Joe Osae-Addo was born in Ghana, and was educated at the Architectural Association in London. He worked in Finland, the UK and the USA, setting up his practice in Los Angeles. His work has been influenced by ‘genus-loci’ and the role it played in creating architecture. In his work, he searched for a way to create pieces which are site specific and meet the needs of people who will interact with it. He is a founding partner in the A + D Museum, Los Angeles, whose mission is to advance knowledge and to enable people to appreciate and understand architecture and design. He moved back to Ghana in 2004 and is currently the CEO of Constructs LLC. He is, among many other projects, working on the Make It Right project in New Orleans, initiated by Brad Pitt after the Katrina disaster. Since 2010 he chairs the Board of the ArchiAfrika foundation, where he is the initiator of the local activities, such as debates, films, music and lectures. Those activities are always related to the build environment and identity and organized under the umbrella of ‘Adventurers in the Diaspora’. His current mantra is: ‘ultimately it’s all about people’.