Architectural Cases

DeRoche Projects has initiated the development of the Backyard Community Garden in Osu, Accra, Ghana, marking a significant milestone as the second phase of the extensive Backyard Urban Campus. This project transcends the conventional notion of a singular, isolated urban destination. Instead, its masterplan strategically disperses structures, green spaces, and communal zones throughout the neighborhood, all seamlessly connected by pedestrian-friendly pathways. Following the successful establishment of the Backyard Community Club, this new garden expands upon its foundational principles, offering a fresh perspective on contemporary civic spaces. It diverges from imported urban park models, drawing inspiration instead from the enduring traditions of public space utilization throughout West Africa.

In this innovative design, manicured lawns and purely ornamental flora are intentionally omitted. The landscape is thoughtfully structured to facilitate communal gatherings, agricultural cultivation, recreational activities, food production, and informal social interactions. The design ethos is deeply rooted in environments where vegetation has historically served multifaceted roles, providing shade, medicinal resources, and sustenance, alongside fostering vibrant social connections. Gardens within the campus feature species integral to Ghanaian cuisine and traditional healing practices, complementing areas dedicated to leisure, reflection, and learning. Significantly, the produce cultivated on-site will directly supply the café's seasonal menu, thereby embedding cultivation not merely as a visual element but as an essential component of the daily civic infrastructure.

The organizational framework of the garden draws inspiration from traditional West African agricultural planning, where grid systems have historically governed cultivation, irrigation, and shared land access. DeRoche Projects applies this logic not as a mere aesthetic replication, but as a guiding principle for spatial organization. Planting beds, walkways, and gathering areas are meticulously arranged within a flexible framework, designed to adapt and evolve as the vegetation matures and community needs shift. Visitors commence their journey near a support building, then proceed downwards towards a sunken garden and a six-meter high water feature, before navigating through shaded zones that incorporate built-in seating and spaces for traditional games like Oware. The sequence culminates with educational planting zones, dedicated children's play areas, and a welcoming café pavilion.

Three distinct, modest structures—the café pavilion, the ancillary building, and a water feature that also provides shade—are strategically positioned across the site. This approach ensures that the architecture serves to complement and enhance the garden's functionality, rather than overshadowing it. The café's enclosed area is deliberately kept compact, with its primary social presence extending to a spacious veranda. This veranda is thoughtfully designed, reflecting the prevalence of outdoor living spaces in West African communal life. Far from being restricted to a single rigid purpose, this adaptable threshold is envisioned to host a diverse array of activities, from serving as a casual dining area for café patrons to accommodating workshops, yoga sessions, community meetings, or spontaneous social gatherings. This design philosophy underscores the intention that the landscape itself remains the central focus and primary attraction.

The material palette of the project extends the research and practices established during the construction of the Backyard Community Club. DeRoche Projects is actively refining stabilized rammed earth formulations, specifically aiming to reduce reliance on Portland cement by incorporating locally sourced lime and pozzolanic ash. This exploration seeks to demonstrate how an ancient construction method, deeply rooted in West African heritage, can be revitalized as a contemporary, enduring, and low-carbon building system. This methodology intentionally bridges material innovation with the utilization of local resources, labor, and indigenous building knowledge, moving beyond a nostalgic interpretation of earth construction towards a functional and sustainable future.

This forward-thinking approach extends even to the ground beneath one's feet. Rather than opting for imported paving materials or an aesthetically driven lawn, the garden utilizes crushed palm kernel shells. This agricultural byproduct was chosen for its ability to create a permeable surface, ensuring accessibility even during Ghana's rainy seasons, while simultaneously preserving the tactile sensation of an earthen landscape. Beneath this surface, a network of pipes collects rainwater for irrigation, ingeniously integrating the ground itself into the garden's maintenance system. Slated for completion in 2027, the Backyard Community Garden represents a subtle yet profound reinterpretation of the conventional urban park concept. Instead of merely inviting individuals to admire the landscape from a distance, it actively encourages deeper engagement and interaction, offering a wealth of opportunities for participation and connection.

Do Ho Suh's distinctive fabric houses reinterpret the concept of architecture through the lens of memory, transforming rigid structures into fluid, translucent forms. Across various personal spaces, including apartments, corridors, and entire residences, the artist meticulously recreates his former dwellings using sheer polyester stretched over delicate steel frames. Each detail, from light switches to door handles, is precisely measured and stitched, resulting in installations that embody the scale and logic of buildings yet possess an uncanny lightness, as if solid architecture has shed its materiality to become suspended memories.

These semi-transparent walls evoke a sense of both presence and evanescence, defining rooms while simultaneously dissolving into ambient light. Pathways within these structures feel intimately familiar, yet distinct from any specific place, guiding visitors through a landscape of recollections rather than concrete blueprints. Initially, Suh's creations appear deeply personal, chronicling his own transitions from Seoul to New York and London. However, as one moves through these spaces, they transcend individual experience, inviting viewers to discover echoes of their own life narratives and migratory journeys within the shared fabric of these imagined homes.

Suh's art challenges the long-held architectural ideal of permanence, suggesting that continuity, rather than immobility, may be the true essence of dwelling. Unlike traditional buildings designed to endure, his fabric houses can be disassembled, transported, and reassembled, defying monumentalism without sacrificing a sense of belonging. This approach harks back to theories, such as Gottfried Semper's, which posit that architecture originated from textiles—woven surfaces creating the first enclosures. By transforming buildings into skin-like structures, Suh reclaims this forgotten origin, making architecture a palpable atmosphere rather than a static object. The exquisite precision in replicating everyday elements, like electrical outlets and window casings, underscores the significance of these small, tangible details in shaping our memory and experience of a home. Such elements, often overlooked, are precisely what linger in our minds long after exact dimensions fade.

The increasing mobility of contemporary life further amplifies the resonance of Suh's work, which redefines home not as a fixed address but as a constellation of routines, places, and people accumulated through movement and memory. In his installations, spaces inhabited across different continents and periods merge, with corridors connecting distant homes and familiar architectural features recurring in new configurations. His art reveals that home is never truly left behind; it persists in the body's ingrained rhythms—the muscle memory of climbing a staircase or reaching for a light switch in a place it no longer exists. By making these invisible gestures visible, Suh's fabric houses articulate that what travels with us is not merely memory, but a profound way of experiencing and inhabiting the world. In an era where lives are increasingly shaped by movement, perhaps architecture, too, is redefined by these indelible traces that refuse to fade into the past.