Ayodele Arigbabu

Ayodele Arigbabu is a writer, architect and creative technologist with close to two decades of experience in delivering projects at the intersection of architecture, design, film, digital media, publishing, event production and curation, as well as in the development of digital and interactive arts and applications.

Born in 1980, he lives and works in Lagos/Nigeria.

Ayo has served as a member of the board of Plurality University (U+) and remains a member of the board of CORA Art & Cultural Foundation, Nigeria’s premier cultural organization. He served as Festival Director for CORA’s annual Lagos Book & Art Festival, the longest-running book and art festival in Nigeria, for five years.

He is the publisher and editor of LAGOS_2060, an anthology of science fiction from Africa, published by DADA books in 2013, and was curator of African Futures: Lagos, a festival on diverse future perspectives of the African continent, produced by the Goethe Institute in three African cities in 2015, with a concluding conference in Berlin/Germany in 2016.

Ayo studied architecture at the University of Lagos, where he graduated with a Master’s degree in Environmental Design in 2003, earned an MSc in Creative Technology from Middlesex University, London/UK in 2016, and has been a registered member of the Nigerian Institute of Architects and Architects Registration Council of Nigeria since 2009.

His multidisciplinary experience is geared toward creating interfaces that straddle design, the arts and evolving technologies, seeking to solve specific needs. His current research interests include the use of open source frameworks and platforms for computation in architecture, the AEC industry and in digital fabrication, and emerging trends in Social VR and other immersive technologies for diverse uses, from storytelling to remote work and learning, architectural archaeology and digital archives.

He the founding director of Design And Dream Arts (DADA) Enterprises, and Design & Applied Digital Arts Studios, the creative vehicles through which his practice in design and the arts find convergence in the digital space.

Design & Applied Digital Arts (DADA) Studios is a design and implementation studio founded and driven by architect and creative technologist Ayodele Arigbabu. The studio engages in projects involving design, digital and interactive media and architecture, exploring the intersections between those domains and designing and prototyping solutions for clients looking to exploit concepts that sit astride such intersections. Previous projects include a virtual gallery for exploring art in VR (2016), an adventure game incorporating precepts from cognitive behavioral therapy via a chatbot (2017), a virtual presence simulation for exploring a digital archive (Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, 2019), gesture-controlled interactive storytelling (Barking Learning Center, London/UK, 2017), a physical sculpture with embedded digital kiosks designed for a public space in a university (University of Ibadan, Ibadan/Nigeria, 2021), a way-finding app for a library in East London embedded in a digital kiosk (Barking Learning Center), animation for an internationally-exhibited art installation (iMagineering Lagos/Lagos 2060, Futurefest, London in 2015, Post African Futures Exhibition, Johannesburg/South Africa in 2015, Black Heritage Festival, Lagos in 2015), and a non fungible token (NFT) minting dApp for a sport-tech company (Street Tag/Polytag, 2021). In addition, DADA Studios has been instrumental in the founding and incubation of Maker Room Limited, a company/initiative devoted to training and equipping disadvantaged young people with design, digital/3D content creation and creative coding skills relevant to the 21^st century which has positively impacted over 80 students in the selected communities since its creation in 2020.