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Milestone Architects

Architects in Tema

Greater Accra Region

Housing and industrial work in Tema and along the Accra–Tema corridor, where the harbour, the wind off it and the estate grid all set the terms.

01

A marine environment writes the specification

Tema is a harbour town and the air carries salt well inland. Fixings, balustrades, window hardware, cladding brackets and every exposed fastener have to be specified for coastal exposure, and the schedule has to say so explicitly — otherwise it gets value-engineered on site back to something that will not last five years.

02

The community grid is a gift, if you use it

Tema's planned communities give you something most Ghanaian sites do not: a known plot geometry, a known road hierarchy and a predictable orientation. That means the orientation study is quick and the argument moves straight to the section — where the shade comes from and how the plan is ventilated — rather than being spent working out what the plot actually is.

03

Industrial neighbours are a section problem

Plots along the corridor often sit near light industry or heavy traffic. That is handled in the section and the plan before it is handled with glazing specification: service rooms and circulation take the exposed face, habitable rooms turn away from it, and the courtyard goes on the quiet side.

On the register in Tema

The Tema Stack, Private residence in Community 25, Tema

The Tema Stack

Private residence

Marble Portal, Private residence in Between Accra and Tema

Marble Portal

Private residence

Before you appoint anyone

Do I need an architect to build a house in Ghana?

For anything beyond the simplest structure, yes — and in practice you need one to get a building permit at all. A permit application to a Metropolitan, Municipal or District Assembly in Ghana has to be supported by a proper drawing set prepared and signed off by the relevant licensed professionals. Beyond the legal requirement, the value of an architect is decided long before the permit: orientation, the section, and the depth of a shading device determine whether the finished building is comfortable without machinery, and those decisions cannot be corrected later without losing floor area.

How much does an architect cost in Ghana?

Architectural fees in Ghana are usually structured one of three ways: as a percentage of the final construction cost, as a lump sum agreed against a defined scope, or as a fee per RIBA work stage so that a client can stop, review and re-commit at each one. Which is appropriate depends on how well-defined the brief is at the outset — a project with a settled brief suits a lump sum, while one still being tested suits stage-by-stage. Milestone Architects quotes against a written scope after the first meeting, so the figure is tied to a specific set of deliverables rather than to a percentage of a number nobody knows yet.

All questions

Building in Tema? Start at Stage 0.

Milestone Architects works throughout Ghana from the studio in Kumasi. Tell us where the site is and roughly what you want to do with it — that is enough to begin.

Enquire