Sekou Cooke is an architect, urban designer, researcher, author, and curator. Born in Jamaica and based in Charlotte, North Carolina, he is the former Director of the Master of Urban Design program at UNC Charlotte, the 2021/2022 Nasir Jones HipHop Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and a founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective. Cooke is a leading advocate for the study and practice of Hip-Hop Architecture, which addresses the broad impacts of the racist history of architecture and urban planning, and opens a pathway for practice, education, and scholarship that understands, reflects, and shapes culture.

His studio, sekou cooke STUDIO, has completed design commissions for masterplans, multi-unit residential developments, residential and commercial buildings, interior renovations, speculative developments, and tenant improvements across the United States and internationally. Key recent projects include a Vision Plan for Downtown Selma, Alabama, the forthcoming Syracuse Hip-Hop Headquarters, and “We Outchea” commissioned for the Museum of Modern Art exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. Through a new strategic partnership with City Collective Architecture and Planning, the studio has substantially increased its project delivery capacity.

Location: Charlotte, NC