Place Papers

    The intellectual engine of the collective.

    A curated body of thought exploring the theory, practice, and future of place-based transformation in Africa. Essays, research papers, and frameworks for builders and thinkers.

    Research

    Africa's Overlooked Nexus of Opportunity

    Secondary Cities, Higher Education Institutions and Innovation Hubs.

    Ennovate Lab · November 2024

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    Essay

    Rethinking Leadership: Connecting Leadership & Place

    On why leadership cannot be abstracted from the places that form it, and what changes when we put them back together.

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    Essay

    Beauty from Brokenness: The Theology of Place and the Redemptive Imagination of the Marsh Collective

    In Opelika, Alabama, John and Ashley Marsh have spent decades restoring old buildings and rebuilding community life.

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    Essay

    The Slow Miracle of Bramble: Odunayo Aliu and the Architecture of Hope

    A portrait of Bramble, and the architecture of hope that grows when one builder refuses to leave.

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    Essay

    Of Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building and Ethnography

    Reading Alexander's pattern language as an ethnographic practice for African cities.

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    Essay

    The Architecture of Belonging

    What it takes to design places where people feel they belong, before they are asked to build.

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    Essay

    Stewards of Memory

    On those who carry the memory of a place, and why the future depends on them.

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