“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation”. The words of Nelson Mandela, carved in bronze on the pavement of the main square in the campus, will welcome visitors to the new African Institute of Science and Technology in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, designed by architect Massimiliano Fuksas, winner of an international competition organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects.
It will be the first pan-African university, wanted by the Nelson Mandela foundation and financed by the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation with a budget of 360 million dollars. The design is inspired by the African towers in red earth and designs for traditional local textiles and the ideograms of various African regions, with a preference for local materials (concrete, earth and wood) and the use of sustainable technologies and construction methods (that for example, help to reduce the accumulation of heat and favour natural ventilation, collect and reuse rainwater, reduce energy consumption).
The faculty buildings, each one different from the other, will house laboratories, lecture theatres and teaching rooms whilst the library and administration offices will sit alongside a long pedestrian axis on the south. The existing shape of the land, remaining from the days when the area was used for mining, has offered an ideal solution for the stadium tribune; whilst at the north side an old mine transformed into a city park acts as a link between the campus and the city. The other finalists shortlisted alongside Fuksas were the British practice Allies & Morrison (who came second), Rem Koolhaas and Rafael Viñoly. Work is due to begin as soon as 2007.
