2022-2023 Donghia Designer-in-Residence Lecture by JOSEPH OSAE-ADDO with Reception
Thursday, March 16, 2023
Reception 6:30–7:30 p.m.
Lecture + Q&A 7:30–8:45 p.m.
This lecture and preceding reception will be presented in the Forum on Otis College’s Elaine and Bram Goldsmith Campus at 9045 Lincoln Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90045, as well as virtually via Zoom. The lecture and parking are open and free to the public! On-campus attendance is limited to 100 attendees. Zoom attendance is unlimited.
Please visit this Eventbrite link to reserve an on-campus seat.
Here is the Zoom link: https://otis.zoom.us/j/91729719580
About Joseph Osae-Addo:
Joseph (Joe) Osae-Addo was born in Ghana, West Africa, and trained at the Architectural Association in London. He worked in Finland, the UK, and the U.S., setting up his practice in Los Angeles in 1991. He was a founding partner of the A+D Museum, Los Angeles, whose mission is to advance knowledge and to enable people to appreciate and understand architecture and design. Joe ran his studio in Los Angeles until he moved back to his native country of Ghana after a visit in 2000. At that time Ghana “had just elected a new president, and Addo sensed a ‘democratic fervor’ that had not existed before. There was an atmosphere of optimism and euphoria, and I wanted to be part of it,” he says. (Source)
Joseph is currently the CEO of Constructs R&D, an inno-native™ design firm based in Accra and Chairman of ArchiAfrika Foundation. Joe’s firm, Constructs, synergizes architecture, urban planning, landscaping, and building technology into a single unit geared towards bringing modern architecture and building techniques to create design solutions to contemporary African architecture. Inno-native™ is a condition where the best design solutions are indigenous.
The work and interest of the practice has been influenced by various investigations of ‘genus-loci’ and how architecture can/should respond to this in creating pieces that are both site specific and meet the needs of the people who will inhabit or interact with it. This has led to interventions in South Los Angeles and Accra’s Jamestown, where several projects aim at establishing a discourse between what is important to communities and how site, climate, materials, and their weathering, with design intent, should shape these interventions.
Joe Osae-Addo can be found most days at ArchiAfrika Design Gallery and the Jamestown Cafe in the old city of Accra.
The Donghia Designer-in-Residency, including this lecture, is organized by the Environmental Design Department at Otis College of Art and Design.
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Images (clockwise from top):
- Joseph Osae-Addo, photograph courtesy of the Holcim Foundation
- Joseph Osae-Addo’s own modern house in Ghana, designed by Joseph, which combines advanced techniques with traditional African materials (adobe and timber) and methods. Photograph by Tuuli Saarela
- Exterior of the Archiafrika Design Gallery, Accra, Ghana. Photograph by ArchiAfrika Accra
