Director Pippa Nissen, Senior Associate Marie-Lise Oulmont and Associates Andrea Hickey and Kate Coghlan of Nissen Richards Studio are leading a new postgraduate teaching unit at London Metropolitan University. The unit challenged students to design a ‘Museum for Now’. Here is one of the responses to that challenge.

The Hackney Museum of African Craft is an architectural response to showcasing the beautiful cultures of craft woven into every country in Africa. A journey, an experience. Bright colours, melodic rhythms, sweet aromas are some of the ways culture could be described in Africa. 

The museum aims to embody and capture just a small fraction of Africa through craft and the art of making. Delivering a taste of Africa in an authentic and fluid manner, that is not overbearing but educates visitors and locals in and around Hackney, and anyone who visits. 

The museum will offer workshop spaces that allow local artists to practice their crafts and also for curious creative minds to explore a different avenue. Most importantly, the galleries and these spaces will be a visual interpretation, and artistic outputs of the three main themes of the museum (African Pottery, Instruments and Textiles). The overall experience of the museum will be where these components come together and how the architecture connects spaces.