M.O.V.E. Gulf Coast CDC and studio|rotan, organizers of The Africatown International Design Idea Competition, released the names of winners chosen by a 16-panel jury of experts in architecture, history, archeology, and community development, including local Africatown leaders, led by New York-based architect Jack Travis, FAIA NOMAC.
The names were announced during an awards ceremony Monday, June 19, 2023, at the Exploreum Science Center Theater in Downtown Mobile, Alabama.
The winners come from as far away as South Africa, Jamaica and China, and from cities including New York, Washington, D.C. and Nashville. All responded with Afrocentric design concepts and essays submitted in response to the first international, multi-site design challenge that pulled from various past and present plans generated from within the Africatown community, whose leaders understood its global historic significance decades ago. Africatown is the only 19th-century settlement created by a group of Africans who were among the 110 souls pirated to Mobile, Alabama, from Dahomey (present-day Benin) as human cargo aboard Clotilda, the last known ship that sailed to Africa in 1860 during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Invigorated with the spectacular discovery of the Clotilda slave ship that was burned and sunken in the Mobile River (initially announced in 2018, but publicly confirmed by the Alabama Historical Commission in 2019), Competition organizers began planning in 2018 to strategically harness the discovery as the necessary “critical mass” to jump start redevelopment in Africatown.
In 2018, M.O.V.E. Gulf Coast CDC commissioned studio|rotan, to organize its vision for a unified Africatown redevelopment strategy based on Africatown’s own past, present and future revitalization plans. Based in Birmingham, AL, studio|rotan is a cultural heritage/civic design firm that specializes in achieving design excellence for clients with complex cultural heritage projects.
Its CEO, Renee Kemp-Rotan, Associate AIA/NOMA, invented The Africatown International Design Idea Competition as the organizing tool of choice, and programmed it to include four Sites: 1.) Historic Africatown, with its historic cemetery and the historic Mobile County Training School ; 2.) The abandoned Josephine Allen public housing area, with 44 acres that could hold a mixed-use complex anchored by a world-class museum; 3.) The Africatown Connections Blueway, co-created with the National Park Service; and 4.) Africatown USA State Park in Prichard, a dream project of its former Mayor John Smith who envisioned his city connecting the Africatown story to Benin and Africa via culture and commerce, but died in 2006 with his vision unrealized.
Each site included three areas based on community interests, plus a gateway per site. By connecting them all by land and water, the end of the planning process, resulted in what the organizers call, “The Africatown Cultural Mile.” Together, the sites and venues constitute, a network of well-designed cultural amenities — museums, Clotilda boathouse, performing arts venues, signature spa hotel, water taxis, boutique retail, restaurants and more —all connected by Africatown’s unique history. This tourism system can be among the biggest cultural heritage tourism asset in the State of Alabama.
Kemp-Rotan recruited Travis, an architect and thought leader on Afrocentric design, and other highly experienced, A-list African American architects and planners from around the country to serve on the design jury. They led a group of other professionals, together with Africatown leaders, Clotilda Descendants, and community advocates to review the 169 design boards and 142 pages of essays in 23 submissions in the Competition’s 4 Sites and 16 Venues.
Jurors were divided among the 4 Sites — 4 jurors per site, with some local community observers who watched the proceedings, but did not vote — in an anonymous review process. After hours of deliberations over two days, the 16 jurors selected the winning designs that will divide $25,000 USD per Site ($10,000 for First Place, $8,000 for Second Place, $5,000 for Third Place, and $2,000 for Fourth-Place), with cash prizes totaling up to $100,000 USD. The award monies are provided by Better Place Foundation of Birmingham.
Site 1 — Historic Africatown Winners
| 1st Place |
Farida Abu-Bakare/ Olivia Cheung WXY + architecture + urban design |
Team Members: Claire Weisz, Farida Abu Bakare, Mark Yoes, Stephanie McMorran, Nicole Cao, Lirael O’Neill, Dalia Amellal, ien Boodan, Tyler Sauter, James Kwon EKLA Team Member: Elizabeth Kennedy |
USA |
| 2nd Place |
Xu Han | Team Members: Xu Han, Haiyi Sun, Zhe Qin, Wei Tang |
China |
| 3rd Place |
Kamau Kambui, DCL Desconlogistics |
Team Members: Kamau Kambui, Lead Architect/ Designer/ Concept; Jenna Blackwood, Landscape Architect/Concept, Landscape and narrative; Himoany Grant, Intern Architect, Graphics/Concept, Gillian McDaniel, Narrative Editor | USA/ Jamaica |
| 4th Place |
Peter Rich / Donald Takura Changwa | Team Members: Nhlamulo Ngobeni, Sechaba Maape, Peter Rich, Edward Brooks, Nontokozo Mhlungu, Donald Takura Changwa | South Africa |
Site 2 — Former Josephine Allen Public Housing Site Winners
| 1st Place |
Jerome Haferd JEROME HAFERD Architecture |
Team Members: Jerome Haferd, RA (principal), Sidnie Ancion, Suraya Babb, Shadeen Dixon, Violet Greenberg, Tiffany Gonzalez, Stephanie McMorran, Gabriel Moyer-Perez | USA |
| 2nd Place | Tianyuan Zheng 郑天元 | Team Members: Team Lead Tianyuan Zheng 郑天元 with Ran Wang 王冉, Jiayue Yu 俞家悦, and Yajing Li李雅静 |
China |
| 3rd Place |
Jonathan Moody, Moody Nolan |
Team Members: a. Jonathan Moody AIA, NOMA b. Valarie Franklin AIA, NOMA c. Prof. Amma Asamoah d. Prof. Vicky Carter |
USA |
| 4th Place | Christian Coles | Team Members: Christian Coles Olivia Harrell Jada Ross Sally Murtadhi |
USA |
Site 3 — Africatown Connections Blueway Winners
| 1st Place | Victor Body-Lawson, FAIA NOMA NCARB, Body Lawson Associates (BLA) | Team Members: Victor Body Lawson Antonia Walker Freddy Ruiz Manuel Francisco Cifuentes |
USA |
| 2nd Place | Dana McKinney, enFOLD Collective |
Team Members: Dana McKinney & Megan Echols, enFOLD Collective, with Jamel Williams |
USA |
| 3rd Place | Jonathan Moody, Moody Nolan |
Team Members: a. Jonathan Moody AIA, NOMA b. Valarie Franklin AIA, NOMA c. Prof. Amma Asamoah d. Prof. Vicky Carter |
USA |
| 4th Place | Stephen D. Oliver | Sole Practitioner | USA |
Site 4 — Africatown USA State park Winners
| 1st Place | Fabl Design LLC | Taylan C. Tekeli, Principal | USA (native of Turkey) |
| 2nd Place | Jonathan Moody, Moody Nolan |
Team Members: a. Jonathan Moody AIA, NOMA b. Valarie Franklin AIA, NOMA c. Prof. Amma Asamoah d. Prof. Vicky Carter |
USA |
| 3rd Place | Theo Lawson, Total Consult LTD. |
Team Members: Theo Lawson Wale Popoola Olaniyi Omotoso Tosin Dada |
Nigeria |
| 4th Place | James Wells | Sole Practitioner | USA |
| Honorable Mention | Nicole Hollant-Denis AARIS Design Architects & Evoke Studios |
Team Members: Competition Lead and contact: Nicole Hollant-Denis, Designer: Benin House Museum of African History and Design and The Gate Way Memorial, The Door of Return to Africa @Africatown USA State Park/Prichard with Edwin Harris, Designer Performance Arts Center and the Spa Hotel/ Convention Center with AARIS Design Architects, including Zariah Griffith, Xavier Lind Domenech with Edwin Harris of Evoke Studio Architecture |
USA |
Now, five years after their initial planning, the Organizers’ visionary master plan has moved another step closer to reality, thanks to the designers who responded to the Competition’s call.
“The quality of the work submitted by all the designers shows just how seriously they took this challenge,” says Kemp-Rotan, who wrote its design programs for the 4 sites and 16 land and water-based venues that are part of The Africatown Cultural Mile. “Now, we can offer to the Africatown community exceptional visuals and a master plan that they can use to take Africatown to its rightful place as a heritage site of global significance.”
The winning designs and samples of essays submitted to The Africatown International Design Idea Competition were showcased during the Competition Awards Ceremony on Juneteenth (June 19th) 2023 in Mobile, Alabama.
The Competition received more than 21,000 page views from countries around the world — from Andorra, Australia, Barbados, Benin, China and Cyprus to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe — and logged 118 registrations.
For Vickii Howell, President/CEO of M.O.V.E. (Making Opportunities Viable for Everyone) Gulf Coast CDC, the Competition, the architectural interest it generated, and the designs that came from it all offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for African Americans to set and achieve goals for economic empowerment of a historic Black place of global significance that is uniquely their own.
“‘Africatown has a unique and important story that must have an opportunity to be told, not just within Mobile but to a global audience. It is a place-based story, and so the place itself is important to telling the story.’ That’s a quote straight from the 2016 Africatown Neighborhood Plan,” Howell says. The report also notes that the under-served community has not seen the economic progress from the sacrifices it has made — bearing the brunt of pollution from heavy industrialization along the river front — and the loss of tourism opportunities. “This is where we believed we could make a difference, by thinking up a better way to organize the community’s asset and corral the power of Africatown’s own stories for its own economic advancement,” she says.
She and Kemp-Rotan see the Competition results as a way to fortify community plans with the power of design and how it can elevate community conversations as Africatown leaders residents and supporters decide collaboratively how to “Re-Imagine Africatown” and the futuristic version of itself as a magnet for tourism and residential growth.
Africatown community members said, “Yes” to the Competition after studio|rotan presented the entire design challenge in community-wide meeting organized by Africatown C.H.E.S.S. (Clean, Healthy, Educated, Safe and Sustainable) in June 2019.
COMPETITION SPONSORS:
American Institute of Architects (AIA); National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA); World Monuments Fund; Visit Mobile; the City of Prichard; 400 Years of African American History Commission.
Cash Prize Sponsor: Better Place Foundation of Birmingham, Alabama;
The Africatown International Design Idea Competition Awards Ceremony Sponsor: Poarch Creek Indians.