Located in the sought-after Victoria Island area, Oshinowo Studio won the project following a design competition held by ONL Estates with a brief to draw together Nigerian art, culture, and aesthetics with the global brand’s style and personality. Oshinowo Studio’s design draws inspiration from Lagos itself, the home of urban culture in Nigeria and a global centre of creativity. The two-floor, 380 square metre project is a retrofit of an existing 1970s building and is conceived as a combination of clean lines overlaid with a façade that adds a layered texture, reflecting the depth and complexity of the upcycling, reuse, and regeneration that can be found throughout the city.
The project reimagines the dilapidated 1970s residential building remodelled in the 1990s for use as a commercial bank and now a vibrant and functional commercial space. Situated on a plot of approximately 800m² at the strategic intersection of Akin Adesola and Sanusi Fafunwa Streets in Victoria Island, the site is surrounded by 2 to 4-storey commercial and mixed-use buildings. Its location along a busy thoroughfare, lined with automobile showrooms as well as commercial, food, and beverage businesses, ensures high visibility throughout the week and weekends. Although the existing structure had fallen into disrepair and was no longer fit for purpose, this transformation embraces Lagos’s ethos of upcycling and regeneration, turning the once-defunct building into a lively and functional space.
The process involved stripping away the deteriorated glass façade and roof while preserving the original structure of the building. A lightweight extension was added, providing an additional 145 sqm of new retail space, along with the integration of two repurposed shipping containers, which contributed a further 95 sqm for stock room storage. To unify the old and new structures, a solid and perforated corrugated aluminium façade was introduced, creating a building with striking monolithic simplicity. This approach not only maximised the use of the existing footprint but also aligned with sustainable practices by breathing new life into the existing building.
Constructed using a combination of solid and perforated corrugated aluminium sheets traditionally used as roofing in Lagos’s mass housing projects, the striking façade also features LED linear lighting to illuminate the ridged surface, creating a dynamic and unexpected visual effect. In this way, simple and functional materials are elevated to create an optical illusion in which the level of transparency depends on the viewer’s distance from the building. This ingenious façade configuration means that the store has a visible shop window, as well as ample natural sunlight that is sufficiently diffuse to prevent the interior from overheating.
In addition to the aluminium-clad façade, Oshinowo Studio’s approach involved adding a steel frame and glass extension, a solar power system, a sewage treatment plant with capacity for the reuse of waste water as irrigation, and an advanced air conditioning system. Existing 25-year-old Roystonea regia trees have been retained, alongside the installation of a new basketball half-court and stage for entertainment, which present opportunities for customer events and activations. The project also represents an opportunity for adidas, which also carried out the interior design and fit-out of the store, to collaborate with contemporary Nigerian artists Osa Okunkpolor and Ayoola Gbolahan.
Tosin Oshinowo, Founder, Oshinowo Studio, said: “Our design is inspired by the city’s resilient, adaptable, and go-getter resolve, building a place of convergence for sports and culture.”
