View of the Museum of Liverpool building with an outdoor area in front, including stacks of red and gold decorative boxes, a tree, a small pile of sand or rocks, and a few benches with people seated. The sky is partly cloudy.

Sankofa Docks

A pop-up vision for liverpool's maritime waterfront competition

HSA acted as local architect and insight in a multi-disciplinary design team, including JA Projects and BIG, to deliver Sankofa Docks: a pop-up installation to demonstrate an approach to transforming the waterfront of Liverpool.

The temporary structure was conceived and delivered as part of the National Museums of Liverpool’s (NML) Waterfront Transformation Project competition, which was tasked with finding a diverse and highly-skilled design team to redesign the public realm that borders the Museum of Liverpool, the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum.

The site sits at the heart of the former UNESCO World Heritage Site and includes the Canning and Graving Docks, which in the past fitted out, cleaned, and repaired ships used in the transatlantic slave trade. Sankofa Docks is an architectural essay that unpacks Liverpool’s history and asks what a contemporary memorial to international slavery could and should be.

Map highlighting Liverpool and surrounding neighborhoods with icons in Liverpool, UK.
Cages filled with bricks with workers and building materials in the background.
Three people are standing and talking in front of display racks filled with red and beige bricks. The display has text referencing Sankofa Ducks and historical dates. A sign in the background says "Museum."
Three individuals in yellow safety vests working together outdoors, assembling cages at a construction site or outdoor event.
A collage of themed postage stamps related to Liverpool, featuring images of ships, historical figures, cultural symbols, and various events.
A detailed infographic with various images and text boxes illustrating the history, significance, and development of Liverpool's waterfront and memorials, including scenes of water activities, sculptures, bridges, and historical references.

Built over a period of 3 days at the Liverpool waterfront, sourcing the majority of materials within the wider Liverpool City Region, the installation ran for a week over the summer (2021) before being carefully disassembled and the constituent parts rehomed locally across a number of third sector organisations as an extension of the think piece narrative on wealth distribution and highlighting the importance of circular economy principles and reuse on temporary building structures. 

The purpose of the Waterfront installations in Stage 2 of the competition was to showcase the shortlisted teams’ ingenuity in design as well as explore their ability to engage with the client, stakeholders and the local community. As such, we delivered a structure that was collaboratively produced and activated with different local communities.

The full team included: BIG, JA Projects, Peter Adjaye, Harrison Stringfellow Architects, CAVA Institute, Beyond the Box, Poor Collective, Futurecity, LDA Design, AKT II, Hilson Moran and Gardiner & Theobald.

We also worked alongside local contributors: Capoeira for All, Scouse Flower House, Park Palace Ponies, Josh Ramsden, Richard Scott and Polly Moseley amongst other groups

Read the full Architects Journal article here.

Group of diverse people smiling and talking outdoors in an urban setting with trees and buildings in the background.
Two performers in khaki shirts and pants twirling dance hoops during an outdoor event with a crowd watching.
Large outdoor art installation composed of stacked red scaffolding frames filled with bricks and plants, set against an urban backdrop with modern buildings and a marina.

“We wanted to try to ask what a contemporary memorial to international slavery could and should be”

Group of people standing in front of the Museum of Liverpool, with waste bins and banners in the background and an outdoor setting with plants and construction bags.
Large red structure with multiple panels displaying text and dates, surrounded by construction tools and wood logs, outdoors at a construction site or event.

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