Cheikh N’gom was the first Senegalese architect to establish a firm in the nation after independence. He produced numerous projects throughout Dakar and helped to define the city’s post-independence architectural language. The style became characterized by powerful assertions of African identity, rhythmic forms, and a definitive departure from the strict symmetry of colonial architecture.

One of N’gom’s largest projects is the planning of the Grand Medina settlement (1982) in Dakar which encompassed 1,000 housing units in a matrix of public and private courtyards, large thoroughfares, and community spaces including schools and mosques. Ranging from 1–3-bedroom units for varying familial structures, N’gom provided a frame for constructing identity as the inhabitants hybridized the facades adding a new dynamism to the district’s visual rhythm.

In 1984 he completed the Immeuble Faycal. The tower’s design features bold, sculptural, concrete rustications throughout the façade that vary in size and orientation, a solidity and geometry common in Sahelian earthen architecture.

This sense of rhythm and texture recurs throughout N’gom’s other works, such as the Faculty of Law and Political Science (year unknown) in the Cheikh Anta Diop University campus. Large concrete geometries protrude and punctate the façade, adapting the rhythm of Sudano-Sahelian mosque’s tapering buttresses. Stone and shells from the region were ground and compressed to create a rough surface, embedding the building within the earth. From the exterior, the building wields a sense of solidity, but actually unfolds to an open and shaded madrasa-like open space for students to gather away from the semi-arid climate.

In a 2021 ceremony, N’gom was elected to the prestigious National Order of the Lion, the highest distinction for civil service in Senegal, for his “distinguished contributions to the nation and devotion to asserting Senegalese ingenuity on the international stage”.