The nuclear lamina has multiple functions, including maintaining nuclear structural integrity and differential gene expression. Correct spatial and temporal lamina assembly is essential to meet these and other roles. Recently, it emerged that multiple lamina systems exist that are likely products of independent origins, while all these systems share remarkably analogous functions. Several lamina proteins are known in trypanosomes, two of which, NUP-1 and NUP-2, are essential, coiled-coil proteins with a molecular mass 450 and 250 kDa, respectively. Sequence analysis indicates distinct quaternary structures when compared to the ~60 kDa lamin proteins of multiple lineages, including metazoa. To uncover organisational principles of the trypanosome lamina we generated NUP-1 deletion mutants (N=N-terminal domain; C= C-terminal domain; NC: fusion of the N- and C-terminal domain with entire repeat region deletedd))designed to identify domains of NUP-1 responsible for oligomerisation. We find that both N- and C-termini act as interaction domains and disruption of these interactions impacts additional components of the lamina, the nuclear envelope and nucleoporin TbNup98. By contrast there is remarkably little impact on transcription, crucially including silencing of telomeric variant surface glycoprotein genes. These data indicate that both terminal domains of NUP-1 have roles in assembling the trypanosome lamina and suggest an architecture distinct to the lamin system is based on a ‘hub and spoke’ configuration.