Concrete Lagos: When Life Reclaims Design

Photo: Andrew Esiebo

This is a photograph I have had for almost ten years. It has travelled with me across seasons and cities, and yet, every time I look at it, it still stops me.

For me, it epitomizes what Lagos truly is.

In this image, beneath the massive belly of a bridge on the mainland, a few boys play football on bare ground. The air is thick with dust, and somehow I can perceive this unique cocktail of rapid urbanization, poor environmental management and way too much carbon monoxide. The columns stretch into the far back: symmetrical, monumental. And yet, right there, in the middle of it all, life is happening.

That, to me, is Lagos: a city that finds rhythm in ruins, grace in grit and tenacity, beauty in the utterly ordinary. I have always loved Lagos because it refuses to be still or silenced. And it transforms - constantly. Restlessly. Ingeniously.

Where the rest of the world might see neglect, Lagos itself sees a canvas.

Where some see ugliness, Lagos sees it too but decides to breathe purpose regardless. Where the built environment feels uninviting, life simply reclaims it. Unapologetically. That’s also typical Lagosian.

These boys, barefoot and active, didn’t wait for perfect conditions. They turned what existed into what they needed- a field, a game, a shared moment. And that is, to me, the quiet wonder of human resilience: the ability to make even the most unpromising space meaningful.

This is what often comes to mind when I think of design, about the human side of it all.

Spaces only come alive when they are inhabited. A room, no matter how beautiful, remains inert until someone sits, works, cooks, dreams, or argues inside it.

A home only begins the day it is lived in.

Design is not about control, but invitation

In practical terms, the designer draws the outline, but people write the story.

At AD Design, this is the heart of our philosophy. We don’t create perfect showpieces; we shape environments for real life - textured, expressive, evolving. Because beauty doesn’t only need pristine conditions. It needs honesty. Like with every human connection.

The photograph by Andrew Esiebo reminds me that even under a bridge, surrounded by litter and concrete, there can be meaning - even beauty - when life insists on being nothing but present.

Lagos, in all its imperfection, is proof and a reminder that design is not limited to the polished. It is alive in the improvised, the inhabited, the human.

Thank you, Lagos. You are an inspiration. No matter what they say.