We draw it,
then we build it.

Design that has to survive being built

In most of the industry the architect draws, somebody else prices it, somebody else builds it, and the gap between those three is where projects go wrong. The drawing turns out to cost twice what anyone said. A detail that looked elegant on paper cannot be made by the people available to make it. The client discovers all of this halfway through.

Inkline is set up so that gap does not exist. We design buildings, we develop them, and we build them — sometimes all three on the same project, with our own money in the ground. Our own development at Folly Townhouse in Anthony is one we drew, costed, funded and are currently constructing.

The discipline that imposes is the point. When you will also be the one buying the materials and standing on the site, you stop drawing things that cannot be delivered. It makes for quieter architecture and considerably fewer surprises.

Designed for this climate

A great deal of what gets built in Lagos is imported wholesale from somewhere colder — sealed glass boxes that cannot be cooled without running generators all day, flat details that fail in the first serious rain, materials chosen from a catalogue rather than from what the ground here actually provides.

Our work goes the other way. Deep overhangs and shaded recesses rather than applied decoration. Cross-ventilation planned before air conditioning is specified. Pitched roofs that shed a downpour instead of holding it. Laterite, timber and concrete used honestly. None of that is nostalgia — it is the cheapest running cost a building can have, and it lasts.

Four things, one practice

Architecture. Houses, churches, commercial buildings, student accommodation and prototypes — from first sketch through approvals to construction drawings.

Real estate development. Our own schemes, from site acquisition through design, funding, construction and sale.

Interior design. Homes, restaurants, short-let properties and commercial kitchens, in Lagos and London.

Infrastructure and urban design. Masterplanning, public markets, civic plazas and public realm.

Behind all four sits IKINI, our furniture and joinery arm. Kitchens, wardrobes, media walls and loose furniture are drawn by us and made in our own workshop in Yaba, which is why the joinery in our interiors fits the room it was designed for.