IN DEFENCE OF MUCH_MORE™

0. A SERIES OF SEEMINGLY UNRELATED EVENTS

In 1809, Canson discovered the tracing paper. His invention

had the most profound effect on architecture. It is his
invention that created completeness® in our work. Our
architecture in Africa is incomplete. A fragment. Working
parts are delineated and then left bare. A simple argument
voids that architectural approach – the human Body.

There is the issue of the Rukikian®. Rukikian= deformative

urban change. This is a characteristic of Lagos. Here is an
example: in Northern Nigeria, indomie noodles joints are a
thing of necessity. They are shut off by 11pm. Lagos
encouraged the importation of these joints over the Niger, and
deformed them.... in the North, they are a pure deformation
(we are not a noodles culture). In Lagos, you see them lined
up at the front of a club all night.

Additionally, in continuation of the idea of the zero space,

we arrive at a process of limits. Our lives are set as limits.
Limits between objects and times. And this is also the process
of conceiving urban architecture. It will be proved that
architecture is the tension set up between two known variables
in an in-between or zero-space, and this tension, played out
in light, is the only true concretization of architectural
principle.

Abu-Ishaq-as-Sahili... Spanish Muslim, African Architect. This

is the epitome of Rukikian®ness. His Spanishness passed
through a deformative process that led him to the beginnings
of an African Architecture.

Much_More™ is a concept of value. A series of anecdotes aimed

at achieving much more from less. It is pushing the envelope
of availability to create an impossible and maybe unneeded
dream. It is the Rukikian® response to architecture by a
generation of clientele who are not, by the way earning
much_more®.
 1. GENERAL THEORY

PREDICTIONS

Lagos will have to grow within itself. Courtyards and rooftops

will soon become the new urban plots in the city. How do we
conceive such an urbanism?

LIMITS

To refuse to accept that a city can be expanded without

affecting it... that a city can grow without destruction at
its heart. The centre of Lagos has no communal spaces. Is
destruction not the solution to create breathing space? The
centre of Lagos typifies a typology of incompleteness. Lagos
is therefore our site.

THEORY

To trace history through Lagos. To find Historic and Economic

precedents, and the process by which they create architectural
typologies. To understand these typologies and intervene in
existing urban spaces with them.

VALUE

Urban Renewal: a program of land development in areas of

moderate to high density urban land use. Usually extremely
controversial and has often involved destruction of
businesses, the demolition of priceless historic structures,
relocation of people and use of eminent domain.

Urban renewal is done to increase value, and densify. To add

life. When an urban area is regenerated it is expected that
the said regeneration will provide better business spaces,
free land pockets and increase habitation possibilities.
IMPROMPTU + CHAOS-SCALE URBANISM

Our architecture is incomplete. A fragment. The organs exist

in isolation, exposed without a protective skin. Nigerian
buildings strip architecture of all its urban and social
responsibilities and present a BARE BOX®. A bare box that
should be hidden from the surface. Hence the architectural
response that creates buildings is not complex enough;
especially because architecture is created by the very issues
that are divorced by the Nigerian Architect. Architecture is
not cheap....A building is a rich mix of urban activities in a
packet. Our architecture is not complex enough. In the
traditional Tiv dwelling, there is a building typology
referred to as the Ateh. It is an extremely complex program
solved with a single space, a space that is in itself
transformable, and transforms itself to answer to the need at
the moment. It is a packet of urbanisms or a corridor of
activity.

Nigerian traditional architecture should not be translated in

the context of what has been built. There is a theoretical
intent that underlies it. The life of the typical African is
entrenched in stories and dreams. We are, as Ben Okri
described, Homo Fabula. The failure is merely technological.
In the North, the Hausas kept attempting to create, as a
result of their culture, a corridor of activities (a free
space where the propensity of activity occurrence is high) and
what has become known as the traditional Hausa compound house
is the result of these attempts.

Impromptu and Chaos-scale urbanism are typified by three(3)

themes:

 Densification
 Symbiosis and
 Organisms.

In the scheme of things, they are defined and function as

their dictionary meanings to create completeness® in urban
architecture.

Architecture is a bold art, bold and audacious. The pyramids

were built along with every other masterpiece of human
civilisation as a machine for sheer boldness... or much_more™.
MUCH_MORE™

We assert that architecture should be bold, and daring. All

architectural solutions are entrenched in the Big and bold.

We do not design to the human scale. We set REVIT cameras to

heights larger and smaller than the average human. We create a
scale based on Lagos... a CHAOS scale. To achieve this we
assert that architecture is not cheap. Much_More™ is a
philosophical concept based on language. It is a way of
describing the architecture of today and a process by which
the compositional elements for an architecture can begin to
evolve. It is a philosophy in dire need of expansion. It is a
series of rules and balance points for the creation of
architecture in Africa in the 21st century, that emanates from
our traditional architecture.

African architecture is beset by complexities and

irregularities and is built around stories. Stories of absence
and presence, dreams and possibilities. Therefore, we assert
that our architecture will be based on sheer complexity.

POVERTY

The activities that go on to form a city occur long before

concretization of the landscape into architecture and
urbanism. Urbanism is the shaping of these buildings and
typologies to foster the activities afore mentioned. Lagos
generates these activities as a result of poverty. These
activities, which become historical precedents, generate new
typologies. It is the responsibility of the architect to
recognise these typologies and re engineer them into the urban
condition. We are merely sculptors. Our architecture is a
technological response to the typologies created by the
historical precedents of Lagos.

RUKIKIAN®
After Kurmin Rukiki- Cyprian Ekwensi An African Nights’ Entertainment

‘That is the kurmi (forest). Go to your death. I have never

known a single man who went there and came back.... with every
step Abu took, the forest seemed to stretch further into the
grassland’. (Page 64-65)... [] ‘I am Abu Bakir, whom you sent
to Kurmin Rukiki... you remember my promise? At that Tausayis’
hard face softened with joy. He asked: is this how you have
suffered?’(Page 77)

A Rukikian object is a machine for generating deformative

change

URBAN CULTURE

Architecture is a highly technological and expensive art. We

have a responsibility to keep it expensive. Urban areas are a
story of the builders of the areas. Urbanism is a collection
of activities that go on to form architecture. If architecture
is a reflection of the story of a people and their urban
areas, then our lives in this country are very bleak,
considering the present architectural output.

LOVE LETTER

Dear Lagos,

There are too many hold-ups here. Absolutely no open space. We

might have to leave Lagos to create a new Lagos. Your smell is
unbearable, your ‘charm’ unquestionable. Yet under these
bridges and in those urban corridors, lie the architectural
typologies for our future. This, in itself is contradictory.

So many architects here. No buildings. No theory. Nor

philosophy or discourse. Lagos, oft-times it amuses me to
wonder what a Lagos Philosopher and his corresponding
philosophy will be.

LANDSCAPE[ING]

THERE IS NO more landscape. Landscape as a detached object

will not suffice in Africa. There is no more space moreover it
has been proven over the years that we cannot maintain the
grass.

The ground is for building, where this can be afforded. All

landscape areas on a development plan for Africa should rather
be landing pads for Mega-buildings. There is no space for
grass, only buildings. Tall buildings, large buildings,
unbelievable buildings.

There must hence be a new landscape. Not on the roofs of our

buildings. These cannot be maintained. We therefore assert
that our buildings will immerse themselves into the urban
condition as green belts and urban forests. Where a green belt
is needed, we conjoin a series of vertical forests. Therefore,
we densify the land as we create green breaks... MUCH_MORE™.
The ground is for buildings only. Plants, parks and green
belts must become integrated into the forms that represent our
architectural thought.

VIRTUAL REALITY

Disappearance of objects. They first become thinner and more

efficient, and then they become hologrammic. This is the basic
determinant of space for the future. Our homes have too many
spaces. What will the house be after objects disappear and
their holograms take over?

ARCHITECTURE

Architecture is an international art. Contemporary

Architecture will be Rukikian® (an export after considerable
deformation). It has started. It started in the 15th century.
Abu- Ishaq- as Sahili, the Spaniard was the harbinger of the
process. He brought the mud brick to Hausa land and this
created an architectural response that was at once tropical
and beautiful. Of course the Hausas built beauties pre-Sahili,
but the mud brick WAS THE PRECURSOR OF ARCHITECTURE HERE.

They took the mud brick and through a Rukikian® process and
created a version of it suited to their architectural
thought.... the tubali brick. Then they created master pieces.
Masterpieces that were fragments, not of the city, but of
themselves. Fragments of themselves. The house became a mini
city with master-pieces. It became a ‘place’.
We assert therefore that it is this Rukikian® Process that
will create a new architecture that will embrace and solve all
the challenges of living in this part of the world this 21st
century. The house of tomorrow will be ‘a place’, and as such
we assert that Hausa Traditional Architecture is the harbinger
of the home of the 21st century.

FREETOWN

Design is an art of liberation. To design is to liberate

objects from the normal density associated with them. It is an
activity that leads to the point where nothing can be possibly
added or taken from an object. From this definition, there was
an African Architecture and not design.

We therefore assert that design should be irresponsible. It

should be centred right where drawing meets unbuildability. It
should consist of shards’, broken walls, jarred openings.

FRAGMENTS

Our architecture should be a fragment. Not of the city, but of

itself. A dark forest of ideas. A dark forest. Kurmin Rukiki.
Rukikian®. One of the most prominent ideas that relates all
cultures is how things are misconstrued. How objects and data
aren’t properly seen and are badly interpreted. Lagos is the
greatest victim. Lagos, through a Rukikian® Process is a
generator of futuristic typologies that are fragments
themselves.

URBANITECT

A city that cannot conceive of its future perishes in the

present. It is the function of the Urbanitect to find these
‘futures’.
RESISTANCE

The distinction of the slave (F. Nietzsche: Zarathustra)...’

The architecture scene in Lagos is resistant. It resists ideas
and foreigners. Rem Koolhaas has still not built in Lagos.
Lagos, a city of 17.5 million people must be forced into the
21st century. Architecture will evolve only from the tension
between what exists and our musings for the future, which have
been obtained from Lagos itself. Therefore, again, we state
that urbanism is a series of tensions sparked off by non-
considerable interruptions between what exists and forcefully
place non-rational dense urban packets.

LANGUAGE

All great architectural responses in Nigeria have been

responded to in Hausa. The most clear and philosophically
correct architecture in this part of the world has been built
in the North, the language being Hausa. The Hausa North is the
first to create architecture from a deformative process off a
more advanced system (that is to say that the Rukikian® has
been understood and reused severally in the North for many
years now), and it is in the North that the architectural
response has moved on from sheer necessity. The sheer clarity
of the language itself towards the case of building ( the
phrase a haka shi haka is not repeated in any form anywhere
else)in comparism to every other Nigerian Language leads us to
assert that HAUSA IS THE LANGUAGE OF GREAT NIGERIAN ARCHITECTURE,
and YORUBA, THE LANGUAGE OF ITS MUSIC.

ARROGANCE®
An attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or
assumptions (2011 Merriam-Webster inc)

Technology by all means. The world and the architecture

thereof is predicated by a finite amount of technology at
every time. The act of unnecessary architectural gymnastics to
force the hand of technology (architecture itself never
understands this technology) ruins not only architecture
itself but the act of thinking (about it). It stagnates the
progress of architectural thinking, and retards its process
and leaves us in a muddle that can’t be resolved. This act is
one of arrogance®. It is the need to be ahead by all means, to
be weird and intellectual with architecture by all means. Now
due to this arrogance® we assert that the new basic unit for
urbanistic conceptions for Africa should be a 20-storey
volume. The 20 storey has been completely resolved in Europe.
It is time for us here, by a Rukikian process to adopt this
object into our architectural vocabulary. As architects in
Africa, we heretofore demand that our least conceptions must
be urbanistic in nature and the 20-storey volume is the tubali
brick for this exercise. We demand that our urbanism be
reworked completely in the light of technological arrogance®
that only architects can provide. Our architecture must ask
fundamental questions and open itself up to our streets... it
must become much more!

2. MUCH_MORE ARCHITECTURE: TERMINOLOGY

ESTATES®
Area of rural, privately owned property that includes a large residence. Encarta Dictionaries
2009

Dense urban enclosures. Mini suburbs with their own amenities

totally independent of a nonexistent city grid. Estates in
Africa are a group of Super-People hiding their sheer
difference from the urban area that made them... the epitome
of Much_More™. At the moment, to design in Africa is an
exercise in practicality. Especially spatially, there is no
additive or waste. The design is lean. This usually is taken
for granted in estates. Yet as it seems, the typical Nigerian
Estate is the showroom for Much_More™. Estates have been
redefined in Africa. They are now an area of urban, privately
owned properties that includes several individually owned
private residences, fenced into an urban whole.

CONTINUANCE®

Or how to turn existing infrastructure to estates®. To

continue urban infrastructure is the art of symbiotic
additions created from systematic interpretation of needs and
other data including present conditions. For any existing
urban area in Africa to expand logically, we assert that a
process of continuance® must be evoked. (See much more tales
for details)
LIVEABLE®

The ability for new frontiers of habitation to be discovered

in an urban architecture created from a process of
continuance. Or the ability for architecture to emanate from
typologies that have grown impromptu due to the historical and
economic precedents surrounding urban infrastructure. It is a
reference for the discovery of new architectural frontiers.

20 STOREY®S

This is a response to the idea of estates. Since in defence of

much more, here in Africa, (where land is abundant to a point
of waste) we group families of people together in walled areas
in the city, and these areas have a good density, that
supports a kind of urban life, it might as well be done
better. Therefore, we have reinvented and are ready to re-
engineer into our urbanism, this 20 storey module. Why?
Because it is there and not properly used in Europe. This is
Rukikian®.

ZERO SPACE®

A zero element® is one that is unaffected by the Rukikian®

process in design. It is an element whose alteration doesn’t
affect the structure of a building but can alter its
semantics. In a large scale design based on repetition, it can
create variety in a single theme. The zero space® is therefore
a space without an identified use, that completes a design by
wrapping itself like a clam around it. The zero space is an
element that makes architecture tropical, brings in light and
air into the heart of the space.

3D

Due to the proliferation of three dimensional design software,

and BIMs, buildings and urban areas designed recently here,
are constantly been presented either as they look when we fly
by them, or miraculously, how a rat or an insect sees them. We
set cameras below or above eye level. The views set to eye
level are usually the most uninteresting. Our eyes see
distortion and we suddenly are reminded of beauty. This poses
a moral question... are architects ashamed of how humans see
their work or do architects see humans as rats or birds?

Now, due to this distortion, it will be fine to ask the

following

1. Is what we see with our 60 degree cone pf vision the

absolute truth?
2. If we see distorted forms from perspectives as beautiful,
why do we not create distorted primitives that correct
our vision?
3. Is the square really square?
4. What is square? A chance meeting of four lines whose
apparent angle of intersection is 90 degrees on our plane
of distorted vision?
5. How does the existence of fractal dimensions affect this
apparent intersection of lines?

GRIDS®

There is a need to create a sense of order and alignment in

plans. This is the conventional use of grids. We use grids on
the other hand to find the links between objects and ideas.
Grids® are philosophical connections. We therefore assert that
a grid will evolve as a response to the ideology of a design.
That creating grids is a philosophical act that binds our
ideas with the traditions of ancient Africa. A line drawn over
an abyss. Grids® are no more objects for scheduling
construction, but elements for the philosophical definition of
our architecture.

GROUPING®

For the sake of money, in a place where there is a constant

lack of it, it is necessary for every element created to have
multiple uses. Groupings are a function of Historical
Precedents. To Group® is to stretch the function of an object
with respect to what can be achieved with it in the
environment in question. All the elements designed should have
double meanings. This is the lesson from Lagos. A bridge is
not just a bridge, it is a strip of commerce and a support for
impromptu habitation, so also windows, doors etc. Grouping is
the act of forcing an object to serve several spaces, or a
space to serve several uses. The Tiv Ateh hut is the perfect
example of this phenomenon.

RENTED SUPPORT®

A support for a structural continuation on existing

infrastructure that falls out of the confines of the
infrastructural object. Usually, these supports are designed
to exist on land that is leased or rented and the land is
usually about a square meter.

STREAMLINE®
a. To improve the appearance or efficiency of; modernize
b. To organize
c. To simplify
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary 2011

To streamline® is to reduce an object from its Euclidean form

to a form dictated by maximum efficiency and the best space-
use.

3. MUCH_MORE TALES

To learn to hear with one’s eyes and see with ones ears.... in
Africa now, we must learn to build empty shells and inhabit
them later. We must learn not to bother for meaning just yet.

SCENARIOS

To further emphasize the 20 storey module and its uses, we

present some scenarios, one existing in Lagos, and the other
fictional

 MENDE MARYLAND BRIDGE OR BESIDE

There is no light in Nigeria. Due to the mass of light points

and the inefficient machinery for light in the country, it is
almost impossible to have light for more than a few hours a
day. Therefore, no matter how resolved our 20 storey® is, it
is almost impossible to maintain in this terrain if it stands
up vertically. The question is simple... where do we go from
here? The present situation of Mende Maryland is delineated
below:

Population :( Ikeja has a population of 370000) about 100,000

Present Condition: Mende is reached by a bye-pass off the

Mende Bridge. This road runs the entire strip of the area. The
sides of this road are plastered with impromptu commerce, and
this usually causes a bottle-neck in the morning and late
evening.

Cost of Accommodation: single room without kitchen and shared

toilet – N80000 P/A, self contained studio flat – N250000 p/a,
2 bedrooms and single toilet- N450000 p/a, 3 bedrooms with
singe toilet- N600000p/a, house with compound space-N1000000
p/a (all data have been obtained by field surveys by the authors between 2008 and
2010)

Status of Social housing: No conscious effort towards social

housing. A large amount of estates®.

Availability of Land: existing but dilapidated buildings

usually have to be demolished for new structures when they are
sold. These are the most available lands. They are not
necessarily Brownfield sites. Greenfield sites are sparingly
available.

Present Condition of Electricity: Same as everywhere else in

urban Lagos (Yet Mende is the home of a power sub-station):
erratic and available only after 12 hours of darkness.

Present Condition of running water: Boreholes are needed. The

tanks adjoined are usually enormous enough to take and save
water for 12hours at least. Even in communal housing projects
of up to 8 flats, the tanks themselves are arranged like
estates®

Daily Migration Pattern: a lot of inhabitants here work on the

Island and its environs. Mende has very little business areas.
These areas aren’t official mostly; therefore it is not rare
to see homes converted into shops and offices. This is due to
the high value of land.

Roads: Mende has a ring road that touches Ikorodu road at 2

places; one before the Mende bridge and the other far after.
There is a good link to two BRT stops ( the Bus Rapid
transport system or the Lagos city bus service run by the
Government of the State since 2008), and the furthest walk
from a BRT stop is about 25 minutes.

Security: in the last few years security has diminished in

Mende. This can be blamed on the absence of light at
predictable times daily. There are no street lights on the
main streets, therefore when shops bounding these streets shut
down by 9pm, the street becomes a black hole.

OBSERVATIONS

1. The sides of the major spine-road are plastered with

impromptu commerce, and this usually causes a bottle-neck
in the morning and late evening.
2. No social housing and high cost of accommodation
3. A large amount of estates®.
4. Greenfield sites are sparingly available.
5. Load Shedding from light source
6. Boreholes are needed. The tanks adjoined are usually
enormous enough to take and save water for 12hours at
least.
7. A lot of inhabitants here work on the Island and its
environs
8. There is a good link to two BRT stops, and the furthest
walk from a BRT stop is about 25 minutes.
9. In the last few years security has diminished in Mende.

SOLUTONS

Deplore two 20 storey®s on the both sides of the Mende Bridge.

The most logical way will be to create 2 individual towers
connected to themselves with a constantly ramping social and
business hub. But it has been established that there is NO
LIGHT.

What if we make the 20 storey® horizontal and tilt it at an

angle?

We then encircle a proliferation of these objects that connect

the pedestrians at the St. Agnes side to the OandO side with a
zero-space®.

We end up with a series of streamline®d 3 storey sites for

social housing estates® interacting with structured impromptu
shopping, on the bridge, exactly 5 minutes walk from two BRT
stops.
This simple process amplifies the Rukikian nature of the
architecture we should be developing. It has taken the 20
storey® module, and through a recognisable Rukikian process
(no light etc), re-invented it for the situation as exists.

4. CONCLUSIONS
From the notes, it is clear that there is a language in an
advancing stage that describes a process that can as well
become architecture. The ideas that are carried forward are
predicated on the correction of the misconception about
architecture – that it is cheap. We have delineated a
phenomenon, and its elements. It is a hope that this will
spread beyond architecture.