2025 UNEP Champion of the Earth for Entrepreneurial Vision
Founder & Principal, Mariam Issoufou Architects
Mariam Issoufou is Principal & Owner of Mariam Issoufou Architects based in Niger and was Head of the Holcim Foundation Awards 2020 jury for Middle East & Africa in 2020. Her work with her firm tackles public, cultural, residential, commercial and urban design projects. Completed projects include the include Niamey 2000 Housing, a response to Niger’s housing crisis which was shortlisted for the 2022 Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Upcoming projects include the Yantala Office in Niger, the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development in Liberia, and Bët-bi Museum in Senegal.
Mariam Issoufou is a professor of Architecture Heritage and Sustainability at the ETH Zurich. She previously occupied academic roles as adjunct associate professor of Urban Studies at Brown University and as the 2021 Aga Khan critic at Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is a 2019 Laureate of the Prince Claus Award, and was named as one of 15 Creative Women of Our Time by the New York Times. The firm has been on the AD100 list since 2021.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Technology from Purdue University (2001) and an Masters of Science in Computer Science from New York University (2004). She then obtained her Masters of Architecture from the University of Washington (2013) where her thesis project, Mobile Loitering, focused on issues of gender and public space in Niger, West Africa. Her research-based design was awarded the department’s thesis prize, a special mention in the 2014 Young Architects in Africa Competition, and was exhibited in Africa Big Chance Big Change at the 2014 Milan Triennale.