We all know that American architects are finding work in China, Korea, and Qatar—but Angola, Botswana, and Burundi? Africa is booming: The continent is home to seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund. It is also urbanizing at astonishing speed, with rapidly rising education rates and a burgeoning middle class. Yes, in parts of Africa there are tragic clashes of violence, desperate refugees, and entrenched poverty—and growing development may only widen the socioeconomic chasms. But news reports rarely paint the complex portrait of a continent of rich resources, increasing political stability in many countries, vast and varied topographies and cultures, and a relatively youthful population of more than a billion, where one of every two people has a cell phone.

This economic growth has enormous potential for construction and architecture. As we highlighted in our recent issue on Building for Social Change, Western and African architects have long been actively, if quietly, engaged in humanitarian projects on the continent, and we are featuring some similarly significant work this month. But in addition, in the last year or so, we began to hear of more and more Western architects doing ambitious work for other kinds of clients—governments, institutions, developers—such as Perkins+Will's Chicago office, which recently completed a university campus in Angola. In a conversation we had a few months back with David Adjaye, the Tanzanian-born, British-educated architect who has offices in London, New York, and Berlin, we learned more about Africa's future growth and the role that architects could play in the sensible and sensitive development of its cities (see our interview with Adjaye).