NLÉ Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Lagos, Nigeria Urban Trend: Resilience African Cities Water Project, 2013 Length: 7 min., 5 sec. Learn more about Resilience on 100urbantrends.org:http://www.bmwguggenheimlab.org/100urbantrends/?v=2#!/new-york-city/69 This video was commissioned as part of Participatory City: 100 Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab, on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from October 11, 2013 - Jan 5, 2014. Learn more at http://www.guggenheim.org/100urbantrends. Bio: NLÉ (nleworks.com) is an architecture, design, and urbanism practice focused on developing cities. One of the 21st century's dominant and unstoppable trends is urbanization. The outcome is a growing number of megacities worldwide, all of which face similar challenges. Within this context, just as Silicon Valley acts as the home for new technologies, it is the cities of the developing world that will generate responsible solutions for the larger world. NLÉ seeks to reveal these solutions and apply them to shaping the physical, human, and commercial structures that are critical to the near future of human civilization. The firm's activities encompass city development research and strategy advisory service, conceptualization and creative structuring, architecture and product design, infrastructure design, and arts and cultural urban interventions. NLÉ currently runs its operations from Amsterdam and Lagos. Kunlé Adeyemi is an architect, urbanist, and designer. Born and raised in Nigeria, Adeyemi joined Rem Koolhaas at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in 2002. At OMA, he led the design and execution of several large projects in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. These include the Shenzhen Stock Exchange tower in China, the Qatar National Library in Doha, and Prada Transformer in Seoul. He founded NLÉ in 2010, after which he created the Makoko Floating School, an innovative prototype of a floating structure located on the lagoon in the heart of Nigeria's largest city. Adeyemi is currently one of five members of the International Advisory Council for the World Design Capital 2014, being hosted by Cape Town, South Africa. Adeyemi also regularly lectures at institutions worldwide, including Harvard, MIT, and Princeton, and as a part of Milan Design Week. Statement: The impact of rapid urban and economic growth in Africa is now common knowledge, yet it cannot be overemphasized. At the same time, the effects of global climate change in Africa are now a daily reality. The African Cities Water Project (2013) outlines a proposal that aims to plug the gap in knowledge and understanding about the challenges and opportunities represented by the diverse characteristics of Africa's formal and informal urban and rural waterfront settlements. The overall goal is to create innovative, sustainable, urban solutions developing greater capacities for resilience at the intersection of climate change and urbanization, in Africa and beyond.

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