Samuel Owusu Afram

Faculty Biography

He is a Professor of Architecture and former Head of Department of Architecture and former Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Built Environment in the College of Architecture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi Ghana.He undertook his undergraduate degree in Architecture at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology BSc (design) in 1981. In 1984 he graduated with a Postgraduate Degree in Architecture in the same institution, winning the much-coveted Frank Llyod Wright Award for the best Postgraduate Theses Design. He then undertook a Masters degree in Housing at the University of NewCastle Upon Tyne in the United Kingdom 1994.He has taught in the Department for over 34 years in Construction Technology, Architectural Design, and Housing, in both the Undergraduate and Postgraduate years, supervising numerous thesis work of students on various topics relevant to the Ghanaian and West African situations. He has also conducted several Socio-cultural surveys with students of the Department in Kumasi, Cape Coast, Accra and other parts of Ghana, as well as an Academic visitation with students of the Department to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in the USA, with which the Department has Academic links with.He was promoted to the rank of Professor in 2016/2017 Academic Year after which he retired from active service. He is presently working on contract in the University. Professor S.O. Afram also served and chaired over 50 committees, Statutory and Adhoc, as well as Boards, while in active service.On the national level he is a member of the Ghana Amateur Basketball Association and the Chairman of the Infrastructure Committee of same, from 2010 to date and a Member of the Management Board of  Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) from 2018 to date.On the international level he is a Member of the Executive Committee for Validation of Commonwealth Association of Architects (CAA) programmes and Schools from 2016 to date and was the Chair of the Committee for the International Conference on “African Architecture Today” KNUST, Kumasi, 2007. Professor Afram has written several academic research papers for several renowned journals, locally and internationally. His special area of study is Housing and in most of his publications he dwells on the concept of the indigenous design of the Ashanti Traditional Compound house, emphasizing its merits and improving its demerits whiles deliberating on how these could be effectively and efficiently infused into contemporary housing designs to ameliorate needs of the urban poor, especially in this era of sustainable architecture.In professional life, he is a Fellow and the former President of the Ghana Institute of Architects, Kumasi Chapter, and Vice-President of the Ghana Institute of Architects (GIA) and run a registered architectural practice in Kumasi.  He is also a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CMCIH) in the United Kingdom.  He is married with a son and is an ardent sports enthusiast