Republic of the Congo: Valérie Mavoungou Rodriguez

Valérie Mavoungou Rodriguez is the founder of L’Atelier Tropical, an architectural firm based in the Republic of the Congo and Mozambique that specializes in tropical bio-climatic architecture and sustainable design (2016–). She holds a master’s in architecture from L’École d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville in Paris, France, and also studied at Shibaura Institute of Technology in Tokyo, Japan; the French Institute of Far East in Penh, Cambodia; and the School of Architecture at the Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea.

Mavoungou Rodriguez worked with UN-Habitat in the Republic of Congo (2016–2017), and volunteered for AfricaCare, a local non-governmental organization based in the Republic of Congo (2017). Alongside other African architects, she participated in the “New Blood” exhibition, curated by James Inedu-George as part of the ArchiAfrika Pavilion designed by Studio NYALI at the Venice Architecture Biennale exhibition (2021). Mavoungou Rodriguez is a member of the Association Architectes des Risques Majeurs (AARM, 2023–). She was named one of “50 Influential African Women Architects” by Africans Column (2025), featured in the book 100 Women: Architects in Practice, and, in association with L’Atelier Tropical, her work was shortlisted for the Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Début Award (2022).