Papa Omotayo is a Lagos-based architect, designer, urbanist, researcher, filmmaker and cultural facilitator with a multi-faceted practice focused on collaboration, creativity, and material exploration as a pathway towards sustainable growth and social impact, especially on the African continent.  His approach to architecture and design is holistic and community oriented, built on an in-depth and personal engagement with the people who occupy the spaces he builds to ensure that they are conceived with a psychology that is generative, ecologically-sensitive, and flexible. 

Omotayo is a principal of both MOE+artArchitecture (MOE+AA), an architecture firm engaged in major projects across West Africa, and A Whitespace Creative Agency (AWCA), a design firm centered on creative production and programming, which often collaborate on projects to create a holistic program that not only builds spaces, but considers their use, development, and engagement into the future. Comprised of about 20 architects, designers, and creatives, these dual agencies have undertaken a wide range of major projects under Omotayo’s direction.  Notable recent projects include the design for the central building of Yinka Shonibare’s G.A.S. Foundation Farmhouse — which site sits on the lush 54-acre Ecology Green Farm in Ijebu, forming both a working farm and artist residency space — and a collaboration with Adjaye Associates as the local architects of record for the forthcoming Benin Pavilion , accompanied by broader planning with the team on envisioning the future of the surrounding cultural and creative district. 

Omotayo is also the designer of the internationally-renowned ART X Lagos art fair, responsible for the physical design of the fair as well as the interactive programmatic elements. Additionally, he is well known in Lagos for the public art intervention under the Falomo bridge that he designed in collaboration with the artist Polly Alakija, which created a cultural destination from a highly trafficked liminal space, and ongoing research projects such as mapping the ecosystem of trees through the city of Lagos and creating a local material lab, both of which are focused on building and advocating for more sustainable practices in urbanism and building with both the local government and design community.  

Omotayo was born and raised in Nigeria, and holds a BA and MArch from the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff.  Shortly after founding O+O, a small practice focused on community-driven projects, in the UK in 2006, he and his partner began collaborating with MOE on projects in Lagos.  He returned to Lagos in 2007 and eventually merged O+O with MOE in 2013 forming MOE+ Art Architecture, at the same time founding A Whitespace Creative Agency in 2014 and opening an eponymous gallery space to show the agency’s projects and provide a flexible exhibition and performance space for creatives across the city.

In 2023, Omotayo will participate with projects showcasing new work in both the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Sharjah Architecture Triennial.