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'We are a nation of traders.How can this be a point of

connectivity within thevarious parts of the city? How

can this enhance and enrichour urban fabric? Is our retail

shopping wellarticulated within

r N the city?'

the breakfast hall of the Nicoles Restau-

rant, Victoria Island, Lagos, were more than sixty

members gathered. The day was June the twelfth,

1999, a day on the Nigerian calender that five years

previous, effectively deposed the original indepen-

dence day, October the first, to a second place. Or

June the twelfth 1993 a national election to the

office of the president that had been considered

free and fair was annulled by the military govern-

ment, leading to spiraling protests and recrimina-

tions on the part of the military establishment.

More curious perhaps than the choice of

this particular meeting day was the very

name of the organisation - The CIA, an

acronym that immediately suggests

some association with the Ameri

can intelligence agency but

actually means the >>

w/fhKt & Ucbe Iroha

Creative Intelligence Agency. And its centralmotto states clearly that it is poised to creativelysubvert the urban planning (dis)order of the cityof its occupation, Lagos. The present companyof more than three score 'collaborators' literallyemerged out of the city's creativity professions -architecture, interiors, landscape, graphics andphotography. The number of course includes stu-dents, predominantly from the university ofLagos and the Yaba College of Technology. Andthe usual mode of the CIA meetings, even be-fore this date, had been to hubnub, chit-chatand then grub, proving that the election of arestaurant setting like the Nicoles, was no acci-dent at all. n

A front-runner in the CIA, Mr. Koku Konu,an architect (vehemently denies that there's anyorganisational structure but that they operatepurely as a network), said, the idea from theoutset was to blend

'fun with serious thought. Curious becausethere isn't the usual static organisationalstructure, fun because we take out gas-tronomy (food and drink)discourse and interaction seriously, andserious because we know that achievingwhat we want isn't going to be easy. It willrequire both time and money.'The thought that had preoccupied not a few

of the members, long preceding the CIA, wason how individuals, natives of the city, could pro-fessionally and creatively intervene to transformthe urban planning chaos that has for longdefined the Lagos metropolis. Even though othernon-governmental organisations have also be-gun to conceive and initiate interventionistprogrammes for the Central Business District(CBD), the Onikan Conservation Society con-cerns itself with tree-planting and Legacy hasachieved the renovation and preservation of key his-torical townhouses, including the recent launch of theNigerian Railways Museum - the CIA's motivation ismore compelling from other sources and factors suchas the reinstallation of demoracy in the country whichthis time sees the largest crop of young and the up-wardly mobile professional class ever, penetrating thepolitical party structures. Another related factor is thewell-advertised metroline project proposed by theLagos State Government to transform the mass tran-sit system. Thirdly, there is the new millenium, whosespirit was already fashioning new ideas in business,entertainment, fashion and broadcasting. Conse-quently the CIA got all the more resolved that LagosCentral at the least, must be invested with a new dress-ing and thorough face-lift, in the new century.

On the twelfth of June, submissions were received

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from twelve volunteer architects and professional firms whichhad marked various portions of central Lagos, for study.The study area altogether stretches from Apongbon to CableStreet (East-West) and from Broad Street to the Marina(North-South). The whole area carved into twelve units wereeach to be supervised by a unit master, who actually repre-sented an undertaking professional firm. Thereafter fifty-five volunteer students on attendance during the usualbreakfast meeting now enlisted with the unit or area of studyof their choice according to peculiarity of location and orideology informing each work. Koku Konu further revealedthat,

'a six-week programme of intensive study andexamination followed, an interim review was heldin the third week, just to make sure that wewere on course, and give our colleagues the chanceto criticise our preliminary thoughts.'Konu whose pride in and lest for the whole enterprise

was easily infectious notes also that

<GLENDORA RmmxAfr/can Quarterly on

COLLABORATORS

Kunle Adedeji

Adeniji Coker Architects

Jide Adeniji-Jones

AEK Designs Ltd.

Bode Akinbiyi

Alder Consulting

Olu Amoda

The Architects Collective

A.T. Onajide Architects Ltd.

Bello Bello & Associates

Building Design Workshop

CDSS (Nig) Ltd.

Adeyemo Desalu

Designedscapes

ECAD Design Group

Femi Majekodunmi Assoc. Ltd

Reni Folawiyo

James Cubitt Architects

Kiosque Vegetal

Kliff Consultants

Konu & Morrow

Lekan Adams & Associates

Leonard Associates

MOE Limited

Multi-Media Limited

OAC Architects

Pieach Limited

Siji Dosekun Partnership

Total Consult Limited

PRISON STREET ELEVATION

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'During this period a scale model of the study jarea was made. Each unit ran their own showand the schemes they produced range from thepragmatic to the futuristic. Some interventionsare theoretical and rely on future technologies,whilst others are practical day to day solutions'.The CIA's review sessions also gave principals heading

the units the opportunity to visit other firms and exchangenotes. Temi Stallings of Design Decisions for example re-marked, following a visitation,

'it woke me up. It was my wake up call.I don't really have time to reflect duringdesign, but being asked questions helped meto focus and think, oh shit!'The Century Project, code-named Lagos 2000+ it seems

won its hardest battle right from the outset and it was thebattle of the will, seeping almost as far down as the ques-tion of ideology. Not a few people, even in the professionalcircuits of the city, held the view that the city was too rigidlyset in its own way and could therefore be unamenable tochange. The slightly more extreme variant to that, whichalso enjoys a bit of an impressive following, is on the point-lessness of change, especially radical change. Where thequestion bends directly towards the ideological is where itwears the nagging fear that some of the city's definingcultural elements would face instant erosion.

One of the leading architects in the country and on thecontinent David Aradeon, a professor, in a replanning com-mentary based on a Lagos subcity run on the pages ofGlendora Review (vol. two, no. one) endorsed for examplethe retention of the city's defining, if less than noble, meansof mass transporation, Molue, stylishly renamed funky train.The motivating ideological plank therefore became the wordremodelling and not the blanket transformation which takesno recourse to the prevailing subcultures of the city. Inachieving an effective concensus the CIA first anticipatedand therefore resolved to exact usable kernels from thevarious positions first of all by airing them during its infor-mal sessions, - its own organisational objective afterall hasstated clearly that 'philosophically speaking the CIA is re-ally about having something to say' - and thereupon fash-ioning a body of ideas and programme of action in whichall would find acommodation.

The Space We CreateOne of the submissions with detailed plans for inter-

vention in the Isale-eko area was initiated and drawn byLekan Adams and Associates. The plan undertakes not justa programme of material reconstruction but adopts a theo-retical appropriation of an area-strip which presents by farthe poorest landscape in the whole of the city central. Isale-eko is a contradiction on two fronts: its close neighbour,Lagos Central's CBD, is also the uncontested financial nerve-centre of Nigeria; worse, Isale-eko itself, the seat of theinfamous Area boys (mainly handbag snatchers, loofers,

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drug addicts), occupies immedi-ately or potentially, a high qual-ity real estate.

Before plunging into the hardbusiness of redesigning, the ar-chitects sought first to understandthe dynamics - social, moral andspiritual - responsible for the cre-ation of that 'institutional culture';what social dynamics were re-sponsible for Isale-eko, and itsoffsprings the Areas Boys, cre-ating the poverty nexus that is soopenly contested by Nigeria's own business district.

'This is in order that... population explosion, socialpoverty etc. can be understood in terms of the mecha-nism that produce, influence and maintain them.'Premium was placed on such understanding because

m their estimation every spatial expression or achitecture

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PHOTOGRAPHS1. Freedom Park - Total Consult Ltd.Remains of the old prison are exhumed to forma new urban park celebrating democracy andcivil rights activism.

2. City Green Belt - Leonardo Associates.Partly underground car-parks are proposed ateither end of this new urban park.

4. Letting it all out 2 - Frank Amenechi,Konu & Morrow. Clay mode of transitory openWC and showers.

5a & b. Land, air and sea terminal -Design Group Nigeria. A new transportinterchange to open our underutilisedwaterways and provide short hop helicopterflights to the main international airport.

6. Heavy load - Chioma Nwaka, Konu &Morrow. Sculpture of human figure, bringingan element of art and a sense of human effortto the purpose of the flyover.

8. Land, air and sea terminal - DesignGroup Nigeria. View of model from the waterside.

10. Apongbon- James Cubitt Architects. Modelshowing proposal for remodeling of Apongbon,and a new bus terminal at the 5 finger marinejetty.

11. Logos Outer Marina - The outermarina flyover sits on reclaimed land. What wasonce the old marina is now an urban no mansland. The Outer Marina now bounds this edge.

12. Drivers View - Bola Agunbiade, Konu &Morrow. A collage of the drivers view ofcongestion on the flyover.

13. PMUPMD Crane - Yemi Okuwobi, Konu& Morrow. A mobile crane straddled across theflyover removes broken down vehicles and putsthem on the ground thereby reducingcongestion above.

14. Model-Made by students of thedepartments of Architecture at the University ofLagos and Yabo College of Technology.

16. Land, air and sea terminal - DesignGroup Nigeria. Panoramic view of the existingferry terminal and site of the proposed terminal.

17. The City Strip - AEK Designs Ltd. ECADDesign Group Ltd. & The Architects Collective.Proposed revitolisation of retail trade the lifeline of Lagos, from CMS bus stop to Tinubu Sq.

18. Figure ground/locotion plan - TheStudy area stretches north-south from BroadSt. to the Outer Marina, and west-east fromApongbon to Cable St.

19. New City Square - AEK Designs Ltd.ECAD Design Group Ltd. & The ArchitectsCollective. A new civic square in front of theCathedral is proposed to terminate a newprocessional route from Tinubu Sq.

20. The Container - Tuoyo Jemerigbe, Konu& Morrow. The amorphous structures areintended to provide user defined accommoda-tion, and order the chaos below the flyover.

depends strongly on prevailing atti-tudes and culture and should the spa-tial structure be altered without a cor-responding alteration occuring in theculture as well, the prevailing culturewould reassert itself.

What seems to have helped withthe fashioning of this plan, probablythe most challenging of the CIA units,is the accompanying sense of respon-sibility by the architects. From outset,they felt imposed on them the duty tosearch for an appropriate strategy forthe use of that space, thus ensuring,as its design objective, thatGovernment's intervention outstripsthe rate of the production of poverty.Also from the outset, two routes wereopen for the resolution of the urbanoddity, each positing an ideological orclass prospective - the demolition ofthe entire terrain and the relocation ofits incongruous population on the onehand and a rehabilitation of bothpeople and land space on the other.The Isale-eko versus CBD designproposition adopts the latter arguingthat urban phenomena such as theIsale-eko were the direct expressionsof the post-coloniality of both themodern African city and post-colonialpeoples everywhere.

'A well-planned, environmentallycorrect spatial pattern can onlycome from a people of sound,stable, inner development. There-fore when man is removed fromhis cultural milieu whether by forceas through colonisation or internalmarginalisation, there is psychicdisorientation...therefore thosewho are so marginalised are proneto violence.'

The thrust of the plan is thereforeone of conservation and rehabilita-tion of the space as well as the cul-tural preservation of the people. Anexplicit social programme backs thisin which society at large now exactsmuch less negative pressure on theArea Boy who through the programmeof integration now contributes to de-velopment and whose pride and self-esteem are restored.

The goal of the material plan isthe transformation of the Isale-eko into

a very important tourist and cultural cen-tre reworking its historical and tradi-tional relics to restore its pristine glory.This dispensation would absorb theArea-Boy who would now serve as tour-ist guide as well as ensuring security tohis very erstwhile victims. Also includedin the rehabilitation scheme for theArea Boy are access to credit, voca-tional training and cooperative oppor-tunities on the one hand andinfrastructural development providingfor communication, transportation,portable water, waste managementand affordable housing on the other.

Mono-rail for Kakawa Streetthrough Campos Street

The Isale-eko design easilycomplements another of the proces-sion of ambitious designs describedas the Kakawa Street to Campus Streetpedestrianisation and mono-rail in-tended to ease the congestion ofpedestrains and traffic in the verynerve-centre of the CBD. The areasaffected by the proposition include theCMS junction fromwhich juts six roads.The area bordered by Kakawa andCampos streets on the West and Eastincludes the inner Marina and Tinubustreets. North is Broad Street which isthe terminal area for Odunlami Street.

The area has the largest concen-tration of offices - government, busi-ness and commercial - with the dens-est ooze of pedestrian and auto traf-fic, now merged in recent decades withhordes of street traders, sometimeswith direct, near-permanent kiosksand other installations on street set-backs which never anticipated such oc-cupations and traffic. The study set outto target pedestrian movement in thearea first with the idea of a reversal ofthe direction of traffic on Tinubu Streetand the introduction of a round-aboutjunction to regulate movement of traf-fic at the CMS junction. A closer ob-servation revealed its impracticabilityin the face of the pedestrian surge andpossible traffic violations which finallygave birth to the idea of an over-headmonorail. This would be placed to runthe entire length of the inner Marina

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thus conveying pedestrian traffic right into the city centre.The monorail, proposed by A.T. Onajide Architects Lim-ited, would be accessed at designated stops by spiral steps.

Freedom Park 2000Introduced by Total Consult Limited is an urban park to

be located in the very grounds of the colonial time gaol,the Broad Street prisons, long deceased.

The original gaol is said to consist of eight cells bor-dered by a mud fence. In the year 1 885 however the Colo-nial Authorities upgraded it to a new Lagos prison, builtwith bricks all shipped over from England and constructedon a budget of sixteen thousand pounds. It is recordedironically that in the same year the colonial governmentexpended a paltry seven hundred pounds on educationfor the municipal area.

In the course of the nationalist struggle several Nige-rian notabilities passed various terms in the prison includ-ing the first labour leader Michael Imoudu, HerbertMacaulay, Adeleke Adedoyin, Adeyemo Alakija andObafemi Awolowo.

The project named Freedom Park 2000, cashes in onthe current national euphoria for democracy. The unit, ledby Theo Lawson, plans to exhume the old prisonhouse in apseudo-archeological exercise.

'We seek to expose the skeletons (metaphorically)buried beneath the ground. We have introduced amuseum where once stood the records office,a performance stage where the gallow were,cafe and kiosks where the kitchen was andthe various cell blocks are highlighted in somefashion (if you refer to the design).'The architects are also of the view that the surviving site

already possesses many ingredients for a beautiful park and

that it is well capable of financing itself.According to the unit master, the rationale for the project

hangs on two planks: the emotional and the rational. Onthe emotional, the Broad Street prison is elected a historicaltreasure on the same scale as the Elmina Castle in CapeCoast and therefore is deserving of preservation for poster-ity.

'Too many of our nation's fathers served timefor Nigeria as we hold it today and thatmemory as well as that of the innocentnatives entrapped there is what we seek'.On the rational, Lagos it says, is over-developed and

lacks major social infrastructure. The provision of a park istherefore is a balm capable of soothing the built surround-ing in addition to encouraging social interraction.

Land, Air and WaterTransport interchange

A structure envisioned as a landmark monument and areference point for Lagos in the new century is a transportinterchange proposed to facilitate movement of people fromland to air, to water and vice versa, possibly also transportworkers to their buildings. The space marked to accommo-date the facility is the surrounding of the existing ferry ter-minal on the Marina, over-viewed from the Church of ChristCathedral.

Led by Sade Hughes, Bayo Odunlami and Dimeji Ajasinwith the usual complement of students, this interchange willhave other auxilliary functions such as retail shops, restau-rants and exhibition halls.

Apongbon Street Bus-stopApongbon is noted for its auto and human traffic den-

sity, occasioned in the main by the outgrowth of the bus-stop

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convey thousands of commuters toand from this stop to their variousdestinations as quickly andefficiently as possible.'Construction is of steel space frame

roof supported on fair faced concretecolumn on an 8.5m square grid. Thelandscaping of the UTC roundaboutwhich is recognisable by its firm statueof an Isale-eko mother and her two in-fants is to be significantly affected. Asloped soft landscaping would be com-bined on one side of the flyover col-umns and gridded cobbled paving onthe other around the statue which wouldbe elevated.

underneath the descending north end of the Marina flyoverwhich alone ensures the nightmarish traffic environment. Itis the architects' intention to effect practical design solutionsthat would impact immediately on the chosen area of study,and that is the triangular sector bordered by the outer Ma-rina, the lower end of Broad Street and the major round-about at UTC.

The idea is in essence to relocate the Apongbon bus-stop to the under-utilised Leventis bus-stop located alongthe Lagos harbour on the outer Marina. According to AlanDavies and Tochukwu Ikeyina,

'The lay-by desperately lends itself to the useof a major bus terminus with potential ferry taxi links

along the harbour to the CMS bus-stop. We areproposing a new bus shelter which would serve to

Ecological park and a landscaped MarinaA succession of three separate, and at some length, con-

ceptually different, designs tackle the problem of deforesta-tion at the inner and outer Marina, affecting southwardsApongbon and northwards the Race Course.

Femi Williams and Tayo Babalakin make parking andpedestrianisation their targets. They are especially concernedthat the amount of heat and glare generated in their areaof study - Broad Street, from Tinubu to Apongbon - is ex-tremely high and this moreso when there is little or no green-ery available in the affected parts. They therefore intend toplant trees at strategic points to provide for shade andreduce glare in the surrounding just as a green belt andecological park are conceived for the Marina in the work ofthe unit led by Remi Ajose-Adeogun.

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The green belt inspired by the memorableparks of some of the world's cities would runthrough between outer and inner Marina. It alsoprovides for other utilities including a canopytop metro flypass, parking below canopy, parkfor relaxation and commercial activities as wellas a bus depot at the periphery.

Similarly the Fatima Lawanson led unit plansto transform the very Marina waterfront. She says

'Our Marina is the worst Marina in theworld in terms of landscaping and havinga waterside vista. I am interested insoftening and beautifying the waterfrontwith plants and spaces for people'.The transformation of the shoreline, which

runs from the CMS cathedral fronts to the RaceCourse, into a vegetal delight would allowLagosians to enjoy the waterfronts once againin addition to cleaning the air and oxygen intothe atmosphere of the business district follow-ing the wilful destruction of the natural Marina.

The Marina FlyoverStill on the Marina. The unit overseen and

led by Koku Konu turns its attention to the outerMarina flyover, the concrete bulwark which aloneis the recipient of the business-hour trafficformed largely by vehicles returning from theinner arteries of Victoria Island and Ikoyi.

This is the lone project that provides indi-viduals with credit for their contributions to thework, particularly the student volunteers, prob-ably also because it is the unit with so manysub-divisions.

A drivers' information billboard, riggedsomewhere on the flyover, is for example cred-ited to Bola Agunbiade, while a mobile cranerelying on new fangled technologies is the ini-tiation of Yemi Okuwobi.

A flyover sculpture forbearing some of theweight of the bridge underneath has among theother objective of adding a human dimensionto the normal functional columns, and this isthe vision of Chioma Nwaka. Others are a tran-sitory open WC by Frank Amenechi which pro-vides a viable utility catering for, a travellatorby Bukky Akinsanmi and a container by TuoyoJemiregbe set to reorder the existing chaos andis intended for the same design precincts asNwaka's flyover sculpture.

Of the overall experience, Konu says,'it is difficult to know if what we did was'right' or 'wrong', however, we do knowthat if we have to do it again, we'll do itthe same way and with the same crew'.

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James Cubitt architects

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ATwenty-fourHourCity Zone

A collabo-rative work in-volving threewhole firms culmi-nates in the designproposal which stud-ies the city strip running from CMS to TinubuSquare. This area is among the centres ofpedestrian activity of the CBD made impass-able purely because, of the contestation be-tween street traders and auto and also be-tween pedestrians particularly during busi-ness hours.

Street trading is what elevate this arenato the chaotic over and above other areasalready marked for study and intervention.Wole Sanyaolu, Ade Laoye and DokunOyenuga who lead this unit admit that 'we 14-b

are a nation of traders', so that accommodation is soughtfor this national characteristic instead of denying it or aimingto someday stump it out in the said zone and others like it.

'We are a nation of traders. How can this be a point ofconnectivity within thevarious parts of the city? How can this enhance andenrich our urban fabric? Is our retail shopping wellarticulated within the city?'From the point of view of the designers the process lead-

ing to the end product must be inclusive and closely matchedto the needs and aspirations of end users. To a large extentthis is a work in progress, a model still in function, since thelayout deliberately excludes detailed specifications. And the

reason is no doubt because they intend to examine ways ofincluding community participation in the function of the brief,and possibly in the execution of the programme.

There are rational bases for adopting this strategy. Firstis the fact that, 'sense and order can be amounts of moneybeing spent'. More than this, they are fully convinced thatgood planning and design can always 'initiate, add valueand aid economic process within the city'.

The Matter of CashThere has been an attempt to harmonise the entire plan

and firstly, design a programme for actualisation, in phases.

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This helps to view the variegated units as members belonging to

one whole, suggesting a well-articulated and continuous stream of

thought. The entire CIA century project grossing a sum of four hun-

dred and thirty-two and had half million naira (four million, three

hundred and twenty-five thousand US dollars) can be effected in three

phases over a period of a year and six months. The first covering four

months includes a Lagos Island clean-up exercise by private contrac-

tors, pavement refurbishment and street architecture (dustbins,

streetlights, benches, pavements), street signs and road markings and

the Marina waterfront planting, cleaning and car parks. This phase

envisages a budget of only eleven and a half million naira (one hun-

dred and fifteen thousand dollars). The second proposed for between

January and June 2000 involves a long-term solution for refuse collec-

tion and identification of permanent dump sites. Includes also are

traffic solutions extracted from the unit designs with the relevant propo-

sitions; there would be trading only roads, one-way routes and bus

routes through the inner recesses of the CBD. The reminders of work

on the Marina water fronts and other proposed small structures would

additionally receive the requisite focus. And the budget is placed at

one hundred and thirty-five and a half million naira (one million,

three hundred and fifty-five thousand US dollars).

The third work phase for between July and December 2000 in-

clude the Freedom park, relocation of the CMS bus-stop, review of

the Apongbon bus-stop and the erection of the land, air and sea

terminal at an overall sum of two hundred and eighty-five and half

million naira or two million, eight hundred and fifty-five thousand US

dollars.GR