Semiotics and Learning Spaces: The African Cultural and Contemporary Experience

Abstract

Learning is a timeless fundamental human phenomenon that is important for sustenance and advancement. Learning takes place in spaces that can both be functional and symbolic as a design and build product of architecture, which lexically influences human behaviour, part of which learning is. Built-form could be either iconic, lexical, or symbolic as typologies of Semiotics, which is simply a language of signs and symbols that links architecture and culture. This study explores the intersection of semiotics and architectural learning environments through the lens of African cultural experience, particularly Yoruba spatial typologies. It argues that traditional African buildings are not only functional enclosures but also systems of signs that embody symbolic, indexical, and iconic meaning. Using the "archaeological" method of reinterpreting overlooked spatial forms and building on the triple heritage of African architecture (Indigenous, Islamic, and Western), the study identifies how meaning is constructed, preserved, and sometimes transformed in learning spaces. The paper set out to determine the symbolic space in identified cultural built-forms that are significant as learning spaces alongside such and similar contemporary spaces in the present-day context. African cultural learning spaces are discussed in line with the African architecture triple heritage concept, consisting of the Indigenous, the Islamic, and the Western. It proposes that integrating semiotic awareness in architectural design can foster culturally resonant and sustainable educational environments. This work calls for a reconceptualisation of learning environments, one that is rooted not in imported blueprints but in cultural semiotics, sustainable design, and ancestral wisdom. Architects, educators, and policymakers must look inward to build forward.

Keywords: Architectural Built Forms; Learning environment; Heritage studies; Semiotics.

DOI: 10.7176/JCSD/74-08

Publication date: July 30^th 2025