very, very long time. So the local climatic expedients are still accommodated and most of the distinguishing new elements have ended up being prestige symbols. One that is obvious is this yoga ornamentation. The Brazilian type of architecture is very, very well known for ornate murals or neat, you know, and big formal expressions. So the more you use these ornaments on your building, the more you speak about you.

00:29:09:09 - 00:30:01:11
Speaker 2
It's so these elements. Yes. In their rudimentary context, I embrace generally well when they are played up in terms of significance, in terms of, you know, how widespread they are, in terms of how opulent, then definitely you're seeing you're a step, you know, a cut above the generality. So some quick, you know, example tools of the vernacular. These are actual floor layouts attesting to this double loaded corridor thing, starting from this fairly basic condition.

00:30:01:11 - 00:30:28:13
Speaker 2
This is a true characteristic because in front you have a line up of shops, but what you have is this very, very wide central stage with all rooms opening of it here we will have this broken into two parts, meaning this is essentially one entity and the one behind it another. And here, getting more creative, we have two of these passages.

00:30:29:04 - 00:30:58:20
Speaker 2
Essentially, many of the rooms relate with one, but this one relates with the two passages. So you have all manner of modifications of this basic theme of an extra large central corridor and rooms opening off. So here we have a bungalow type expressions of the vernacular, this central door corresponding with the corridors, getting more complicated, more ornate, more creative.

00:30:59:06 - 00:31:55:23
Speaker 2
We had bulbs and these and but still the corridor is evident again here. We had this corridor going all the way to the back and rooms flanking left, right and center. And of course, the way the facade has been articulated speaks volumes about you and a lot of the building. So now even more complicated than the basic things we have we had before about from being on two levels here, we also have a lot more ornamentation and, you know, curvilinear balconies, pronounced columns all over the place, all manner of things, fretwork, stucco, fretwork, oak, balustrades, very interesting designs all over the place.

00:31:56:07 - 00:32:46:15
Speaker 2
And of course, the peak of this is a real Brazilian building in Nigeria, actually, the home of the Tola family. You can go on Google because it is actually said that Queen Elizabeth spent a night in this particular building Odutola house in Egypt. So that epitomizes the very peak in our vernacular and antecedents. Now, I want to in this aspect of my presentation, I want to do a quick roll through of my own experience, my own experiment.

00:32:46:15 - 00:33:36:23
Speaker 2
Sorry. And this is a project on renewal of heritage. I have put heritage in quotation marks. Of course, there are various very, very formal definitions of heritage. But my broad understanding of heritage is something that a particular people view as very dear to them, which they want preserved. So heritage in a sense, can be very subjective. So the works that I have handled have been in this context of family members, treasuring a grandfather's home, a, you know, progenitors property or whatever, and wanting to preserve it for posterity.

00:33:37:10 - 00:34:10:10
Speaker 2
So this particular building at Luxury was built around 1900. It's more traditional in planning the inside, virtually devoid of lighting, I suspect. Even though the owner said no, but I suspect the original design was improved on the courtyard and over time the place was convertible. But my client is a grandson of the original owner, said his own recollection is that it has always been covered.

00:34:11:09 - 00:34:38:02
Speaker 2
So what they did was to remove a very, very tiny piece of the sheet roofing and to allow I wouldn't even want to call it a being, maybe a ray of light to coming, because the inside was very very dark. We actually had to switch on full, you know, torches to be able to see around the dial was taken to deal the house before getting permission to intervene.

00:34:38:10 - 00:35:19:04
Speaker 2
So the mandate that was eventually fully achieved was that the grandson of the original owner, a very influential man in your life, he still had relatives living in the place and wanted to give them a better life. So what we were able to achieve was I was able to get it. Well, it's it's HBO, which I converted to a concourse, you know, for the family being a rallying point for them to interact and have a good time, we were able to achieve cross ventilation to all the rooms, which wasn't possible before.

00:35:19:13 - 00:36:08:13
Speaker 2
And then the users of the house now have access to piped water, to electricity, to modern conveniences. So in this next slide, this shows you what it looked like before. Before there was like I said, this view show you the interior eerie, somber on the outside. This is what it looked like. And as with most of these buildings in a Yoruba context, they are extended polygamous families setups with, you know, restrictions imposed by walls and things.

00:36:09:00 - 00:36:33:14
Speaker 2
Because one of the mandates I had was not to go beyond a particular part of the building. This was the extent to which we could intervene, were not to touch this. You can see the roof of the part where we were not to intervene in the back because it belonged to an arm of the family that they didn't really want to carry along.

00:36:34:02 - 00:37:08:13
Speaker 2
So at the end of the day, this was what was achieved. I brought in another roof. You know, there are street windows bringing in lights, bringing air and and we can see here the clear demarcation between how far we could go and what we're not to touch even here to you see the shop breaking where the painting ended and where we just couldn't intervene in.

00:37:08:22 - 00:37:42:22
Speaker 2
So on the inside, all these pictures, particularly these floor show the inside. This is that hole that was dark before we now have it well lit. These are windows above the doors that facilitate cross ventilation, you know, working with the external windows in the rooms behind the doors. Then eventually the family is now using this place dining general chitchat does fun time for the whole family.

00:37:43:09 - 00:38:06:21
Speaker 2
We were very, very fortunate that on the day the building was being handed over to the French ambassador, Jerome Askey was at OAU at the Natural History Museum and he learned that this was something going on and he felt he was very curious to to see how it had been handled. So he came with his team and I conducted them around.

00:38:06:21 - 00:38:37:17
Speaker 2
This is this place before we have put in the furniture, we mounted an exhibition showing how it had been before. And I mean, they could see where we were now. So there was refreshment, after all, talk around the building. So this shows the typical bathroom, but you see the same space, useful shower because we were very constrained of with, you know, the sink and running water.

00:38:37:17 - 00:39:11:03
Speaker 2
So sorry. Whoops. Yeah. So the next building was, the next project was the augmented by the house and it's about 150 years old. It was actually a project that I was called to intervene in by the same client for whom I had handled the other one. I guess he was happy. I thought I could do the same for his maternal grandmother's place.

00:39:12:18 - 00:39:51:08
Speaker 2
I'd been his paternal grandfather's place, so this one was his maternal grandmother's place. So when so many things wrong with this one two semi darkness in the middle, no set back. Absolutely. The building was dead on the edge of a dream abutting the road. Danny was also part of a bigger extended family complex, and there was a constraint not to go beyond a particular way and then hemming the sites, the building in on every side were family graves and the debris of the collapsed building next door.

00:39:51:09 - 00:40:22:15
Speaker 2
So it was really a tight fit. And then some very, very unpleasant experience generated by having neighborhood folks. This really affected us a lot and the mandate essentially was that this time around it should be converted to rental accommodation. So it was partly achieved because we couldn't cover the whole scope based on so many of these restrictions, particularly in terms of giving them bigger rooms.

00:40:23:00 - 00:40:52:13
Speaker 2
We had started digging, you know, foundation, foundation trenches to extend the rooms only to come across, you know, graves, balls and things. We had we had to go back to the old outline. So but at the end of the day, we had skylights in to improve the internal lighting and to actually provide a space for the tenants to interact, if only, you know, as ancillary to the single rooms.

00:40:52:13 - 00:41:25:13
Speaker 2
They could rent for electrical gadgets like their refrigeration units and all that. Then overall, because it was rental, we had able to increase neighborhood, you know, rental accommodation in the neighborhood and we had been able to infuse modern utilities. And one thing that I was particularly happy about was to have been able to dignify the tool of the deceased matriarch by the time.

00:41:25:13 - 00:41:51:22
Speaker 2
Let me show you what I mean. So these images take us to the this is the front elevation of the house. This shows the house dead on the lip of the drink, the gutter, like I said. Now, this is where the matriarch was buried, this place. And because of this horrible erosion that I had setting, I totally get that.

00:41:51:22 - 00:42:18:02
Speaker 2
I mean, you know, removing access into the building, by the way, that should have been the proper way. There was a tendency for anyone wanting to get into the house to stand on this grave. They come like this and then they go up this way. I felt that was quite wasn't acceptable. So I decided to dignify the grave of the poor woman.

00:42:18:02 - 00:42:59:07
Speaker 2
So these will ensure the atmosphere on the inside. This shows the undulating nature of this wall here dancing all over the place. The original design has striven, you know, to plump things out this way. But we were met almost every step of the way by graves, so we had to go back to this original outline. So this is where we now are with respect to with respect to the other day where the project so what I did was to slant this the grave of the matriarch.

00:43:00:00 - 00:43:22:08
Speaker 2
So even if you you were thinking you could get in this way, it wasn't going to be an easy walk for you. There was no way you could anyway, because this front row is now a shop and you can only access the shop window coming this way. If you really intend to go into the house, then you go across the drain along this walkway and then you get into the house.

00:43:22:14 - 00:43:38:16
Speaker 2
So that's what we're able to do on the inside. Show us the uses, the kitchen with running water. And this was the dark side corridor before with skylights in.

00:43:41:04 - 00:44:16:23
Speaker 2
So manifestations of global warming I'm sure we're all familiar with how we got oh yeah. How we got where we are depletion of fossil fuels, you know, depletion of the ozone layer, progressive global warming. And an obvious fallout of this global warming syndrome is we have increasingly heavier rainfall than we used to have in our past. So flooding everywhere.

00:44:16:23 - 00:44:48:20
Speaker 2
This is a video. What do you need?

00:44:48:20 - 00:45:32:17
Speaker 1
I don't think that video will play Cordelia. You may as well proceed. I think.

00:45:32:17 - 00:46:05:02
Speaker 2
And I handled in terms of, you know, heritage and the attachment, that kind of thing similar to the other thing. But there was something that was different about this one. I actually handled this project first. Is this attention to play now we've we got the film we go back to, we got the film where I was just now.

00:46:05:24 - 00:46:40:03
Speaker 2
So I was, yeah, I, this was, you know, my first renewal project. But unfortunately to date we've not been able to complete it. We had done completed the major mandate only for us to discover accordingly.

00:46:40:05 - 00:47:00:03
Speaker 3
All Mike's gone off.

00:47:00:03 - 00:47:10:02
Speaker 1
Sorry, everyone, just bear with us a second. I think Cordelia's sound has just dropped out. We'll just get this sorted for you. Just bear with us.

00:47:10:02 - 00:47:12:01
Speaker 2
It is amazing being able to.

00:47:12:02 - 00:47:39:03
Speaker 3
To communicate across from across the world right to Nigeria. But these are this like technical hitches that happen.

00:47:41:18 - 00:47:49:11
Speaker 1
Hello, Cordelia, do we have you back?

00:47:49:11 - 00:47:52:21
Speaker 2
Okay, now it's up and running. Yeah, it's up and running again. Can you hear me?

00:47:53:01 - 00:47:54:24
Speaker 1
Yes, we can hear you loud and clear.

00:47:54:24 - 00:48:34:20
Speaker 2
Well, good. Thank you very much. So I was saying, in terms of fulfilling the first stage of the mandate, getting the building back the way it before we had actually completed that. But I mean, we had so many challenges. The omission of families is very, very prominent family in any legacy. This particular house belonged to someone who had been a regent, and he said in if the culture had actually been responsible for crowning two successive or bust kings, the equivalent of kings, and you say any say in the affair life, if history.

00:48:35:03 - 00:49:04:00
Speaker 2
So the family has tentacles virtually all over the world. So the major challenge initially I had was all manner of interfering, you know, from different branches of the family. The person who actually commissioned me is the vice president of the UAE region five, who himself is an architect. But then, of course, being part of a big family, he had to make concessions and all the rest of it.

00:49:04:00 - 00:49:54:24
Speaker 2
One of the things that was an unfortunate eventual fallout was that some of the moves made by some a wing of the family ended up being counterproductive to what we were trying to do, because at the end of the day, apart from the building subsidies that came as a direct result of this global warming issue we're talking about, this wing of the family went and erected a building that, for all intents and purposes, ruined the streetscape of the intervention that had been made on no US House that would, you know, naked, conspicuous, make it a go to place as a family museum of this very, very prominent if a family.

00:49:55:11 - 00:50:29:10
Speaker 2
So these were the issues that, you know, we were at the receiving end of and what aspects of it stemming from global warming and the other a socio cultural and family issue. So despite our having completed everything well in these illustrations, in these pictures, we see some of the issues leading to, you know, the the original into the original commission.

00:50:29:24 - 00:51:10:12
Speaker 2
We see very, very deep cracks. We see termites eating timber elements, a staircase that doesn't go all the way down any more, that has to be propped up with a mortar. You know, we see the links totally dead with the cement plaster covering coming up here. A staircase is completely missing link in this verandah, this timber and extension to this timber clad framing veranda under the first floor to the ground floor, totally disappeared.

00:51:10:24 - 00:51:49:13
Speaker 2
So after we noticed the cracks on the painted walls, we requested, you know, a geologist to come and help us scrutinize to find out what was going on. And his report was that the building was being undermined because there was subterranean movement, subterranean water movement. So we had to bring in a structural engineer to underpin the building. So as at now we're waiting to see how resilient the intervention is.

00:51:50:07 - 00:52:28:23
Speaker 2
I mean, how effective the intervention has been before we proceed. So in these pictures, this was the street facade of the initially building. This is the right flank from the road, termites, you know, all over the place. Here is a view from the first floor looking to the forecourt of the building here and the flanks to the left and the right, dilapidated in the condition you can see them.

00:52:29:10 - 00:53:07:18
Speaker 2
So this was the proposal to convert this wing, since it was to its to eventually serve as a family museum. It was proposed that this wing would be a Taurus Gold. Venus is an eatery and then the actual, you know, utilities W is male and female. And then on these side craft shops, like I said, Yoruba land is famous for all manner of crops and if they in particular is home to beat making, carving so many fantastic crafts.

00:53:08:01 - 00:53:39:16
Speaker 2
So this was to be a craft to this building was to be the craft wing of the eventual proposal. So in this court, seats for tourists to lounge while enjoying their snacks, while looking over their purchases and all the rest of it. And at the end of the day, they come in this way, at the end of the day, to leave this way into a funerary garden where the tombs flanking the building virtually on all sides would, you know, to be transferred.

00:53:39:16 - 00:54:08:16
Speaker 2
And people would have some time of sober reflection, you know, ponder about what life was all about anyway, and then eventually going to their vehicles and leave. So that was the original plan. But of course with a family interferences and whatever he said, no graves were not to be moved. Actually, this building in the foreground is the mausoleum of lower himself.

00:54:08:16 - 00:54:46:15
Speaker 2
The original owner of the building and most of the family members were dead against tampering with that. So at the end of the day, we have shelved the idea of having a funerary garden here, more so as this other building that I said came later just ruined that particular aspect of the intervention. So this is what we came up with before we discovered the, you know, the crux.

00:54:47:17 - 00:55:31:23
Speaker 2
So this is a new building coming up, you know, damaging the streetscape of the renovated, the renewed lower house. So this is the Croft Wing and this is the tree conveniences winged. Yes. So in this picture, we can see the cracks that we noticed after unfortunately, after the painting had been completed. So like I said, the geologist came to the measurements.

00:55:31:23 - 00:56:21:24
Speaker 2
The cracks were not just horizontal, like we saw the facade. There were vertical cracks just all over the place. So eventually underpinning all around the building. Yes. So more pictures of the underpinning exercise, the replacement of the original removal, the original removal of the you know, we had to remove the windows because beams were put up to carry the suspended for two to meet the load to the foundation.

00:56:21:24 - 00:57:11:10
Speaker 2
So the windows had to go with all the underpinning was going on. And eventually we replaced them and the, you know, the stucco alimentation into the facade was then replaced. So now speculating of well, maybe brainstorming on what we need to do to be on top of the menace of climate change. I want to state categorically that this was just an experiment I chose to get into, and what I wanted to do was to showcase my belief in the fact that the vernacular is ever relevant, that nothing sees.

00:57:11:10 - 00:57:51:05
Speaker 2
We cannot infuse vernacular orientations to modern building. That was all I was able to do in this particular project. I was not thinking global warming, but the truth of the matter. Like I I've tried to let's also understand, is that if we're taking our traditional past into cognizance and we're really, really, honestly appreciating things we did well, traditionally there is no we will not see them as being pertinent, as being relevant to what we need to be doing now to be on top of our for these to be this menace that is consuming the whole world.

00:57:51:14 - 00:58:29:15
Speaker 2
So please, this is by no means an attempt to reckon many things for mitigating global warming is just what I have done and which actually I see working. So definitely this what I am about to show is not, you know, advocacy for mass mass housing either. No, this is just a high end accommodation. So accommodation for a family, not something one is recommending to, to also cater for the masses.

00:58:29:15 - 00:59:07:24
Speaker 2
No, we so some of the issues taking to cognizance to use the prevailing disease in ensuring you know an optimum interior ventilation assuring of course ensuring that a cross ventilation is achieved because I mean, if you use your intuition and not locating your windows strategically, you will not get the benefit of cross ventilation. So the choice of materials all locally of available is not necessarily, you know, traditional materials.

00:59:08:09 - 00:59:48:24
Speaker 2
And then I think the chief selling point of this particular project is the copious use of soft landscape. We all know the virtues of embracing green, whether it's grass or shrubs or trees or whatever. So that is something that has been played up a lot, then recesses where there is an of, you know, solar radiation, you know, very pronounced insulation where you don't have it so prominent, even window hoods just to guarantee cooling of the interior.

00:59:49:06 - 01:00:24:07
Speaker 2
Excuse me. So some images is giving an overview, the entrance to the premises, a view of the facade, the front facade, a view of one of the flanks showing fenestration on one side actually had this institution and the other to then, you know, we see the preponderance of trees and all that grass. They'll still be more of this in the next slides.

01:00:24:23 - 01:01:03:12
Speaker 2
So, yes, we see more mold, more trees, we see more trees, more landscape elements. We see the recess here. Recess of the room, the ground as this is a planter, but there are verandas also re recessed like that trees all over the place. So fenestration on this side and on the other side like I showed before again here windows the windows here guaranteeing cross ventilation.

01:01:03:12 - 01:01:45:07
Speaker 2
We see hoods, window hoods over the windows. And this one doesn't quite show it up. Well, but in the previous one, we see yes, we see recesses, we see the actual windows attached to resist also currently shading verandas, you know, in different parts of the house, ensuring that the house is cool. And here the dining room then is traditional one wall.

01:01:46:03 - 01:02:17:06
Speaker 2
By the time you look here at the other side, a panel, timber panel Opel work also ensuring cross ventilation till the space you know that is on the other side of the lounge that carries the windows on that side and then notice nouveau windows. The only things that make sense, you know, the tropics sliding windows for me, the nonstarter, projected windows, the cut off.

01:02:17:06 - 01:02:49:21
Speaker 2
Also a large percentage of, you know, the possible accretion that come on you the blades bearing the thickness of each blade, you get almost 100% next best thing to casement windows. So again, we see louvers, we see this is the external walls. Windows there. This is a wall to the study. So cross ventilation. And of course, on the other side of the study, windows going all the way across.

01:02:49:21 - 01:03:20:16
Speaker 2
So even in the bedroom windows making sure there is a lot of relation to the spaces behind the, you know, the external walls. So going forward, we wanted to go to the implications for today's building design and construction methods. Are we to review or just I mean, are we only to reveal, to tell you the whole conventional building procedures?

01:03:21:04 - 01:03:46:20
Speaker 2
So, I mean, we need to decide what it is, what it is we want. So obviously interior heat control today is more critical than before. I have got feedback from relatives in England lamenting about temperatures being 14 degrees and all the rest of that, I would say are here. This is 21 degrees, this is 27. It's like I mean, you can't be serious.

01:03:47:04 - 01:04:24:12
Speaker 2
So heat control has now become more critical than before. And then we need to make better informed choices with respect to building materials that are informed in terms of going for more environmentally sensitive, more environmentally sensible materials. And even the materials we choose, we must be very, very wise in how we use them. So we should also be thinking of materials that guarantee retiring insulation, greater resistance, you know, on building exterior, particularly roofs.

01:04:25:24 - 01:05:19:04
Speaker 2
We should be targeting such materials now then in medical condition. I want to quickly give us this overview of a scheme handled by architecture with respect is the passive housing scheme in Port Harcourt, the delta area, you know, the south, south area of Nigeria going for this diesel, the global south. You know, my my conclusion actually is an attempt to compare what we have got a handle on in the Global South or what we need to look at more critically in the global south.

01:05:19:18 - 01:05:47:09
Speaker 2
Again, you'll see what the global north needs to do. So the Global South needs to build up on things. We have done well before and we should never, ever think, you know, going global, the world now, being a global village means we forget our cultural roots. No, we our cultural preferences will always be the main criterion. They cannot be wished away.

01:05:47:09 - 01:06:10:16
Speaker 2
That is what defines who we are. That is what sets one culture apart from another. So anything we want to do, we should always carry our cultural reality along with whatever solution we're bringing on board. Anything we want to proffer, we should just never through our cultural roots of a boat, because at the end of the day, that ends up being counterproductive.

01:06:10:16 - 01:06:31:24
Speaker 2
So we should concentrate on developing the traditional materials readily at hand. We have a lot of wealth. We have a lot of so many things we should think about process and therefore creates a climate resistance using energy that is renewable. The sun is always there. Thank God we have it in Africa. We have it in the Global South.

01:06:32:13 - 01:07:09:15
Speaker 2
Then, as clearly demonstrated by the initiative, Projects Foundation's just going the traditional earth. We have become an endangered species. So we are to think of a better means of settling these foundations. We must consolidate our foundations better than we've done in the past. Sustainability. Absolutely non-negotiable. Then we should think of ways we can modernize, how we used to plan housing, how we used to plan our residences.

01:07:10:00 - 01:07:40:14
Speaker 2
We meet now with the reality of the world's population to attend greater optimization of roads notable sprawling. This has to be a sprawling compound type well into the courtyard accommodation. We have to take our culture on board but also operate in real time. Land is becoming a scarce commodity. How we need to use what we have with a lot of wisdom.

01:07:41:00 - 01:08:21:03
Speaker 2
So modern day housing density should be, you know, more realistic. It's not all about stacking people one on top of the other. Yes, we want to achieve a density that works for urban communities, but at the same time, we should think about how life should be living such environments meaningfully. So this project to the right that I mentioned to, you know, at the beginning of this slide, this particular slide presentation is work when you're taken by architect Sheila Ohaji.

01:08:22:15 - 01:09:11:20
Speaker 2
She's based in the US now, but she actually finished from and she's done a lot of work internationally. She received an award for this particular project in 2015. As Suhasini pulls her coach, I think it was a Cartier, Cartier Women's Initiative Award is something I mean, if we Google her name, this project will come up. So she has handled the issue of communal living, which is an African thing very much in our blood in the Global South here we have four families living together and there are courtyards that bring every two families together for social, recreational, I mean, all kinds of interactions.

01:09:11:21 - 01:09:44:11
Speaker 2
So she's done that here, even in this celebration, we see this bluish thing that is solar panel in this her housing scheme. She's using biology just as she is using. You know, I'd ensure the buildings have been fitted for rainwater harvesting. She is generating electricity using solar panels, planting vegetation and all the rest of it, passive housing. That's what this is about.

01:09:44:11 - 01:10:16:21
Speaker 2
And personally, I think she did a very good job. So if you look at these other pictures, you'll see an where they started from. If you look at the heights of the proof realistic in terms of flooding, in terms of the very low in the south south delta and look at the height of the clothes and then sun dried drips.

01:10:16:21 - 01:11:00:16
Speaker 2
Yes, some are century blocks, so locally available. Yes. And you know, this is some fossil fuel being used in generating these units that 20 to it. But this is what we do, how we build here in Nigeria. So if you look here too, you will see the actual completed scheme and we see actually I'm trying to highlight we'll get it soon.

01:11:00:23 - 01:11:54:18
Speaker 2
Yes, we'll see the actual completed scheme and we'll see, you know, the buildings, cheap roofs and in the last picture, lowest picture here, we can see the actual solar panels generating electricity for the state. The slopes fitted with rain with the rooms, roof gutters carrying rainwater into underground. So the global north, I think the global north is overdue for a change of mindset.

01:11:54:18 - 01:12:25:17
Speaker 2
Acquisition of knowledge is not you need directional. So whatever it is that the Global South has got a handle on, I think it's in the best interests of the North to admit that yes, the Global South is doing well in these aspects and to borrow a leaf, the South is forever borrowing leaves from the global north. So I don't see why the global north should not do likewise.

01:12:25:24 - 01:13:00:15
Speaker 2
With respect to the South, definitely the global north has advantages in terms of how far they have gone on technology, in terms of the many, many researches that translate on impacting the built environment and our world in general actually. So the Global North should harness the gains of the advanced technology they have had at their fingertips for for for decades, hundreds of years even.

01:13:01:05 - 01:13:36:06
Speaker 2
You know, in terms of wind, solar, water, energy, revolutionize the use of these natural resources so that we don't even begin to think in the nearest future about fossil fuels. A revolution is called for. And I think the Global North has what it takes to spearhead that revolution and to borrow whatever needs borrowing from wherever they. Obviously, we need to develop prototypes with me.

01:13:36:16 - 01:14:05:22
Speaker 2
I'm already saying thank you. Obviously, we need what we need to develop prototypes that are well, we need to develop prototypes that respond even better to extremes of prevailing climates. And like I said earlier, trying to totally disabuse our minds of recourse to fossil fuels. Thank you very much for participating, for listening.

01:14:07:05 - 01:14:08:00
Speaker 3
Fabulous.

01:14:08:10 - 01:14:09:24
Speaker 2
Thank you so much, Cordelia.