Best Music Venue: Wallpaper* Design Awards 2021 Best Music Venue: Wallpaper* Design Awards 2021 The Floating Music Hub in Cape Verde, by NLÉ, scoops Best Music Venue at the 2021 Wallpaper* Design Awards Image: Ojima Abalaka The island nation of Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa, may be tiny, but it has an outsized influence. Once a slave port, it is now an important international commercial hub, and a cultural melting pot, bridging African and European traditions. It was this rich cultural heritage that architect Kunlé Adeyemi – founder of Amsterdam- and Lagos-based studio NLÉ – and Samba Bathily – the Mali-born sustainable solutions pioneer – wanted to honour and amplify when they first started discussing working together in 2018. Adeyemi recalls: ‘We wanted a scheme to use as a point of global connection back to the [African] continent, using music, arts, culture and hospitality’.