Introducing the CRAFT Score

Most rating systems measure what’s easy to measure. Amenity count, thread count, proximity to an airport. They leave the more important question alone: was this space actually thought about?

The CRAFT Score is our attempt to answer that. A 25-point framework, five pillars, five points each, applied to spaces, experiences, and eventually products. Simple enough to use on a walkthrough. Precise enough to mean something.

The Five Pillars

C is for Context. Does the space belong where it is? A building can be beautifully constructed and still feel like it landed from somewhere else entirely. Context is about whether the design is in genuine conversation with its surroundings — climatically, culturally, and at the neighbourhood level.

R is for Resilience. Will it hold up? Materials, infrastructure, maintenance culture. Resilience is the long view. The decision to use materials that develop character as they age rather than ones that simply deteriorate.

A is for Atmosphere. How does it feel? Light, volume, airflow, the way a room draws you through it or makes you want to stay still. You usually know within thirty seconds of walking in. It’s the hardest thing to manufacture and the easiest to feel.

F is for Function. Does it actually work? Layout, usability, circulation. Beautiful spaces that are uncomfortable to live in reveal that the designer was thinking about the photograph rather than the person.

T is for Tradition. Is it rooted? Cultural grounding, design lineage, identity. Not local for the sake of it. A genuine relationship with the ideas, materials, and making traditions of the place it’s in.

The Scale

20 and above is rare. The space has a point of view, it knows where it is, it was built to last, and it rewards the person inside it. These are the places you reference in conversation years later without being able to fully articulate why.

15 to 19 is where you find spaces with real strengths and real blind spots. Exceptional atmosphere, no maintenance culture. Extraordinary food, a room that could be anywhere. Good spaces that made one or two decisions for convenience rather than conviction.

Below 15 is the vast majority of what gets built and called boutique or luxury in Nigerian cities right now. Generic finishes, no relationship to neighbourhood or climate, designed for the Instagram grid rather than the person who has to sleep there. Spaces that were produced rather than made.

Brickspoint, Asokoro: 23/25

Brickspoint Boutique Aparthotel in Asokoro, Abuja. We scored it 23.

1 / 5

Context: 5. Asokoro is largely state housing, quietly affluent, understated. Brickspoint doesn’t announce itself from the road. It sits within its surroundings rather than competing with them, which in a district of this character is exactly the right call. Discretion here is a design decision.

Resilience: 4. The facade mixes brick and brass, materials that hold up and develop character rather than just showing wear. When we visited, the team was actively repainting parts of the property. Maintenance culture is one of the first things to collapse in Nigerian hospitality. The fact that it was being attended to mid-operation tells you something about how ownership thinks.

Atmosphere: 5. The conversation pit in the lobby. Green-lined pathways between buildings. Multiple structures to move through and discover rather than one monolithic block. A terrace restaurant by the pool. Rooms that were genuinely well-cooled without the aggressive overcooling that turns most Nigerian hotel rooms into refrigerators. The property rewards being in it.

Function: 4. Generous parking, clear circulation between buildings, spaces that serve distinct purposes. The restaurant has its own logic, the lobby has its own logic, the rooms have their own logic. Someone thought about the sequence of moving through the place.

Tradition: 5. Exclusively African art and murals throughout, done without the heavy-handedness that turns African design into a theme. The rooms were metropolitan rather than Africana, which is actually the right read of Abuja — a city built as a cosmopolitan capital. The cultural grounding lived in the art, the material choices, the scale and orientation of the buildings. Not in surface decoration.

Why It Matters

The CRAFT Score asks one question five different ways: was this made on purpose, by people who knew where they were?

And to be clear, this has nothing to do with being African, or local, or traditional in any prescribed sense. A perfectly crafted space in Copenhagen or São Paulo should score just as highly. Craft is not a geography. It’s a level of intention. Brickspoint happened to demonstrate it better than most places we’ve been to on this continent.

That’s why it’s the first property we’re publishing.