EcoBuildHer

The EcoBuildHer Campus is more than a vocational training center—it is a living classroom for resilience, skill, and self-determination. Designed in partnership with the Akinkanju Network Empowerment Initiative, the two-acre campus equips single mothers, widows, and vulnerable women with both sustainable construction skills and entrepreneurial training.

Every element of the design serves as both a tool and a teacher. Five trade-specific workshops, an entrepreneurship and crèche center, a self-help group training space, and a conference center are arranged to balance productivity with rest, fostering both economic opportunity and community support. Staff quarters and outdoor fabrication areas ensure the campus is as functional as it is inspiring.

Construction is woven into the curriculum—participants build the spaces they will one day teach and work within. Locally made bricks, passive cooling strategies, and climate-responsive siting make sustainability tangible and testable, turning design principles into lived experience.

The project unfolds in phases, each one informed by the lessons and feedback of the women who use it. This incremental approach allows the campus to adapt and grow while sustaining impact from the very first building.

EcoBuildHer is a signal of what’s possible when architecture is a catalyst for social transformation—rooted in local knowledge, built by its community, and designed to empower for generations.