Expectations as architects gather professionals to discuss city of Lagos

Expectations are high as architects gather housing industry professionals and thought-leaders to discuss the city of Lagos at this year’s edition of their annual forum.

The forum, tagged Lagos Architects Forum (LAF), is the largest gathering of housing sector professionals and products end users organized by the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA), Lagos Chapter, now in its 13th edition (13.0).

This year’s edition, according to David Majekodunmi, the chairman of the chapter, will be taking a hard look at the city of Lagos with a view to answering the questions, What is Lagos; Where will Lagos be in the next 25 years?

Majekodunmi who spoke at a press conference to announce the date and venue of the forum already slated for May 4—7, 2022 at Eko Hotel and Suites, noted that what was called urban centres in Lagos are now fast turning into slums and that should be the concern of built environment professionals.

“Forums like LAF provide opportunity for professionals in the built environment to come together, do consultations, promote enabling laws, especially the national building code, and prevent incidents such as building collapse,” the chairman said.

It is expected therefore that the forum would discuss and proffer solutions to the challenges in Lagos as a city and one of these, the chairman pointed out, is the high influx of people into Lagos and its social implications especially in the area of housing.

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Abimbola Ajayi, former chairman of the chapter and an Ex-officio member, explained that LAF, as a programme, was launched in order to make the chapter sustainable and also to empower and sustain the professionals.

“Part of the objectives of LAF is also to do advocacy for government; to take care of the chapter and professionalism; it is also aimed to make the chapter self-sufficient and sustainable,” Ajayi added, recalling that the chapter had done many things with the state government , just as it has grown in leaps and bounds.

This year’s edition, according to Abiodun Fatuyi, the vice chairman, has many industry players as partners and these include manufacturers, products suppliers, professional bodies such as Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), etc.

The three-day event, he said, would be preceded by an awareness walk during which they would be interacting with as many people as possible on the streets, telling them who the architects are and what they could do together that could be mutually beneficial.

“As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), we educate the public on the need to engage professionals, especially architects, for their building needs. That way, we hope, we are discouraging the use of quacks which leads to building and construction failures,” Fatuyi said.