Ashanti Architecture

Traditional Ashanti building in Ghana employed a wattle and daub method, a timber framework filled with clay and reinforced with bamboo, capped with steeply pitched thatched roofs of raffia palm. Its defining spatial organization is the fihankra layout, four rectangular rooms arranged around a central courtyard, three open to the courtyard and the fourth partially enclosed for ritual use or housing shrines. Walls were plastered with mud and heavily ornamented, upper sections in white clay with interlacing geometric designs and lower sections in red laterite with modelled bas relief, including Adinkra symbols each carrying meanings tied to Ashanti belief and proverb.