Afrocentric Values in Practice is an online community learning session hosted by Hogan’s Alley Society on February 10, 2026, as part of the Building Belonging Series. The event aims to explore how Afrocentric values shape physical spaces, culture, and community life. Grounded in HAS’s Afrocentric design principles and the Main & Union project, the session will feature presentations, a panel with practitioners and community leaders, and facilitated group discussions. Participants will reflect on how Afrocentric values promote a sense of belonging, support cultural continuity, and resist displacement, while providing feedback to help inform Hogan’s Alley Community Land Trust (HASCLT) growth and future housing work.
OUR PANELISTS
Lys Divine Ndemeye is an award-winning landscape designer, artist, and educator. She is the Principal and Creative Director of Remesha Design Lab, a multi-faceted research and design studio specializing in landscape architecture, public realm planning, and public art. Since 2021, she has served as an Adjunct Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of British Columbia. Her work has been recognized with several honors, including the 2020 Olmsted Scholar Award and the 2022 BC Society of Landscape Architects President’s Award. Divine is also the founder of the Black+Indigenous Design Collective and host of the Design Unmuted podcast.
Kendra Coupland (she/her) is a meditation teacher, yoga grandmaster and multi-disciplinary artist of mixed Caribbean and Romani heritage. As a survivor of violence, Kendra brings a compassionate, trauma-informed, and intersectional framework to her practice. Her work strives to create safer spaces for people who experience marginalization to practice self-liberation, and she is wholeheartedly dedicated to building communities of loving kindness and care.
Kizito Musabimana is the Founder & Executive Director of the Rwandan Canadian Healing Centre, established in 2018 following his personal journey of healing from PTSD resulting from trauma caused by the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. After walking from Toronto to Montreal in 2016 to raise awareness about PTSD and trauma, he has led national systems-change initiatives advancing African-led refugee housing, healing, and community development. He is among the founding leaders of the African-Canadian Collective in 2025b and Co-Founder of Ubuntu Land Trust & Developments.
Tura Cousins Wilson OAA, BNA, MRAIC Co-founder and Principal Architect of Studio of Contemporary Architecture (SOCA)
Tura Cousins Wilson’s approach and practice are inspired by creating uplifting spaces of beauty. He contends that architecture’s power lies in its ability to transform collective imaginations and narratives into reality. His design methodology leverages historical and cultural research and is drawn towards the redemptive qualities of reconstituting existing buildings & overlooked communities.
Tura’s experience and creative interest are civic in scale; including social housing, cultural spaces, urban design, exhibition design, and public art. Tura is equally compelled by the craft and intimacy of private residential design.
This panel will be moderated by Michelle Fenton.
Michelle Fenton is an architect, community engagement facilitator, and founder of Khôra Architecture + Interiors. Her work is guided by a simple truth: architecture shapes how we gather, connect, and care for one another. With over 25 years in practice, Michelle designs spaces that integrate culture, wellbeing, and belonging—drawing on her Caribbean heritage, her relationship to land, and a belief in co-creation as a design ethic. Through her architectural practice - Khôra and The Happitecture Podcast, she advances what she calls “architecture for happiness”—designing places that support personal fulfillment, social cohesion, and collective resilience.
“Architecture is never just about buildings. It is more about people, stories, and the futures we choose to build together.”
