Icons with Tosin Oshinowo

Beyond the Lines: Defeating Social Creative Biases and Closing the Gender Gap in African Design

The Icons series is a talk shop that presents emerging designers and enthusiasts with an opportunity to learn from industry experts, the values and impacts of design and how to overcome the challenges that are prevalent in the African Design Industry.

In our first series, we had Tosin Oshinowo– brilliant architect, product designer, and lover of lines. Tosin Oshinowo is the architect behind the design and execution of the Maryland mall and founder of the Aso-Oke inspired lifestyle furniture brand, Ile Ila (House of Lines). Tosin’s design is as fluid in identity as it is in practice. While her architecture is usually an afrominimalist blend of clean geometric lines and mute colors, her furniture is an exciting blend of bright colors and homely contours.

Tosin Oshinowo holds a Master’s degree in Urban Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. She also studied architecture at the Architecture Association London. Since 2012, Tosin has been Lead-Architect at Lagos-based practice, cmDesign Atelier (cmD+A). She was a part of the team that designed a proposal for the 4th Mainland Bridge in 2008 and has acted as team-lead on projects such as the master plan and corporate head office building for Nigeria LNG in Port Harcourt.

Tosin has continually flourished in an environment that is fraught with challenges borne out of gender, environmental and socio-economic constraints. Despite this, she has been true to her design philosophy and personal identity, therefore, we consider her an icon.