Major Architecture Events and Heritage Initiatives Announced Worldwide: The Week’s Review

As countries in Africa emerged from colonialism in the mid-twentieth century, many expressed their independent identities through architecture. This process continues several decades later, exemplified by several new museums in West Africa, recently completed or in planning. Although varying in purpose and form, they have some common goals: addressing the need for restitution of many artifacts taken during colonialism and mostly kept in European museums; and defining a museum with local identity as opposed to a non-contextual import.

Suite 9 brings new life to the Delft University of Technology Campus with 137 self-contained student residences. At the core of the building lies the 'Heart': a huge semi-outdoor space that defines Suite 9's striking profile and serves as the place where student life can spark into being.

In A Pattern Language (1977), Christopher Alexander proposed that residential buildings in cities should be no taller than six stories. Beyond this height, he argued, residents begin to detach from their street culture—not only physically but socially. Urban life becomes abstracted; the tactile and emotional immediacy of the street is lost. In Alexander's view, the vitality of a city is founded on a human scale—a sentiment echoed by Jane Jacobs, who championed the street as a stage for community life and advocated for diverse, walkable neighbourhoods where people live, work, and interact across social thresholds.