Apply Now: MASS Relaunches African Design Centre Fellowship 2025 for Emerging African Architects and Designers
MASS Relaunches African Design Centre Fellowship to Empower the Next Generation of African Design Leaders
The African Design Centre (ADC), a program of MASS Design Group, has formally relaunched its prestigious African Design Centre Fellowship. With renewed help from the Mellon Foundation and the Cravens Foundation, the ADC Fellowship is now accepting functions from built-environment professionals throughout the African continent. This twelve-month, hands-on residency program relies in Kigali, Rwanda, and goals to coach, mentor, and help rising African designers dedicated to socially and environmentally accountable design.
About the African Design Centre at MASS
The African Design Centre at MASS is devoted to remodeling insights from architectural tasks into sustained actions for change. With a mission to advance Africa’s distinctive architectural legacy, the Centre operates by way of three interconnected workstreams:
- Research: Examining how spatial and design failures contribute to inequality in well being, training, financial improvement, and local weather resilience. The analysis identifies how localized, design-based options can enact significant change.
- Catalyst Projects: Implementing high-impact, scalable pilot tasks—starting from maternal well being clinics to instructional campuses—that showcase community-centered design as an answer to Africa’s most urgent points.
- Systems Change: Training and mentoring the subsequent era of African design leaders by way of the ADC Fellowship and associated mentorship applications.
About the ADC Fellowship
The African Design Centre Fellowship is a 12-month paid residency in Kigali, Rwanda, designed for nationals of African nations. It empowers Fellows to create culturally grounded, community-driven options to infrastructure challenges, whereas preserving Africa’s architectural heritage.
This Fellowship is especially targeted on three thematic areas:
- Maternal & Newborn Health: Designing dignified, health-promoting areas that help care, resilience, and well-being from beginning onward.
- Expanding Opportunities: Creating areas that domesticate innovation, expertise improvement, and native enterprise to advertise social and financial development.
- Building a Climate-Positive Future: Redefining improvement by way of ecologically accountable design, enabling individuals and nature to thrive collectively.
Fellowship Objectives and Activities
ADC Fellows will interact within the following:
- Conduct Research: Deep-dive into African architectural traditions, indigenous information methods, and city improvement patterns.
- Pilot Projects: Participate in community-driven design tasks aligned with the fellowship’s core themes.
- Disseminate Knowledge: Publish reflections and findings that contribute to international and native discourse on design and improvement.
Fellows will obtain:
- Support from MASS Design Group employees.
- Mentorship from skilled professionals in design and structure.
- Relocation help and a aggressive stipend for the period of the Kigali residency.
Following the 12-month residency, Fellows will proceed their engagement by way of a year-long distant mentorship and network-building program, together with potential funding for impartial analysis.
Eligibility Criteria
To apply, candidates should meet the next necessities:
- Be a nationwide of an African nation and 35 years outdated or youthful.
- Hold a diploma in structure, city design, panorama structure, engineering, or a associated discipline.
- Be a built-environment skilled with a portfolio of related work.
- Be accessible to relocate to Kigali, Rwanda for the complete in-person fellowship interval from September 2025 to August 2026.
Fellowship Timeline
- In-Person Fellowship & Residency in Kigali: September 2025 – August 2026
- Ongoing Fellowship Network & Mentorship: September 2026 – August 2027
Application Process
The application includes a three-stage course of:
-
Stage 1: Expression of Interest
Submit your resume/CV, references, portfolio, and an announcement of alignment with the ADC Fellowship targets. -
Stage 2: Pre-Fellowship Essays & Availability Confirmation
Shortlisted candidates might be invited to submit essays and affirm their means to take part totally. -
Stage 3: Interviews
Final candidates will take part in interviews to find out suitability and alignment with this system’s mission.
How to Apply
Interested candidates ought to full the net application type. Eligible candidates might be required to submit the next paperwork:
- Resume or CV
- Professional references
- Project portfolio
- Statement of alignment with ADC Fellowship themes
Deadline: July 13, 2025
Conclusion
The African Design Centre Fellowship represents a transformative alternative for African designers to contribute meaningfully to the continent’s improvement by way of culturally related and community-centered design. With its give attention to well being, alternative, and local weather resilience, the ADC Fellowship is poised to form the way forward for African structure from the bottom up.
For extra Opportunities please go to the Opportunities For Youth‘s web site!
Apply Now: MASS Relaunches African Design Centre Fellowship 2025 for Emerging African Architects and Designers
