Juliet Sakyi-Ansah experiments with architecture as a tool for driving social and environmental change using collaborative and participatory approaches. For over twenty years, she has dedicated her academic endeavours and socially engaged practice to impact in industry, academia and communities . Invested in the potential of collective action, her explorations centre on people and place identity and how these manifest in the practice, process, and production of architecture and the built environment.

In 2009, Juliet co-conceived and co-organised the Sheffield School of Architecture's student-led theory forum on Ecology. In 2012, she organised the international conference on The Production of Place for the University of East London. In 2013, she founded The Architects' Project in Accra, an autonomous initiative dedicated to amplifying and empowering its international community of multidisciplinary changemakers and forward-thinkers towards equitable, resilient, and sustainable futures. She activated its most potent platform, /tap Exchange, to foster dialogue on pressing social and environmental issues and the practice of architecture. Significant topics included Remaking Agbogbloshie with Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (2014), Tapping Local Resources for Sustainable Development with the Architects Registration Council of Ghana (2014), Transcultural Praxis with London Metropolitan University (2015), and From Memory Comes Place with The Africa Centre in London (2017).

In 2019, Juliet launched Narratives publication in London. She founded the change initiative Black in Architecture in 2020, collaborating with Oxford Brookes University's Place, Culture, and Identity research group on Race in Architectural Education: Decolonising the Curriculum (2021). As a Time Rebel at CoLab Dudley in 2021, Juliet experimented with the concept of Learn/Play in Dudley. And in 2023, she collaborated with the social art practice Workshop24 to facilitate their Radio Public Library project in Brierley Hill, fostering community engagement and artistic expression.

Juliet earned her BA (Hons) and MArch from the University of Sheffield School of Architecture. Additionally, she completed the UK Professional Practice course and examination (RIBA Part 3) at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, and the Professional Practice Examination (PPE) at the Architects Registration Council of Ghana and the Ghana Institute of Architects. Her practice experience spans residential, cultural, education, financial, office, leisure, and hospitality projects across Bristol, Accra, and Birmingham.

Juliet runs her Birmingham-based Studio OASA as a registered architect. She teaches on the final year Studio (Design) module on the BA (Hons) Architecture programme at the University of Liverpool School of Architecture and lectures on the People, Leadership, and Organisations module for the MSc Project Management programme at Oxford Brookes University School of the Built Environment. She is completing a faculty-funded PhD on “BIM-based Community Capacity Building for Participation in Settlement Upgrading, Accra” at Oxford Brookes University.

October 2024

J. Sakyi-Ansah, Cape Coast Castle. Photo credit: Annon, August 2022