Driving into Lagos along the Third Mainland Bridge, the city greets us with a sky as thick as coal-slurry and a soundtrack as soulful as Fela Kuti. Pedestrians slowly criss-cross the eight lanes as we drive, while could-be Area Boys transform the beds of pickup trucks into mobile azonto dance-floors.
Halfway across we turn and spot the Makoko Floating School rising like a beacon out of the murky Lagos Lagoon. It is December 2013, and this is our first glimpse of the inspiring triangular timber structure – only three storeys high, yet commanding the attention of all who travel across the longest bridge in Africa.
We are travelling to meet Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi, the founder and principal of NLÉ Works who, in collaboration with the Makoko Waterfront Community, conceived, designed and built the floating school. Makoko, Nigeria’s oldest slum, is home to a population of roughly 80,000 residents who, over the centuries, have banded together to create an informal but fully working city-on-stilts at the edge of the lagoon.
