Sekou Cooke comes to UNC Charlotte from Syracuse, New York, where he was an assistant professor in the School of Architecture at Syracuse University. Born in Jamaica, Sekou went on to receive his B. Arch from Cornell University, and his M.Arch from Harvard University. In his professional practice, sekou cooke STUDIO, he brings thoughtful processes and rigorous experimentation to a vast array of project types – from public, non-profit, and residential works in New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, to mixed-use projects and tenant improvements in California, to speculative developments locally and internationally.
Cooke’s current research centers on the emergent field of Hip-Hop Architecture, a theoretical movement reflecting the core tenets of hip-hop culture with the power to create meaningful impact on the built environment and give voice to the marginalized and underrepresented within design practice. This work has been widely disseminated through his writings, lectures, and symposia and is the subject of his monograph, Hip-Hop Architecture.