Katungulu Mwendwa has deconstructed fashion and has a positive, defiant and edgy take on the environmental crises compounded by the global clothing industry.



A sleek saffron kaftan over Pollock-spattered silk trousers; the obsidian fins of a night-black evening dress; a sashed, punky, persimmon hoody from the future streets of Nairobi. These are the irresistible stories in Kenyan designer Katungulu Mwendwa’s startling KATUSH fashion brand label.



The child of a psychologist and an architect, Mwendwa grew up in a nurturing creative environment that introduced her to an eclectic skillset of creative tools.



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“My dad used to take us to work with him,” she says. “We would actually draft a lot, as an experiment. In fashion, you have to create the pattern, the master bloc, and it requires a level of geometry to develop. With the human form, you have to remove suppression at different angles, to create volumes and shapes. So working with my dad definitely made me more confident in that. He did want me to be an architect. So now I’m like, ‘look! I’m an architect for clothing!’”



Emboldened by her triumph in the reality TV contest Catwalk Kenya in 2007, Mwendwa pursued her bachelor’s degree at the University for the Creative Arts in Rochester, United Kingdom.&nbsp;



“By the time I graduated, I had a better understanding of who and what the key players and roles were,” she says. “I was determined to come back to Kenya to create a business that I could then offer not just to the local consumer, but to a global market.”



Her second major break came with an invitation to present at Gen Art’s ‘Fresh Faces in Fashion’ show at New York Fashion Week in 2012. She arrived “by myself with two suitcases, running around New York lost and confused,” after two sleepless months of frantic sewing.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/work-in-progress-2-by-Osborne-Macharia-768x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-44953" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/work-in-progress-2-by-Osborne-Macharia-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/work-in-progress-2-by-Osborne-Macharia-scaled-300x400.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/work-in-progress-2-by-Osborne-Macharia-scaled-600x800.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/work-in-progress-2-by-Osborne-Macharia-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/work-in-progress-2-by-Osborne-Macharia-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/work-in-progress-2-by-Osborne-Macharia-1536x2048.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/work-in-progress-2-by-Osborne-Macharia-scaled.jpg 1920w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /></figure>



“It was exciting, but extremely nerve-wracking,” she says. “I remember some people saying, ‘but your stuff doesn’t really look African…’ They were waiting for something with more color, with more prints, and I had this post-apocalyptic, nomadic thing going on! And I struggled with that at the beginning – the whole concept of being told I’m not African enough – and I used to wonder what that meant. These days, I’m like, no, that’s not my battle. And now I’m designing what I like to make.”



She cites the essential impact of opportunities such as the HEVA investment fund, which supports entrepreneurship in the East African creative sector.



“I was very grateful to them,” she says, “for at least being patient and interested in those of us who would not necessarily get financial support, because we are considered such a high-risk business.” She now involves local artisanal groups, such as brass and aluminium casters, in her creative projects, and is sensitive to the challenges facing cottage industries whose traditional skills often lie outside the purview of a ruthless, churning, unpredictable industry.



“I’m curious about the evolution of culture, and practices and aesthetics relevant to our day-to-day lives,” she says (see her ‘Dinka Translation’ collection, which transfuses an ancient South Sudanese iconography into the clipped geometric lines of the boardroom or the cocktail party). “Retaining specific cultural practices, as opposed to copying and pasting, is critical in understanding how to manoeuvre through some of the challenges we face.”



She says that much more can and should be done to bring these local industries into the fold. “These artisans don’t have access to markets, and because they can be so detached from their direct consumer here in Nairobi, it becomes easier for someone to exploit them,” she says.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-1024x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-44954" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-scaled-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-scaled-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-scaled-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-2048x2048.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/STRIPPED-SILK-80x80.jpg 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure>



“I’ve always felt it’s the role of designers in the region to work closely with them, and then by extension, the market will create further demand.”



The edgy Afro-futurism of her work feels like a positive, defiant repost to the environmental crises compounded by the global clothing industry, a bloated leviathan which dumps almost two hundred tonnes of mitumba (second hand clothing) into East African markets every year. The Kenyan mitumba sector is a complex, controversial beast in its own right, creating millions of jobs while simultaneously suffocating regional productivity.



“Brands like myself cannot compete with clothing that is here for free,” Mwendwa says.



“There are a few designers creating upcycled clothing, which to me is extremely admirable. But I don’t know how good it is for us as a people, because it limits our ability to compete on an equal level. It has killed our textile sector, our own industry, and therefore we aren’t even able to source locally.”



She is optimistic, but cautious, about the future; light on her feet about the direction she may pursue.



“I’m going to tell more stories. I want to better understand how to communicate with a consumer that feels the way I feel,” she says.&nbsp; “I know it’s probably a niche consumer, but I also know they exist, in different pockets of the globe. I think we’re all everyday superheroes: that person that brings you a cup of coffee in the morning, might just say hi, might just be a stranger who stopped and waited for you to cross the road. That’s what informs my collection. And I want to share that with people.”



By Alastair Hagger

Katungulu Mwendwa

The Architect In Clothing Who Wants To Tell More Stories

David Adjaye, the renowned architect born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, has been busy. He is leading the design team behind the Smithsonian’s $500-million National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. He is also the frontrunner to design Barack Obama’s presidential library in Chicago. These two buildings will be the most high-profile pieces of more than a decade of work.
Although Adjaye’s work, which focuses heavily on historical cultures, is spread all over the world, it can now be appreciated, by many. He recently released his latest book, David Adjaye: Form, Heft, Material, which was published to complement his exhibition at the Haus der Kunst museum in Munich. In September, it was extended to Chicago.
“It is the most comprehensive survey of my work to date. The concept of the book was to offer an insight into current projects within the context of the trajectory of my work over the past 15 years, and framed within a broad social, cultural and historical discourse,” says Adjaye.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4189" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/David-etch-139x300.jpg" alt="" width="139" height="300" />
The discourse to which Adjaye refers has informed his multiculturalist work across every continent, and has led to projects that have placed Adjaye as one of the most distinguished architects in the world.
Adjaye’s work has shifted to public architecture.
“I think that design can provide a critical inquiry into social responsibility and civic consciousness.”
Despite this shift, Adjaye maintains a certain audacity to his work; the kind of trait that can only make a building indelible to the most discerning eye. His work surpasses the mediocrity of simply fulfilling the mere function of shelter. Adjaye is more of an artist than an architect. His work is often as much of a visual sculpture as a constructional design.
“I have always sought to cross creative platforms, collaborating with artists and designers from different disciplines and focusing on the creative discourse surrounding the act of making things. It is the dialogue – the cultural intersection – which excites me.”
Adjaye has also been embraced by the world of politics. He was commissioned by Obama to lead the design of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Such a responsibility has not been taken lightly. Adjaye describes it as “a career defining project.” The monument, in Washington D.C.’s National Mall, has been built to commemorate the momentous milestones in African American history.
“It is an incredibly exciting project and it has been a real honor to be involved in the creation of this monumental building,” he says.
Like most of the museums the architect has designed, the National Museum will be as iconic as the exhibitions inside it. It is  to open to the public in early 2016. The timing of the building’s inaugural opening could not be more perfect; Obama’s term is coming to a close, and racial antipathy continues to plague the country.
“My hope is that the museum will transcend the uneasy fact of racial tension through an open exploration of history, culture and society – thereby addressing profound aspects of the human condition and the positive value inherent in creating a forum for multiple interpretations of America’s history and demography, however uncomfortable those may be.”
Adjaye has a different hope for Africa – a continent often riddled with political instability that threatens to derail progress made in the private and public sector.
“Politics can hinder development. The four-year electoral window is often at odds with urban and infrastructure projects which can require a decade of political commitment. Nevertheless, [I] am excited about all of my work in Africa.”
A few of the projects that Adjaye has been working on across the continent include; a luxury concept store in Lagos called Alara, a school campus and residential project in Accra, building the headquarters of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Dakar, residential projects in Johannesburg, and a hospital in Rwanda.
Over the last few years, Adjaye has collaborated with Propertuity to develop one of the Johannesburg CBD’s many timeworn buildings in the Maboneng Precinct – Hallmark House. The area is undergoing urban changes, with many buildings being redeveloped and perhaps gentrified.
“The project is a dramatic transformation of a former commercial building into apartments and cultural facilities in Johannesburg’s CBD. Its proximity to the already vibrant Maboneng district will mean that it will extend this extraordinary new city quarter.”
The inspiration behind Hallmark House’s transformation has been driven by the same principles Adjaye places on all of his work. His designs are often a reflection of social, historical and environmental context. In the case of his work in Maboneng, the design of the residential building was inspired by what Adjaye lauds as “an icon of the Joburg city skyline”. The 66-meter-high structure, initially designed in the 1970s by Greg Cohen, was built to house a burgeoning diamond polishing company.
Adjaye is a firm believer that the story of a city is written in its buildings. Johannesburg reflects the complex challenges of its past.
“Johannesburg, sadly, is one of the few cities in the world that has a specific spatial architecture that is born from division,” he says.
Such a landscape does not wean Adjaye away from the potential possibilities awaiting this historically rich part of Johannesburg, but rather encourages an admiration of the city.
“Johannesburg is the most cosmopolitan city I have visited in Africa. You see in its buildings a story of a tragic past but also a city that is being very intentional about confronting its history and seeking ways to move forward.”
Adjaye dismisses the idea that his work has a clear and definitive aesthetic.
“I am part of a generation of architects which has moved away from the idea of a signature.”
He does, however, pull much of his inspiration from the continent.
“I draw from Africa, but I also draw from many other things. That’s what architects do – we are planetary creatures.”
Adjaye adds that all of his projects have been memorable.
“Each one is part of a curve, a critical piece of a narrative that is still unfolding.”
This is a story that will bring many more milestones for the successful architect on a mission in Africa.

The Brain of Africa more of an artist  than an architect

David Adjaye believes that African skylines are set for an explosion of growth as the continent’s resurgent economies look for new expressions of their increasing potency and self-confidence.
Speaking at his studio in North London, the architect says that the continent needs to define its own vision for urbanization and ensure that its architectural revolution reflects Africa’s cultural, geographical and climatic contexts.
Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, Adjaye traveled extensively in his youth, following his father’s diplomatic career through Africa and the Middle East. It was that exposure that was to later inform his work when, after studying fine art, he found architecture and became fascinated by the relationship between buildings and their environment.
<div id="attachment_425" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-425" class="size-large wp-image-425" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/js57_Peace-Centre0144_RT8-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Nobel Peace Center, Oslo. The Canopy is a temporary installation by David Adjaye that serves as a gateway between Oslo City Hall, where the Peace Prize Ceremony takes place, and the Nobel Peace Center.</div>
“I realized that by having been brought up in very different contexts—cultural, religious and social contexts—I had somehow developed an appetite for learning more about how the built environment worked with that, and how it reflected that architecture in its human sense.”
Today, Adjaye is one of the world’s leading architects—in 2007 he received the Order of the British Empire for his services to architecture. His portfolio includes the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, which is scheduled for completion in 2015.
For a 2010 exhibition at the Design Museum in London, Adjaye traveled to cities across Africa, photographing the buildings which, although in varying states of development or decay, show startling commonality.
Today Adjaye runs through his own potted history of African architecture: Colonial builders erased much of the pre-existing urban culture in Africa, replacing it with tropical versions of European architecture. Upon independence, new leaders embraced a vision of the future that was still largely European.
“I think the early leaders on the continent felt that modernity was the way to embrace or celebrate a sort of new world of empowerment for their nations. So you find a lot of modernist experiments, but modernist experiments that could not avoid the specificity of the geography and the climate. So you have what I call a kind of tropical modernism,” he says.
When the money and ambition began to wear thin, this modernism was replaced by economic pragmatism, driven by international donors who made their architectural choices based on their own financial imperative, and using their own approved contractors and designers.
<div id="attachment_426" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-426" class="size-large wp-image-426" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/nma_b110127_f-1024x722.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="334" />National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.</div>
“So you have very odd late ’70s early ’80s buildings that sort of appear, that have nothing to do with the context; they’re just blips,” Adjaye says.
With debt relief and the mineral-driven boom of the late 1990s, which gathered pace in the early years of the new century, African leaders began a new drive for modernity. With this financial independence and growing economic self-confidence has come a stronger sense of cultural identity across the continent, which is manifested in the creative arts.
“I think you see it in literature, fine arts, performing arts and architecture, they’re all in line. They all lead the image of what nations want to project of themselves.
“This image of most of the countries on the continent getting rid of their debt and suddenly discovering vast minerals and negotiating this, means that there is an opportunity to really explore the idea of modernity for these nations. And architecture comes to the forefront of that, because architecture is the image of the city and the future. Architecture is the image of the city as it sees itself. The story of the city is written in books, but it’s also written in buildings.”
The notion of buildings-as-ambassadors has gained currency in the past decade with the successful reinvention of the Emirates of Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the state of Qatar.
“It totally worked,” Adjaye says. “It gave the Emirates a skyline. For my father’s generation, the Emirates was a horrible desert and a place you never went to.”
Where the Emirates initially failed, he says, was specifying what its own version of modernity was. It is a trap he is keen for Africa to avoid. Buildings need to exist in their context, rather than just mimic the current, internationally dictated interpretation of Western modernity.
“I think if there is much more criticality about the way in which buildings are built to their climate, you get a much more unique skyline,” he says. “That doesn’t require more money, it just requires more desire on the part of the patrons to insist on a response that makes things specific, rather than insisting on an approach which is just novel.”
Africa’s modernity, Adjaye says, should be dictated by the same geographic features that defined its early cultures. This means ignoring the artificially imposed national boundaries and shaping regional identities from the unifying climates and cultures across the continent, but also avoiding the “colonial trap” of what he calls “Disney-fication” of culture.
For inspiration, Adjaye looks to New York.
“I love the Rockefeller Center. It’s not a cheap building, but it’s an efficient building. It’s a building that strove to understand the time that it was in, which was the ’30s… It talked about density in the city, it talked about networks, it talked about interconnectivity. It talked about living in the heart of the city. It gave a model which was not iconic in terms of imagery but iconic in terms of place, and it’s still a fundamental part of New York.”
That specificity of place and time has created a building that is more than functional—an artifact that helps to define the city it is in.
“There’s something compelling about coming over that bridge from Brooklyn or Newark, New Jersey, and seeing that skyline. It’s like… it’s so powerful. It’s original. That’s the vision we need in Africa. What is the model of living in Africa that nowhere else in the world you can have? The person who cracks that, cracks the game. Not the person who imports the model that we’ve seen before.
<div id="attachment_424" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-424" class="size-full wp-image-424" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/iStock_000015967621Small.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="800" />New York City, Rockefeller Center, GE Building, viewed from 5th Avenue.</div>
“You’ve got to make a model that makes people say ‘I want to go to that city in Africa because it’s just so great. The life there is something I can’t have in London. It’s contemporary, I can have my life there, but it’s completely unique.’ That’s a hell of a thing.”

The Quest For A True African Skyline

Three years ago, as the construction industry cratered, Bill Haney and Maura McCarthy made the curious—maybe crazy— decision to launch a prefabricated home business. Their vision: architect designed, factory-built, single-family dwellings with green accents (including energy-efficient appliances and airtight construction) that appeal to higher-income, eco-conscious buyers. “Yes, the housing market has been decimated,” says Haney, 49. “But if you have the moxie to get going during a recession, you can build something sustainable and significant.” So-called modern prefab had become a staple of home-design magazines during the housing boom. But the economics of mass-producing green homes like Priuses didn’t work.
<div id="attachment_73" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-73" class="size-large wp-image-73" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO091211_008-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Blu Homes Construction &#8211; Founders Bill Haney &amp; Maura McCarthy at their East Longmeadow, MA manufactory.</div>
For one thing, building houses narrow enough to fit on a truck while still wide enough to live in is no mean engineering feat. Then there was all that custom work. “The options package just grew and grew, and economies of scale were never reached,” says Allison Arieff, former editor-in-chief of Dwell, who wrote the book on prefab in 2002 (Prefab, Gibbs Smith). “The homes ended up being all one-offs.” When overall housing demand tanked, some prefab firms shut their doors. With Blu Homes, headquartered in Waltham, Mass., Haney and Mc- Carthy are building a different model. Their solution: steel and software. Using recycled-steel frames with large hinges, Blu homes fold up to fit on a standard tractor-trailer that handle cargo up to 8.5 feet wide. Fancy software automates design, manufacturing and purchasing. The extra efficiency allows Blu to offer more options and still make a living; doing it all in-house also eliminates confusion among a slew of subcontractors. “You have to control the manufacturing, design, shipping and the finishing,” says McCarthy, 31. “The guys who pack up the thing in the factory have to be the same guys who set it up on-site.” That recipe sounded plausible enough to attract $25 million in funding from investors like Abby Disney, Walt’s grandniece. (Haney keeps a 40% stake.) Blu used some of the proceeds to buy mkDesigns, a high-profile prefab firm founded by San Francisco architect Michelle Kaufmann, giving the company green cachet and some award-winning designs.
Since 2008 Blu has built 28 homes, which sell for between $125,000 and $500,000 (land not included), and has orders for 42 more. McCarthy estimates that Blu’s East Coast operation will be in the black at an annual production of 50 homes, a goal she expects to hit in 2013. Blu is set to open a factory just north of San Francisco this year. And if the housing market nose-dives again? “The general notion that we want to be greener, we want to conserve, we want to be healthier— that’s a cultural trend that has not been thwarted by the economic downturn,” says Haney. Clad often in jeans, sports jacket and a baseball hat, Haney dabbles in documentary films when he’s not cranking out houses. (His latest flick, The Last Mountain, chronicles mountaintop coal mining and stars Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
<div id="attachment_74" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-74" class="size-large wp-image-74" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO091211_009-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Blu Homes Construction &#8211; Founders Bill Haney &amp; Maura McCarthy at their East Longmeadow, MA manufactory. Tom Skala, Carpenter, installs kitchen cabinet units on a house nearing completion.</div>
Haney met McCarthy, a venture capitalist who invested in prefab builders, in 2005 at World Connect, a non-profit organization focused on solving health care issues in developing countries. At Blu’s 120,000-square-foot factory outside Springfield, Mass. A 1,650-square-foot model called the Glidehouse (ordered by a retired Boeing engineering executive in Seattle) is under construction. Build time is about six weeks. When finished, the floors and walls will fold up like a corrugated box, and the entire house—from the low-flow toilets to the kitchen sink— will fit on an 8.5-foot-wide trailer. (Unfolded, each of the structure’s two wings measures 18 feet wide by 48 feet long.) Joining the sections and bolting them to a foundation takes a day; spot-painting and other finishing work about a week. (For a diagram of the setup process, see page 52.) Blu architects draw the folding domiciles on a system called CATIA made by Dassault Systèmes. Boeing uses the same program to design and stress-test airliners. When changes are made the algorithms make engineering adjustments, calculate the cost and send a bill of materials to the factory floor.
Blu is rolling out a new interface that allows customers to view models in three dimensions and to preview thousands of options, from the location of the kitchen to the flanges in the Anderson windows. Replacing wood framing with recycled steel allows Blu to build foldable houses that can withstand high winds and heavy snow. Steel also adds flexibility: The absence of load-bearing walls means windows and doors can be placed just about anywhere. Says McCarthy: “It feels much more like building a car than building a stick-built house.”
Indeed the Blu factory resembles a gargantuan assembly line rather than a construction site. The structural steel rolls in from a loading bay, and machines fabricate it into parts that are welded together to form the frame. After the exterior walls are hung the house slides on rollers to another station where workers add interior walls, insulation and the roof. Next comes the drywall, cabinets and bathrooms. The entire house is constructed in the factory; the only work done at the owner’s address is minor painting and woodwork near the folding joints. For two-story models a crane drops the upper floor in place.
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Blu’s customers are clustered on the coasts. To expand, Haney and McCarthy will need to reach more people like Sandra Beer, a fundraiser for a PBS station in Albany, N.Y. and a single mother. Beer bought a 1,008-square-foot Blu Element model last year. A big draw for Beer: never having to deal with an army of contractors. “They gave me a price, and that is something I can control,” she says. Haney and McCarthy have the luxury of patient investors. “The timing is horrible right now,” says Abby Disney, who has put in $3 million. “If you buy Bill’s thesis you might have to wait a while, but things will turn around.
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Tag: Architect

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Architect In Clothing Who Wants To Tell More Stories

The Brain of Africa more of an artist than an architect

The Quest For A True African Skyline

Bold Construction