AP Valletta’s Osu Salem Presbyterian School in Accra, Ghana, designed with David Kojo Derban has been named a winner at the Architectural Review Future Project 2025 awards. The design is a culmination of the mutli-displiciplinary project ‘Valletta Accra’, headed by AP Valletta, David Kojo Derban and Ann Dingli, as an encompassing research methodology for heritage regeneration design based on parallel observation and evidence gathering. The school has been named winner in the New and Old category, and highly commended in the award’s Overall category.
The Osu Salem Presbyterian School design is based on the findings and principles of the wider Valletta Accra study, and stands as testimony to an interdisciplinary way of making places.
“This win is important to us because it strengthens our ongoing work and research in an area we define as ‘future heritage’, by which we mean moving beyond heritage regeneration as a static, purely monumental exercise and towards the conservation of the everyday.” AP Valletta
“The Osu Salem school is a crucial part of Accra’s built and social history. It once stood as a model of pedagogy, becoming the prototype for education in Ghana. We hope this award will increase awareness around the importance of saving it.” David Kojo Derban
“This win gives legitimacy to our belief that making architecture is not a singular practice or process. This was a fully research-driven design, backed by first-hand learnings that were gathered on site within the heritage contexts. It purposefully moves away from ‘foreign’, didactic design and insists on a collaborative method.” Ann Dingli
Once a mainstay of the historically marginalised Osu community in Accra, the Osu Salem Presbyterian School now lies vacant and decaying. The re-imagining of this 19th-century building will incorporate new uses, initially through a programme of repair of the original two-storey structure. The partially collapsed pitched roof has been compromised by rainwater, weakening the adobe infill walls and damaging the timber framework. The restoration will enable the introduction of new flexible spaces, including a multipurpose hall, library, archive and hall of fame honouring the school’s prominent alumni. The remodelling aims to set wider precedents for restoring and reusing heritage structures across Accra. The project’s success will be contingent on its capacity to encapsulate and express the cultural life of the Osu community.
Judges’ comments
‘The strategy of remodelling the structure learns from the existing historic building.’ Loreta Castro Reguera
‘Reusing what is already there reconnects the building with its history and forms an armature for new activities.’ Joseph Grima
‘The project could act as an exemplar for restoring and reusing historic structures across Accra.’ Indy Johar
AR Future Project awards 2025 Winners Press Release
Catalogue_AR Future Projects Award