Nested in the heart of Abidjan, Koffi & Diabaté have been imagining and inventing the city of tomorrow for over twenty years. Their reputation is well established across the continent, and their credo "Living differently" sums up their approach to architecture, a prodigious blend of modernity and African tradition.

While the concept of the green city or sustainable city reached its zenith around 1990-2000, consideration of sustainable development principles and local-level thinking have become essential elements of urban planning. However, it is clear that the ideal of the sustainable city is struggling to move beyond the conceptual stage and into the realm of local development. Economically viable, socially liveable and respectful of the environment, our modern conceptions of the urban environment strive to adopt a global approach and often come up against the reality of the terrain or marketing strategies that have no other consequence than to empty the concept of its meaning.

After the Abatta eco-neighborhood, which extends over almost three hectares on the banks of the Abidjan lagoon, the new project launched by the company is on a much larger scale, this time involving an entire village: Ebrah. Faced with Abidjan's anarchic expansion, the lack of planning and the frenetic pace at which the city is growing is giving rise to urban planning "by default", as Issa Diabaté denounced in an interview published in Forbes in 2022. Demographics, social mix, mobility, social housing, building quality, sanitation: these are all points of tension to which the two architects are trying to respond in imagining Ebrah.

The idea is to build around what already exists, preserving the existing village while giving it the means to grow in a way that respects both the environment and local customs. As part of this global approach to urban planning, we have been working closely with the local inhabitants, in particular the land chiefs. The idea is to develop a concerted vision that will lead to an equalization system in which the distribution of roles within the Ebrah community remains to be defined.

While the village remains, housing will gradually be built, 80% of which will be offered at moderate rents. Behind this decision lies the desire to attract a wide range of residents, from young working people to retirees, all with a view to achieving a social mix. The question of the target population nevertheless remains one of the project's main challenges, since the aim is to energize the environment by attracting different segments of the population, while retaining the village scale that underpins much of the project's identity.