Out of Africa: Learning from Teaching in the Cradle of Humankind

This paper investigates the ongoing journey as an architect and educator in various countries and institutions throughout the African continent. An architect is, first, a human being who shares the acquired knowledge aiming, among other goals, to enhance, in the case of our profession, the life conditions and, when vesting the role of the lecturer, to make visible the path towards a consciousness of each own potentiality. Adaptation has become the keyword depicting the journey in Africa and how to deal with different contexts: adapting eyes trained to a diverse background and environment while fostering a mindset that recalibrates itself according to the local conditions. One main subject was raised predominantly from more than a decade of learning in teaching in the “cradle of humankind”: the need to re-discover the past in terms of knowing the peculiar architectural heritage without losing sight of the future by adopting a sustainable approach. The research studies academic experiences in DR Congo and Rwanda as an employee civil servant at ISAU (Higher Institute of Architecture and Urbanism) in Kinshasa and the UR (University of Rwanda) in Kigali. Two design studios have tried to make students more aware of the renewed challenges the profession requires. As said, the awareness of the memory for sustainable development is projected across boundaries, and an adapted inclusive pedagogy has been applied. The research is guided by an autoethnographic methodology based on personal experiences, observations, and literature reviews strictly intertwined with the academic outcomes achieved.