Sankofa Docks: a Pop-up Vision for Liverpool’s Maritime Waterfront Contest

Together with a multi-disciplinary design team, JA Projects and BIG have delivered Sankofa Docks, a pop-up installation that demonstrates our approach to the transformation of Liverpool’s waterfront.

The temporary structure was conceived and delivered as part of the National Museums of Liverpool’s (NML) Waterfront Transformation competition, which is tasked with finding a diverse and highly-skilled design team to redesign the public realm that borders the Museum of Liverpool, the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum.

The site sits at the heart of Liverpool’s UNESCO World Heritage Site and includes the Canning Graving Docks, which in the past fitted out, cleaned, and repaired ships used in the transatlantic slave trade. Sankofa Docks is an architectural essay that unpacks Liverpool’s history and asks what a contemporary memorial to international slavery could and should be.

The purpose of the Waterfront installations in Stage 2 of the competition was to showcase the shortlisted teams’ ingenuity in design as well as explore their ability to engage with the client, stakeholders and the local community. As such, we delivered a structure that was collaboratively produced and activated with different local communities.

Full Team

BIG and JA Projects: with Peter Adjaye; CAVA Institute; Beyond the Box; Poor Collective; Futurecity; LDA Design; AKT II; Hilson Moran; Gardiner & Theobald

Working alongside Capoeira for All, Scouse Flower House, Josh Ramsden, Richard Scott and Polly Moseley

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Read the full Architects Journal article here.