Novembre 2025
The 2026 Architecture Week in Bata has come to a close, leaving behind a profound collective reflection on the urban future of Equatorial Guinea.
For the first time in history, more than 50% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and the country is no exception to this global trend. In recent years, the migration from rural to urban areas has driven accelerated growth in the nation’s main cities, profoundly transforming their social, cultural, and spatial dynamics.
Amidst this shifting context, Architecture Week invited us to consider a fundamental question: how should we conceive and design architecture within an evolving African urban environment, one that reflects the unique and diverse characteristics of Equatoguinean society?
The transition from single-family houses to multi-storey residential blocks —and from village to city life— shaped the thematic core of this edition. This transition represents not only a change in the physical environment we inhabit but also in the ways families, communities, and cultural practices are organised.
With this premise in mind, the week focused on collective housing as a starting point for envisioning and shaping the contemporary city. Through lectures, workshops, and participatory sessions, we explored the essential principles needed to design multi-storey housing—principles that must address not only architectural functionality but also the diverse and distinctive socio-cultural needs that define Equatorial Guinea today.
This third edition of Architecture Week thus became a platform for critical and creative engagement, prompting us to rethink how collective housing can become an integrative, sustainable, and contextually grounded space aligned with the country’s current dynamics.