Architecture can do more than create buildings. It can preserve memory, bring communities together and give physical form to histories that might otherwise disappear.
For South African architect and entrepreneur Sumayya Vally, that understanding has shaped a career that has taken an experimental architecture practice founded in Johannesburg onto some of the world’s most recognised architectural and cultural platforms.
Vally is the founder of Counterspace, an architecture and research practice she established in 2015. Built around research, experimentation and new ways of thinking about space, the practice has become closely associated with architecture that draws from overlooked histories, communities, identities and cultural experiences.
Her approach to architecture has strong connections to Johannesburg, a city she has frequently identified as an important source of inspiration for her work. After completing her undergraduate studies in architecture at the University of Pretoria, she earned her master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2014.
Her early professional journey combined architecture, research and education. In 2014, Vally worked as an assistant curator and film producer for the South African Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia. Between 2015 and 2020, she also led Unit 12, An African Almanac, at the University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture, contributing to an academic environment focused on developing architectural thinking and curricula for the African continent.
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It was during this period that Counterspace began to take shape.
Vally co-founded the experimental architecture and research practice in 2015, initially working collaboratively with friends and colleagues while developing a research-oriented approach to architecture. What began as an experimental studio would eventually provide the platform for one of the most significant projects of her career.
In 2020, Counterspace was commissioned to design the 20th Serpentine Pavilion in London. When the pavilion opened in 2021, Vally became the youngest architect in the history of the prestigious commission to design it.
Rather than treating the pavilion simply as a temporary structure, Vally used the project to explore places where communities gather and develop a sense of belonging. Its design drew inspiration from existing and erased spaces across London that had been significant to diasporic and cross-cultural communities.
The project also extended beyond its main location in Kensington Gardens. For the first time in the history of the Serpentine Pavilion commission, fragments of the structure were placed at partner organisations across London, including New Beacon Books, The Tabernacle, the Albany and the Becontree Forever Arts and Culture Hub. The approach allowed elements of the pavilion to become part of the community spaces that had influenced its creation.
Vally’s work subsequently gained wider international recognition. In 2021, she was included in the TIME100 Next list of emerging leaders shaping the future and was the only architect included that year.
Her work has also moved beyond conventional architectural commissions into large-scale cultural projects.
In 2023, Vally served as Artistic Director and co-curator of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In that role, she was involved in developing the event’s concept, narrative, atmosphere and spatial experience, as well as directing its contemporary commissions. Staged at the Western Hajj Terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport, the biennale brought contemporary works together with historical artefacts within a large cultural exhibition.
The same year, she was appointed Honorary Professor of Practice at University College London’s Bartlett School of Architecture. She was also named Emerging Architect of the Year at the Dezeen Awards and included among the Financial Times’ 25 Women of the Year. A year earlier, the World Economic Forum had named her a Young Global Leader.
What distinguishes Vally’s journey is the way she has expanded the possibilities of an architectural practice. Through Counterspace, her work moves between architecture, research, education, cultural programming and artistic direction, while maintaining a strong interest in identity, community and the spaces people create around themselves.
Her journey also demonstrates how an African-founded creative practice can participate in major global conversations without abandoning the ideas and experiences that shaped it.
From establishing Counterspace as an experimental research practice to becoming the youngest architect commissioned for the Serpentine Pavilion and directing a major international arts biennale, Sumayya Vally has built a career that stretches beyond conventional definitions of architecture. Through design, research and cultural storytelling, she continues to explore how architecture can create spaces for people, histories and ideas to belong.
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