Larry Botchway

The palm oil industry, worldwide and specifically in Ghana, is growing at an alarming rate. Today, approximately 50% of the products we buy from supermarkets contain palm oil. This demand requires production. Having consumed large portions of Southeast Asia already, expansion of this industry is increasingly targeting West and Central Africa. By 2021, 22 million hectares of land in West and Central Africa will be converted into palm oil plantations.

This results in the displacement of entire communities, loss of cultural land and the concentration of large workforces within the radii of respective plantations. Examples of this can already be seen in Okumaning (an agricultural town in the eastern region of Ghana) and many other towns and villages near plantations.

This project is an investigation of the effects of the palm oil industry in Ghana, using architecture as a tool to prevent the disenfranchisement of the villagers of Okumaning during this climate of industrial agricultural growth.

Using the vernacular language of Okumaning’s villagers, I propose a series of infrastructural interventions which deal with village needs whilst providing an achievable model that locals can use to prevent the villagers from being displaced. Each intervention stands as a monument to stability, whilst also providing various collective modes of equipment.