Before formall was a design research laboratory, it was a question.
How might design become a method for preserving Afrikan knowledge rather than merely producing objects?
Over nearly two decades, our work as an interior architect, educator, researcher and public speaker has repeatedly returned to the same themes: memory, language, place, archives, material culture and identity. Although these began as separate interests, they gradually revealed themselves to be interconnected parts of a larger enquiry.
formall emerged as the place where these investigations could converge. It is both a professional practice and an intellectual laboratory, committed to exploring how design can document, communicate and imagine Afrikan futures.
We are formall a creative hub that uses design, research and design thinking to drive positive change across Africa.
our founder and chief curator
Juliet Kavishe
Juliet believes that design is not only a means of shaping space, but a way of remembering, questioning and imagining. Working across architecture, research, writing and education, her practice explores the relationship between land, language, lineage and material culture, asking how design might preserve knowledge as carefully as it creates form.
As the founder of formall Design Research Lab, Juliet has created a space where practice and inquiry exist together. Here, architecture becomes archive, making becomes research, and design becomes a language through which African knowledge systems can be documented, interpreted and carried forward.
For more than eighteen years, her work has crossed disciplines and continents, bringing together professional practice, academic research and cultural leadership. Through publications, exhibitions, teaching and international collaborations, she continues to advocate for design practice that is deeply rooted in place while contributing to global conversations about heritage, identity and the future.
Through formall, she continues to build the archives, ideas and design languages that will help shape Afrikan futures.
formall was envisioned for futures to be rooted in African knowledge