Chicoco Radio is a floating media platform that will be built with and for the residents of the waterfront slum communities of Port Harcourt in Nigeria. The structure is conceived as a linear public space connecting land and water. The design is part of the “African Water Cities” project, which investigates the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of rapid urbanization and climate change in African coastal cities. A participatory venture using locally produced materials, Chicoco Radio will be the community’s voice and will include recording studios, a computer center, meeting rooms, cinema, and an amphitheater.

Chicoco Radio is part of NLÉ’s African Water Cities project, which investigates the challenges and opportunities at the intersections of rapid urbanization and climate change in African coastal cities and waterfront communities. Following our first urban prototype Makoko Floating School, which has received significant international appreciation, Chicoco Radio is the second prototype of NLÉ’s ongoing urban project.

The simple yet innovative structure adheres to standards of sustainable development. It is designed to use renewable solar energy, to manage organic waste, and to harvest rainwater. The radio broadcast mast is an integrated architectural component raising the structure like a bridge: launching one end of the building into the water, suspending the other in the air, making it invulnerable to the increasing problems of urban flooding.

The concept and design development stages have been closely guided by the local communities: we have involved hundreds of residents in design workshops, focus groups and discussions, providing valuable insights to this solution, which carefully addresses their challenges and strongly reflects their collective aspirations. Chicoco Radio will be built, owned, operated, and maintained by the waterfront communities.

As a “bridge to transformation”, the amphibious nature of the building offers a reconnection between the communities’ life on land today, their historic past, and their potential lives on water in the future.

The building will be used not only as a radio station, but also for a variety of cultural, social, commercial, recreational, and educational activities. Local residents saw the water-based, cantilevered structure as unique in the region if not the entire country, and likely to inspire tourism and economic development as well as more positive opinions of the waterfronts. The project has had an educative impact on the local community introducing the element of design advocacy and seeks to illustrate the social and environmental value of public space. Furthermore, the community will be fully-equipped to replicate and further adapt the design of the building to best meet their own needs.

One of the most powerful outcomes of NLÉ’s projects is that they provide infrastructural solutions for sustainable urban development that could be replicated (not just by their forms, but their methodologies as well) within impoverished rural communities, yet adaptable for urban areas around the world.