“It gave me focus”: Antoinette Yetunde Oni’s Graduate Showcase story

“I’m not a nature girl,” confesses Antoinette Yetunde Oni. “I don’t go camping. I am a Londoner through and through!” But from working on her Showcase project, The Honourable Harvest: A Reforestation Institute, the Central Saint Martins 2022 MArch Architecture graduate has become an expert in sustainable building practices. “I have developed a whole new appreciation for the natural world.”

The Honourable Harvest is a speculative design for a regenerative building in degraded land within a university campus in Zaria, northern Nigeria. “I imagined this land being reforested but done in such a way that materials grown on the land or produced as byproducts of agriculture can be used to build and maintain the building.” The traditional thatched roof, for example, is made with sorghum, a multi-use crop that can also be fermented and stored to feed cows during dry season. Overgrazing cattle is a major factor in deforestation and desertification in the region, leading to conflicts over land.

Each aspect of the design has been carefully considered in terms of how it can revitalise society, wildlife and ecosystems. However, it was only when Antoinette was pushed to clarify her plans before uploading the project to UAL Showcase, partway through her Master’s, that some of these choices emerged. “It was a blessing in disguise,” she remembers. “It gave me focus and forced me to pull my finger out.” After that, it was simply a case of fleshing out the details and technical specifications.

Earlier in the year curator Haja Fanta had approached Antoinette about participating in a group show at the Africa Centre in London, titled Our Story: Africa’s Climate, exploring how African artists are responding to the climate emergency. “She had only seen my more abstract collage work. With my Showcase live, I was able to show her that, which better represented the avenue I wanted to go down.”

Among the visitors attending the exhibition, which ran from November 2022 to February 2023, was King Charles, who was keen to learn more about Antoinette’s ideas. “We talked about how different invasive plant species were spread across the world during the colonial era. It was an interesting conversation,” she says. “I was able to access an audience I wouldn’t otherwise, and I had more confidence in talking about my project in public because I’d already published the images and written about it for the digital showcase.”

Since graduation, she has been busy as a design consultant for Maison/O, the platform run by LVMH and UAL, spending six months researching regenerative luxury, also returning to her old department at CSM as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. Alongside this, images from her Showcase project have been featured by Africa Futures Institute's AFI Pinpoint, a directory of built environment professionals from Africa and the African diaspora and she has made a film of The Honourable Harvest.