COMMUNITY
RECONSIDERED

The Osu Community + Neighborhood

  • The best way to renew and improve Osu, or the larger metropolitan Accra is from within. Ako Adjei understood this when, in 1966, after his release from prison, he forswore politics and devoted himself to renewing his family and legal life. From his home on Otswe Street, in the heart of Osu, Ako Adjei reorganized his professional life, starting with his private chambers, the Teianshi Chambers, which led him to play a pivotal role in the curation of the Third Republic of Ghana's Independence.

    The Ako Adjei Park site is a key site in the implementation to recognize Ako Adjei’s vision and importance to Ghana. Secondly the site’s symbolism as a community space will demonstrate how community is both enhanced and preserved.

  • The future of Osu and Accra rests not only on the creation of homes - but on the creation of opportunity. This belies the concept of creating Hubs + Homes, whereas the Hub is the nexus of creative and coordinated efforts to support education, economic activity, and sustainable practices that lead to healthy and prosperous living. This is Community Reconsidered.

  • Conceptually the creation of a housing supply chain has broader application than any singular one design of home or development. The strategy employed here is regional in scope and scale, potentially impacting the Accra Metropolitan Area and beyond.

The Key Components of Community

HOUSING
The essential anchor, providing community, security, health and well being, and cultural cohesion.

SOCIAL
A hub of social and cultural condensers to spur community cohesion.

EDUCATION
An exchange of information and knowledge necessary to support local and regional economic and cultural production.

ECOLOGY
A ecological balance struck between living, cultural and economic production, and their supportive infrastructure— energy, water, waste and natural resources. 

ECONOMY
A hub of economic activity and Innovation fueled by proximities to talent, creativity, technology, and financial resources.

HEALTH
A communal platform aimed at supporting and improving the broad range of social and spatial determinants of health and their related outcomes.

Shared Values

Community is often created by shared values. However, for those values to take root and grow, a basic infrastructure must exist. We contend that basic infrastructure is housing. Ghanaian history and progress exhibit a cultural and social cohesion that overcomes many of the social, economic and infrastructural urban challenges facing Accra. Supply and access to reconsidered and repurposed resources is what will advance new models of development. Thinking holistically and toward community driven circular economies, new and existing Accra communities using community reconsidered principles can foster local hubs of renewed activity and economic and cultural production.   

Shared values are ultimately elements that give rise to communities, and the best way for such values to stand the test of time is through their association with basic infrastructure: housing, in this instance. One shared value at the core of our AAP communities is locally derived from the spatial organization of a typical ghanaian compound house.

A Culturally specific Community

The spatial organization of these new communities borrows heavily from locally derived Compound House. The compound house’s informal court or compound organization, loosely organized by independent and connected structures, contributes greatly to the function of the communities within. This concept is grounded in an understanding of close interpersonal and intergenerational relations that extends this history and the working knowledge of shared purpose and space. The organizational models of the new scalable communal hubs offer a similar and yet tangible approach to shared multi use space. It does so by allowing locally conceived groups of programs to complement the living aspects of the hub ensuring defined community needs have priority placement within the development. 

Local infrastructure and ecologies, such as water, power, environment and waste management are introduced on site to advance concepts of community led circular economies, self-determination and management.  The concept extends Impact Hub Accra’s and other entrepreneurial and innovation sectors abilities to provide intermediary services to the hubs while generating new markets of economic opportunity. The newly generated economic activity would provide tax revenue to enhance further infrastructure and environmental improvements already underway.