About Sumayya Vally

Sumayya Vally is the Principal of the studio Counterspace. Her design, research and pedagogical practice is searching for expression for hybrid identities and contested territories – finding speculative histories, futures, archaeologies, and design languages; with the intent to reveal the invisible. Her work is often forensic, and draws on performance, the supernatural, the wayward and the overlooked as generative places of history and work. 

Vally is presently based between Johannesburg and London, and is the architect of the Serpentine Pavilion 2020/1 as the youngest architect ever. Moreover, Sumayya Vally was named as one of TIME100 Next 2021 most influential leaders of innovation. An honour which recognises global voices primed to shape the future. Vally is listed as the only architect among other prominent names in world society.

Foto: Counterspace