Sumayya Vally
Architect Johannesburg / South Africa
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Asiat-Darse Bridge
Vilvoorde / Belgium / 2025
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Serpentine Pavilion 2021
London / United Kingdom / 2021
Sumayya Vally is Principal of Counterspace—an award-winning design, research and pedagogical practice searching for expression for hybrid identities and territory, particularly for African and Islamic conditions—both rooted and diasporic. Her design process is often forensic, and draws on the aural, performance and the overlooked as generative places of history and work.
In 2022, Vally was selected by the World Economic Forum to be one of its Young Global Leaders, a community of the world’s most promising artists, researchers, entrepreneurs, activists, and political leaders, and, as a TIME100 Next list honoree, has been identified as someone who will shape the future of architectural practice and canon. She has joined the World Monuments Fund Board of Directors, and serves on several boards through her interest in dynamic forms of archive, embodied heritage, and supporting new networks of knowledge in the arts. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada inducted Sumayya into its 2023 Honorary Fellowship, which recognises individuals that exemplify the tremendous impact that architects have—not only on the built environment, but also on public life and the world around them.
In 2019, Counterspace was invited to design the 20th Serpentine Pavilion in London, making Vally the youngest architect ever to win this internationally renowned commission. With the Serpentine, she has initiated and developed a new fellowship programme, Support Structures for Support Structures, which assists artists and collectives working at the intersection of art, social justice, the archive, and ecology. Vally is the Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah (January - May 2023).
Her practice operates adjacent to the academy. For six years (2015-2021), she led the masters’ studio, Unit 12, at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg—founded by Professor Lesley Lokko, with the intent to create a curriculum for the African continent. She has taught and lectured widely; as Pelli Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; as lead of a new masters’ programme, Hijra, at the Royal College of Art; and as an Honorary Professor of Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture.
In 2022, Vally was selected by the World Economic Forum to be one of its Young Global Leaders, a community of the world’s most promising artists, researchers, entrepreneurs, activists, and political leaders, and, as a TIME100 Next list honoree, has been identified as someone who will shape the future of architectural practice and canon. She has joined the World Monuments Fund Board of Directors, and serves on several boards through her interest in dynamic forms of archive, embodied heritage, and supporting new networks of knowledge in the arts. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada inducted Sumayya into its 2023 Honorary Fellowship, which recognises individuals that exemplify the tremendous impact that architects have—not only on the built environment, but also on public life and the world around them.
In 2019, Counterspace was invited to design the 20th Serpentine Pavilion in London, making Vally the youngest architect ever to win this internationally renowned commission. With the Serpentine, she has initiated and developed a new fellowship programme, Support Structures for Support Structures, which assists artists and collectives working at the intersection of art, social justice, the archive, and ecology. Vally is the Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah (January - May 2023).
Her practice operates adjacent to the academy. For six years (2015-2021), she led the masters’ studio, Unit 12, at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg—founded by Professor Lesley Lokko, with the intent to create a curriculum for the African continent. She has taught and lectured widely; as Pelli Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; as lead of a new masters’ programme, Hijra, at the Royal College of Art; and as an Honorary Professor of Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture.
Sumayya Vally is Principal of Counterspace—an award-winning design, research and pedagogical practice searching for expression for hybrid identities and territory, particularly for African and Islamic conditions—both rooted and diasporic. Her design process is often forensic, and draws on the aural, performance and the overlooked as generative places of history and work. In 2022, Vally was selected by the World Economic Forum to be one of its Young Global Leaders, a community of the world’s most promising artists, researchers, entrepreneurs, activists, and political leaders, and, as a TIME100 Next list honoree, has been identified as someone who will shape the future of architectural practice and canon. She has joined the World Monuments Fund Board of Directors, and serves on several boards through her interest in dynamic forms of archive, embodied heritage, and supporting new networks of knowledge in the arts. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada inducted Sumayya into its 2023 Honorary Fellowship, which recognises individuals that exemplify the tremendous impact that architects have—not only on the built environment, but also on public life and the world around them. In 2019, Counterspace was invited to design the 20th Serpentine Pavilion in London, making Vally the youngest architect ever to win this internationally renowned commission. With the Serpentine, she has initiated and developed a new fellowship programme, Support Structures for Support Structures, which assists artists and collectives working at the intersection of art, social justice, the archive, and ecology. Vally is the Artistic Director of the inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah (January - May 2023). Her practice operates adjacent to the academy. For six years (2015-2021), she led the masters’ studio, Unit 12, at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg—founded by Professor Lesley Lokko, with the intent to create a curriculum for the African continent. She has taught and lectured widely; as Pelli Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; as lead of a new masters’ programme, Hijra, at the Royal College of Art; and as an Honorary Professor of Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture.