interview: toshiko mori on empowering communities through architecture in africa

Toshiko Mori Architect stabilizes communities with desigN

‘It’s quite amazing that there are still so many places in the world which need information on how to become stable, so providing that is what my practice hopes to do,’ Toshiko Mori explains in an interview with designboom. During the Milano Arch Week 2023 lecture series, we met the Japanese-American architect at Politecnico di Milano to discuss some of her past works as well as the method behind her community-centered design approach.

The work of Mori’s New York-based design studio varies from cultural, institutional, residential and commercial, but the purpose remains the same; to ’empower communities through architecture’. Founded in 1981, the firm’s work mainly focused in the Northeast region of the USA, but in recent years, Toshiko Mori’s portfolio has expanded to Senegal, realizing the Thread Artists’ Residency and Cultural Center in 2015 and the Fass School and Teachers’ Residence in 2019. Read our interview with the architect in full below.

Toshiko Mori speaking at Milano Arch Week

Interview AT MILANO ARCH WEEK 2023

designboom (DB): Can you please introduce your studio and the kind of work you do?

Toshiko Mori (TM): We are based in New York City. Our work is mostly institutional and public projects. We do residential projects, a few commercial, and a lot of museums, libraries, public parks and so forth. A lot of our focus is to improve the communities in the areas we reach through our work.

277 Mott Street | image courtesy of Toshiko Mori Architect

DB: What is the ethos behind Toshiko Mori Architect and what do you hope that your work achieves?

TM: We always focus on the needs of the community, and try our best to understand the uniqueness of each location in each program. We do this by becoming very good listeners. Good design means that the building is empowering to the community and can be used for a long time. Excellence in design gives communities a sense of pride, glamor, and promotes functionality. Architecture has the power to give context a style.

main gallery of Center for Maine Contemporary Art | image courtesy of Center for Maine Contemporary Art

DB: What is your work method and how do you approach your projects?

TM: We work on diverse scales. It’s very important to relate a project and work out the design specifics at numerous scales. We always start with the location, what is the context and values of the people in an area. We study the neighborhood. Then, we look at street level, building level, and once we feel ready, we zoom in and design at the personal level. We go back and forth between scales because they start to inform each other. What we find out at the neighborhood scale affects the design decisions that we make at the personal scale. Working in this way is a more organic process rather than something prescribed.

DB: What themes are you tackling here at Milano Arch Week 2023?

TM: The prompt for the presentation is ‘Around Peripheries’. I presented my work, starting with the peripheries of Manhattan Island, in areas that are not well known to have very established neighborhoods. For example in Poe Park in the Bronx, the park’s impact on the community hadn’t really been considered, it was a sort of no man’s land. We tried to improve the park by introducing public amenities. In other quieter neighborhoods we proposed a building that inspires an overall transformation, where the building’s design has an impact on other future projects. The culture in Manhattan is that transformation can be very rapid, and something that used to be a void can quickly become a cultural focal point.

Then, I explored my projects in upstate New York and Rhode Island, as well as looking at the peripheries of the United States in the State of Maine. Here, the architectural context is completely different from Manhattan. The question becomes what do you do when designing art institutions in a place that’s more famous for lobsters than architecture. 

Lastly, I talked about the global peripheries in the area of Sub-Saharan Africa, where we investigated some of the most remote and underserved communities. The question when you get an assignment to do a building in this context is how do you approach it?

Thread Artist’s Residency | image by Iwan Baan

DB: You began operating in New York City, and then you started working on projects around the entire Northeastern region of the USA, and then from there you expanded to Senegal. Can you describe how that came to be?

TM: It’s an interesting story, it kind of just happened. We didn’t seek it, but we were approached by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, who have been operating in that area for a long time. They wanted me to examine the context and look at the region from a fresh set of eyes and see what I could do to enhance the community over there.

Working on those projects was a great experience. I stayed based in New York but I traveled to Senegal many times to analyze the context, and most importantly, to meet people. As it is such a remote area, we largely relied on the skill-set and materials that were available. We designed with the locals, for example with the experts who created the thatched roofs, we needed to design with them to work out the angles that would be possible, and their opinions really informed the final design.

local sinthian workers help with construction of Thread Artist’s Residency

DB: What were the main differences between designing in the USA and designing in Sub-Saharan Africa?

TM: The main difference is that New York has so many architectural precedents, historical fabric, building codes and regulations; that I always have to work within. In Senegal, the context is quite different, there is not a lot of other architecture in the area that our designs need to fit within. In this way, I had to invent a new architectural fabric and build the context of the area. This was a big risk for me, as I wasn’t sure how the community would respond to my work. I thought maybe they won’t accept it, and what happens then? We showed them models and worked with them the entire way through the design stages to keep the community informed and on board with what we were building.

the thatched roof nearing completion

DB: What kind of projects will you be working on in the future?

TM: I’m constantly interested in working with communities, especially in places that have been historically overlooked, in places where the populace is stateless. I always try to find places where there is instability in the world, and seek a new identity. These places have incredible potential and I think we must remember that all civilizations were unstable at one point in history. Somehow, by dwelling in cities for many years we manage to stabilize ourselves, I think that it’s quite amazing that there are still so many places in the world which still need information on how to become stable, so providing that is what my practice hopes to do.

Fass School and Teachers’ Residence | image by Iwan Baan

Toshiko Mori’s purpose is to ’empower communities through architecture’ | image by Iwan Baan

project info:

studio: Toshiko Mori Architect

featured projects: Thread Artists’ Residency and Cultural Center | Fass School and Teachers’ Residence | Center for Maine Contemporary Art | 277 Mott Street

event: Milano Arch Week 2023