For the Bayimba Culture Festival 2025, Merlijn and Emile organised a month in Uganda for a team of young designers, architects and artists. Based at SASA, the first industrial design school in the country, the team spent three weeks in workshops with local makers and artists: on vernacular building with bamboo, earth plaster and rammed earth with Localworks Architects, on collage and sculpture with artists from 32° East, and on discarded textile from Kampala’s used-clothing markets with Basicx Creations and IGC Fashion.
In the fourth week the pavilion was designed and built on Lunkulu Island: a frame of Musizi hardwood under a layered canopy of fishing net that glows blue at night. It was presented at the festival, and the proposal later won the Craft Object Award at the AAA Design Awards of the Auckland Architecture Association.
