Architect and designer David Adjaye, 50, is the ultimate modern nomad. Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, he lived throughout Africa and the Middle East before his family settled in Britain.
Today, the design star has offices in New York, London and Accra, Ghana, with forthcoming projects in South Africa, Latvia and Harlem, where he’s designing the new home of the Studio Museum, expected to open in 2021.
Between long-haul flights, Adjaye shared with Alexa the specs of his globetrotting life and work.
10
The maximum number of days in a row he spends apart from his wife, Ashley Shaw-Scott. The couple have a 2-year-old son.
7
Adjaye lived in seven countries before moving, at the age of 13, to the UK: Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Egypt, Lebanon, Ghana and Saudi Arabia.
53
Adjaye visited this many African capital cities from 2000 to 2011, a journey he documented with photographs published in the book “Adjaye Africa Architecture.”
9
The number of patterns in Adjaye’s range of Knoll textiles. Each takes inspiration from a different African city.
10K
The tally of songs in his digital music library. (Adjaye was briefly a London DJ in the ’90s.) Nina Simone is usually in heavy rotation.
20
How many minutes it takes Adjaye to pack his black Porsche “Roadster” hardcase before any trip. He also never heads out without his Smythson travel wallet.
5
He’s shared five collaborations with artist Chris Ofili, including designing Ofili’s Port of Spain house in Trinidad & Tobago.
3,600
The number of bronze-coated aluminum latticework panels in the façade of his design for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened to great fanfare last September. Its three-tiered form was modeled on crowns used in West African Yoruba art.
35
The weight, in pounds, of the custom-concrete speakers Adjaye designed for New York audio company Master & Dynamic ($1,800, available April 25 at MoMa.