WREATHE: A Spiraling Earth-Block Residence That Turns Its Arms Toward Accra's Divided Neighborhoods

Most apartment buildings are designed to keep the street out. They raise a lobby, lock a gate and stack private units behind a single front door. WREATHE does the reverse. It spirals out from a central axis and extends its arms across the site, toward the people who do not live there. It treats a housing block as a way to reach the neighbors, and the drawings commit to that idea from the parking level to the roof.

WREATHE was designed by Peyton Matthew for a site in Accra, Ghana, and was Shortlisted at Earth Made 2020. The project describes itself as "the common ground to all that desire diversity," a response to the division that economic and national growth have deepened between Accra's subdivisions. Its answer is collaboration, "made real by the outreaching, spiraled arms and the perspectives they create."

A Sunken Field Beneath a Single Vertical Spine

The section perspective makes the hierarchy clear. A slender core rises through the full height of the building, carrying the elevators, which the board describes as glass tubes that let riders watch the life of the building on the way home. The ground plane does not support a podium of private amenities. It is cut away into a recessed recreational field, open below the apartments, with parking tucked into a further level underneath.

That excavation is the most generous move in the scheme. By lowering the public ground, the project lets neighboring communities walk in under the housing rather than past its walls. Residents look down onto the field from every terrace, so the shared space is also what the building watches. The section reads as a tree: a trunk of circulation, a canopy of homes and a shaded clearing at its base.

Four Arms, Each Rotated Outward Toward the City

In the exterior rendering, the floor plates read as stacked, curved terraces lined with railings and linked by external stairs. The site plan shows four quadrants spinning off the center like a pinwheel. According to the boards, each quadrant arm is rotated by 15 degrees from the one below, so the floors step back and the setbacks become secondary circulation. The stairs climbing between terraces are therefore part of how people move through the building, not ornament added to the facade.

Each arm holds six to seven units of varying size, from singles to doubles to family rooms, and two floor plans alternate up the building. The silhouette follows the units rather than a predetermined envelope: the project argues that building the exterior from units "that would not typically be exposed" produces a more intricate local environment. The rotation means each arm also faces a different direction, which follows directly from the brief: every arm opens toward a different part of Accra.

Curved Brick Walkways That Make the Walk Home an Encounter

Inside, the spiral produces a set of circular courts. Curved walls of earth block wrap the walkways, dark doors are set into their faces, and timber balconies overhang the void. Sunlight cuts across the floor in an arc. Next to the elevators, concrete platforms run the full length of each level, open to the central space, so the route from the core to any front door passes neighbors, views out to the surrounding communities and the sounds of the open air. The project calls this a way to lift residents past "the otherwise mundane details" of their daily routine.

The material strategy suits the Earth Made brief. A precast concrete frame of girders, beams and columns carries all structural loads, while an outer layer of earth blocks sealed with mud stucco insulates the interior and protects against weathering. The blocks are presented as an adaptation of a traditional approach to Accra's harsh climate. The division of labor is honest: concrete for span and height, earth for thermal comfort and texture.

A Living Room That Opens Onto the Horizon

The family unit interior shifts the scale from the collective to the domestic without dropping the theme. Brick walls and a textured ceiling enclose a modest room, yet one full side opens onto a railed balcony and a sunset beyond. A figure sits on an orange sofa facing out while another stands at the rail. Even at home, the occupant is oriented toward the wider landscape and the communities across it.

This is where the spiral pays off for the individual household. Because each arm is rotated and set back, the balconies are not stacked directly above one another in shadow; they step out into light and open air. The private room keeps its intimacy while the view keeps the resident connected to the city.

Why This Project Matters

WREATHE takes a social problem, the gap between communities that growth has pushed apart, and answers it with spatial decisions rather than slogans. It sinks the public ground and gives it to outsiders, routes every resident past neighbors and long views, and lets the rotating arms point the building outward. The ideas can be read directly in section and plan, which is rarer than it should be in housing schemes that promise community.

It also shows a practical way to use earth construction at height: a concrete frame carrying the loads and earth blocks doing the climatic and tactile work. Questions remain about shading the deep terraces and how the underground field would be managed, but the core proposition holds. A residential tower in a divided city can act as a meeting point rather than a barrier, and WREATHE gives that idea a clear and buildable architecture.

View the Full Project

Project team

Designer: Peyton Matthew

Competition and award

Shortlisted, Earth Made 2020

Location

Accra, Ghana

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