How Ayodeji Komolafe is Contributing to UK Built-environment Practice
By Salami Adeyinka
Ayodeji Komolafe, trained in Nigeria as an architect and landscape architect, is currently practising within the British-built environment sector. He works across landscape planning, environmental infrastructure and professional development.
He later completed further study in sustainable planning in the United Kingdom, Komolafe, an Associate Member of the Landscape Institute and on the Pathway to Chartership.
His work has included preparing and supporting landscape and planning documentation for infrastructure-related schemes involving Battery Energy Storage Systems, renewable energy, data centres, campus masterplanning, Environmental Impact Assessment and Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment.
Beyond project work, he has also contributed to apprenticeship-related training and assessment development linked to the UK’s Landscape Technician pathway.
That trajectory has drawn attention within Nigerian landscape architecture circles.
The immediate past President of the Society of Landscape Architects of Nigeria, herself trained in Edinburgh, described Komolafe’s progress as a meaningful reversal of an older professional pattern.
“Nice to hear about your progress. Reversing the trend when we had to train abroad in landscape architecture. Today, a Nigerian-trained landscape architect is in the UK helping to train others,” she said.
Speaking with Komolafe recently after the Built Environment conference, he said practising in the UK has not only been about career advancement, but also about understanding how professional systems operate in more structured practice environments. From planning process and environmental assessment to multidisciplinary coordination, apprenticeship standards and infrastructure delivery.
He said his interest is in how those lessons can inform better development thinking, particularly in contexts where land, climate and ecology are often treated as secondary concerns rather than central parts of design and planning.
