The open courtyard of a traditional compound house, warm ochre walls, a single tree in the centre.
completed

The Compound

A study of compound houses in the Ga Mashie communities — domestic architecture as living archive.

The Compound was a 9-month collaboration between Agbawe Archives and the Ga Mashie Heritage Trust. Between 2022 and 2023, both Prince El-Sha Martey and Flow Mensah photographed the compound houses of James Town and Ussher Town — the oldest residential neighbourhoods in Accra — before further demolitions reduced the built record.

Interior courtyard of a colonial-era compound house, peeling paint on a terracotta wall, an open doorway.
James Town compound, October 2022

Compound houses are not individual homes. They are social structures — multiple families sharing a courtyard, a well, a history. The project photographed not just the architecture but the life organised around it: the shared kitchens, the children's routes between rooms, the elders seated in the afternoon shade.

A woman standing in a doorway of a whitewashed compound house, morning light crossing the threshold.
Ussher Town, February 2023

A selection of 24 photographs from The Compound is available in the archive's catalogue. A full exhibition toured Accra, Kumasi, and Cape Coast in late 2023.