Institut Supérieur de Management

The inhabitants of sub-Saharan villages traditionally gather to discuss important community matters in the shade of what is known as their Palaver Tree, be it a baobab, fig, or mango. This political and social nerve center of village life, a symbol of Africa’s cultural heritage, was what prompted the Parisian firm Béchu & Associés’ design for the headquarters of the business school Institut Supérieur de Management (ISM) in Dakar. Since its founding in 1992 by economist Amadou Diaw as Senegal’s first private business school, ISM Dakar has made a significant contribution to higher education in the country over the years. Located at the southern end of the city center, the new building runs alongside a main road that slices through the city from north to south. Conceived as a monolith but also as a lantern, the construction is a striking amalgam of a permeable yet sculptural volume.

Following the school’s acquisition in 2017 by the French group Galileo Global Education, an international design competition was launched to create a campus that would contain all the institute’s courses, including postgraduate continuing education. The winner, Béchu & Associés, was subsequently called back by the client, however, to review its design following a substantial change to the size of the project lot – one third of the area indicated in the original competition – for which the firm had proposed a two-building complex. The new design was of...

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