#02 Local Works: A Conversation | Between Scales

Alice Asafu-Adjaye and Glenn DeRoche explore how architecture shifts between scales—and how its influence reaches far beyond buildings. AFI FLAGSHIP LECTURE SERIES Local Works: A Conversation In a city where informal ingenuity meets bold urban ambition, local architectural practice is not simply a matter of geography. It is a way of listening to climate, culture, material intelligence, labour, economies and the rhythms of everyday life that no imported blueprint can fully capture. Local Works foregrounds the power of building from within. It asks how practices shaped by lived experience and a deep understanding of place can move beyond imitation towards invention, producing architecture that is resilient, expressive and unmistakably of Accra. Join us for the second conversation in the series with Alice Asafu-Adjaye and Glenn DeRoche. Between Scales Alice Asafu-Adjaye of Mustard Architects and Glenn DeRoche of DeRoche Projects draw on their built work to consider how design changes as it moves: from small pavilions to larger buildings, from confined urban sites to open landscapes, from spaces made for one person to spaces shared by many. Each shift brings its own conditions, and with them a different way of thinking about the site, the people who will use it and the decisions made along the way. Architecture is usually judged by the buildings it produces. What happens when its influence reaches well beyond them? An architectural conversation on people, place and the built environment. About the speakers Alice Asafu-Adjaye | Mustard Architects Alice Asafu-Adjaye is the founder and director of Mustard, an Accra-based architecture and design studio established in 2015. She trained at the University of Nottingham and the Bartlett, University College London, before practising for nearly two decades in the United Kingdom with Foster + Partners and Adjaye Associates. Returning to Ghana in 2012, she helped establish Adjaye Associates’ Ghana office and managed projects across Africa as Associate Director of African Projects. Her practice draws on her Asante heritage, African landscapes and everyday life, with sustainability at the heart of its residential, commercial and cultural work. Glenn DeRoche | DeRoche Projects Glenn DeRoche is a Brooklyn-born architect and designer of Caribbean descent, based between Accra and New York. He founded DeRoche Projects in 2022, bringing together traditional material systems and contemporary building methods through an approach grounded in context, craft and collaboration. A graduate of the City College of New York and the Bartlett School of Architecture, his work explores how climate, culture and resources shape the built environment. He received a 2023 Holcim Gold Award for Sustainable Construction and his practice, DeRoche Projects was nominated for the Architectural Review's Emerging Architecture Awards in 2025. 📅 Thursday, 12 November 2026 📍 AFI HQ, Osu, Accra 18h00 — Drinks at Haptic Bar, AFI HQ 18h30 — Introduction 18h45 — Lecture begins 19h30 — Q&A 19h45 — Event ends Booking is essential to secure a seat. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.