Demilade Fasoranti is a designer and aspiring architect based in Washington, D.C., with a focus on culturally responsive and interdisciplinary design.
Originally from Ondo State, Nigeria, her creative perspective is rooted in both Yoruba and Ondo subcultures; a duality that continues to inform her design philosophy across disciplines. These foundations led to the creation of Studio Lisiida, her exploratory practice where architecture, fashion, and material culture converge as tools for cultural sustainability: preserving, evolving, and translating heritage through space, form, fabric, and objects.
Demilade’s early interest in the built environment was shaped by hands-on moments — from sculpting clay structures with her father to observing construction sites in her hometown. This instinct for creating and exploring guided her to Howard University, where she earned a Master’s in Architecture and deepened her belief in design as a medium for healing, storytelling, and social transformation.
Her award-winning thesis explored the entangled relationship between colonization, tribalism, and brain drain in Nigeria — reflecting an enduring commitment to interrogating the systems that shape postcolonial life.
Through Studio Lisiida, Demilade continues to examine those themes across formats.
Its fashion imprint, Lisiida, reimagines cultural memory through silk and silhouette; a living archive of African stories expressed through design. Whether in architecture or fashion, her work remains driven by exploration (Sawari), intentional collaboration, and the pursuit of a more self-defined Nigeria and Africa.