Sekou Cooke is an American-Jamaican architect, author and educator, and is associated with the style of Hip-hop architecture. He is the Director of the Master in Urban Design program at

UNC Charlotte The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte or simply Charlotte) is a public research university in Charlotte, North Carolina. UNC Charlotte offers 24 doctoral, 66 master's, and 79 bachelor's degree programs through nine colle ...

and principal of Sekou Cooke Studio. Cooke is one of the founding members of the

Black Reconstruction Collective The Black Reconstruction Collective (BRC) is an American architecture collective. The BRC was formed by participants in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) ''Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America'' project which was exhibited in the ...

Experience

Cooke was born and raised in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

and received a B.Arch from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

and a Master of Architecture degree from

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...

. He is a licensed architect in the State of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. Prior to his tenure at

he was an Assistant Professor of Architecture at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

Awards

Cooke received a Faculty Design Award in 2020 by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and a Graham Foundation Award in 2018 for his project 'Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture'. He is the recipient of the 2017 Architectural League Prize. In 2021 he was named the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute fellow. The fellowship is awarded by the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Work

Cooke is the author of the book Hip-Hop Architecture''' published by

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

in 2021. His book references the impact of hip-hop culture on the discipline of architecture and the built environment. The content formalizes a close reading of existing and historic design paradigms within creative fields and its impact on underrepresented and black communities. His body of work was shown during a solo exhibition at the

Center for Architecture The Center for Architecture is located in the neighborhood of Greenwich Village at 536 LaGuardia Place, between West 3rd Street and Bleecker Street in Manhattan, New York City. The center was designed by architect Andrew Berman and completed i ...

in New York in 2018. Cooke's selected work is part of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York and was included in the 2021 'Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America' exhibition alongside

Walter Hood Walter J. Hood (born 1958, Charlotte, NC) is an American professor and former chair of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and principal of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. In 2019, Hood was awarded the MacA ...

Germane Barnes Germane Barnes is an American architect, designer and an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Miami in Florida. Barnes was a 2021 recipient of the Rome Prize in Architecture. Early life and education Barnes was born and raise ...

, V.Mitch McEwen, Emanuel Admassu and others. It was the first exhibition in the history of

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

featuring only African-American designers, artists and architects. His project '''We Outchea: Hip Hop Fabrications and Public Space','' examined and highlighted the historic demolition of African-American communities by former city planners of

Syracuse, NY Syracuse ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Rochester. At the 2020 census, the city's p ...

. In 2020, Cooke was invited alongside

Refik Anadol Refik Anadol (born 1985) is a Turkish-American new media artist and designer. His projects consist of data-driven machine learning algorithms that create abstract, dream-like environments. He lives and works in Los Angeles. Early life and educati ...

and Rael San Fratello to envision a memorial for the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

pandemic. Cooke's proposal named Unmonument''' was a theoretical approach shifting the notion of a static monument toward the application of in-flux processes instead. In 2021, he was part of a new pilot program created by the

City of Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

to design Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU). Initiated by L.A. mayor

Eric Garcetti Eric Michael Garcetti (born February 4, 1971) is an American politician who served as the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles from 2013 until 2022. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was first elected in the 2013 Los An ...

, the program asked a group of selected architects to envision and design housing units to tackle the cities rising needs for affordable housing while enhancing the city's architectural design ambitions.

Opinions

Cooke had noted Mike Ford claims the origins of Hip-hop architecture lay with both

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

and

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...

, Cooke himself attributes the public works in New York City by Moses were by far the most important foundation.Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooke, Sekou Cornell University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni University of North Carolina at Charlotte faculty Syracuse University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Hip-hop architecture