Heat and Resilience | Francis Kéré
Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Francis Kéré joins architect Daina Cunningham and local students for a collective conversation on climate-adaptive schools.
Francis Kéré is known for his work on creating civic buildings that respond to heat, place and community. Through the Kéré Foundation, he uses local materials, cultural traditions and environmental conditions to create resilient and sustainable architecture. In this session, students from the Lang Walker Family Academy’s 50ºC: Climate, Heat and Resilience program will lead a conversation with Kéré about how sustainable design can create schools that are comfortable places to learn, work and play.
Francis Kéré is participating in Sydney Design Week 2025 at the invitation of The Glenn Murcutt Architecture Foundation.
Featuring:
Francis Kéré
Francis Kéré is a Burkinabé-German architect and the first African-born laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, honoured in 2022 for projects such as the Gando Primary School and Lycée Schorge in Burkina Faso. His practice pairs participatory design with local materials to create climate-adaptive schools, civic buildings and gathering places. Landmark projects include the Startup Lions Campus on Lake Turkana, Kenya, the Benin National Assembly in Porto-Novo, the Xylem pavilion at Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, the Opera Village cultural complex near Ouagadougou and the Serpentine Pavilion 2017 in London.
Daina Cunningham
Daina Cunningham is co-founder of Incidental Architecture. Her recent projects include the award-winning Nungalinya project in Darwin, which includes accommodation units designed for use by Indigenous students from remote communities. The units respond directly to Darwin's tropical environment and feature elevated central breezeways and deep eaves to take advantage of natural cooling breezes.
Lang Walker Family Academy
Lang Walker Family Academy’s 50ºC: Climate, Heat and Resilience program engaged over 1000 Western Sydney high school students at the start of 2025 to participate in a 10-week program that combined science, design and local data to tackle the challenges of urban heat. The Lang Walker Family Academy supports immersive STEM programs for local students
