Afaina de Jong

City of the Sun installation for Tent Rotterdam, by AFARAI.

Afaina de Jong is an architect and educator who works at the intersection of spatial design, research and art. She is the founder of AFARAI, an Amsterdam-based studio which challenges the boundaries of traditional architecture by taking an interdisciplinary and feminist approach to the city. Language, color, patterns and imaginaries play an important role in De Jong’s projects, which are often deeply connected to counterculture and to the social movements of underrepresented voices and communities.

photo: GJ van Rooij

Earlier this year, she launched the Embodied Restoration Lab, a design initiative that brings architects, technologists and thinkers together to explore the possibilities of ecological restoration and the underlying values that are tied to the systems and algorithms we use. De Jong is also the head of the Contextual Design MA department at Design Academy Eindhoven, and lectures regularly at other faculties like The Sandberg Institute.