The interesting structures made from old exhaust pipes that identify exhaust repair services next to the road are a prime example of everyday design practice that can inspire creativity, he says. “There are many ordinary citizens, who often under difficult circumstances make sophisticated design decisions that are often not recognised by trained designers,” says Thorsten.

Thorsten’s advice for young designers is to “look around you and treat your surroundings as your primary resource.” He explains that design trends are constantly changing and that it is difficult to really identify who is worth watching. “Trends are like styles – most of them come and go.”

Here are three tips for young designers and architects:

1. Learn to embrace complexity: Although individual parts add up to the whole, the whole is complex and not simple. “A problem cannot be reduced to one reading or solved by one idea alone.”

2. Draw, draw and draw some more: “The inaccuracy of a hand drawing often helps you to ‘lie a little,’ to pursue ideas, rather than technical solutions.” Picasso once said that “Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth.” It is in drawing that there is a more direct connection between your hand and brain, which allows you to develop ideas and react to them quickly.

3. Know how things work: “If you do not know how things work, make a point of finding out. There is no excuse not to do this.”

Thorsten will share many more of his own design inspirations at Architecture ZA 2015 (AZA2015) at The Sheds@1Fox in Newtown from 24 to 26 September 2015. Registrations for AZA2015 are now open. To register, visit booking.architectureza.org. For more information about AZA2015, visit architectureza.org or AZA2015 on Facebook.

The post Architect Tips: Finding Inspiration in Everyday Design appeared first on Visi.

26’10 South Architects created a DIY-home kit that can be built wherever a road or helicopter can take you – the inspiring Karoo landscape, for instance.  

Container concept

In order to create a four-bedroom, three-bathroom family home, two standard containers have been
combined with an additional roof and verandah. The inclusion of the roof and verandah in the plan, results in the creation of a loft on the second storey, and the open-plan verandah can be utilised in such a way that there is enough space for two lounge areas. The roof consists of a pre-cut and drilled timber and steel structure, with composite roof sheeting, and the walls are made from polycarbonate sheeting. For a green alternative: face the verandah north to admit winter sun and block summer sun, use solar collectors to heat water on the roof, use grey water from the shower to flush the toilet, and use ventilation fans in the verandah and two
wind-powered rotating vents on the roof instead of air-conditioning.

Company profile

26’10 South Architects was started by Thorsten Deckler and Anne Graupner in 2004. This award-winning practice, recently awarded the Daimler Chrysler Award for young South African Architects, specialises in all spheres of the South African environment. Their portfolio boasts a variety of residential, commercial, community and urban design projects. While both partners have worked and lectured internationally, they feel that the most appropriate solutions can be developed through observation of what can be found on their own doorstep. The team that worked on this project comprised: Thorsten Deckler, Anne Graupner, Eugene Cloete, Sue Groenewald and Carl Jacobz.

26’10 South Architects, 011 830 0220, thorsten@2610south.co.za, anne@2610south.co.za, 2610south.co.za

See more VISI articles about container architecture here.

The post Thinking inside the box 5: 26’10 South Architects appeared first on Visi.

Read in English.

Henning Rasmuss en Anthony Orelowitz is mededirekteure van Paragon Architects. Hulle was deel van die ontwerpspan van die Kaapstad-stadion en ook die praktyk wat verantwoordelik was vir die Norton Rose Towers by Alicelaan 15 en die nuwe Alexander Forbes-gebou by Wesstraat 115 (dit verskyn in VISI 66 The Office). Nou het Henning sy oog op Afrika. Hy gesels met Nechama Brodie oor ’n paar van die landskappe wat sy loopbaan help vorm het.

Die 1970’s: Die laaste opbloei in die boubedryf

Henning het in Johannesburg grootgeword en as kind gereeld in Melville saam met sy pa op die bus geklim om “stad toe” te gaan.

“Ek het altyd na bouterreine gaan kyk terwyl my pa al sy take afgehandel het,” vertel Henning. “Hy het my teen ’n plankheining staangemaak met loergate op grootmens- en kinderhoogte en my vir ure daar gelos. Dit het ’n diep indruk op my gelaat. Ek het grootgeword terwyl Johannesburg se laaste opbloei in die boubedryf letterlik voor my oë afgespeel het.”

Henning onthou byvoorbeeld die voltooiing van die ou Standard Bank-gebou – ’n “hangende gebou” wat van bo af ondertoe gebou is – en die Carlton-sentrum.

“Wat my bybly, is die reuk,” sê hy, “die reuk van beton en sweiswerk. Die geluide en die reuke. Die omvang van die uitgrawings…”

Henning wou in ’n stadium by sy pa weet wat al dié mense doen. Sy pa het verduidelik die argitek is die enigste mens wat weet en verstaan wat elkeen op die bouterrein doen.

Die 1980’s: Gebroke geboue

Henning bieg hy was effens dronk die aand toe hy besluit het om argitektuur te studeer. Hy was besig met sy militêre diensplig en moes sy aansoekvorms vir universiteit voltooi en tussen regte en argitektuur kies.

“Ek het een van my vriende gevra watter kursus ek moet kies,” vertel hy. “Hy’t gesê jy is klaar so ’n groot etter, jy sal ’n verskriklike prokureur wees! So toe maak ek maar ’n merkie langs argitektuur.”

Volgens Henning het hy en ’n groep vriende, onder andere Thorsten Deckler van 26’10 Architects (wat ook in VISI 66 The Office verskyn), op universiteit begin om argitektuur te “eet, drink en slaap”. Sy studiejare het saamgeval met ’n ooglopende agteruitgang van Johannesburg se sentrale sakedistrik toe talle groot ondernemings die middestad verruil het vir Braamfontein, die ontluikende sakekern van Sandton en die voorstede.

“Ons was heeltemal te vinde vir die idee van gebroke geboue, ou nywerheidsgeboue, geboue wat ingeplof word – die gebroke aard van alles en die geraamtes van geboue… Dit was ’n regte 1980’s-ding,” sê hy oor die obsessie met struktuur en dekonstruksie, “soos om met fotokopieë en Letraset te werk”.

Die 1990’s: Herlewing

Henning sê as jong gegradueerde het almal gepraat oor Johannesburg wat dood is. “Dit het my verskriklik geïrriteer om ’n jong argitek te wees in ’n stad wat volgens almal sy laaste asem uitgeblaas het. Ek wou probeer verstaan hoekom.”

Ná 1994 het Henning kennis gemaak met “allerhande buitelandse argitekte wat baie geïnteresseerd was in Johannesburg”. Hy het hulle op stadstoere geneem en eers opgewonde geword oor die Goudstad se argitektuur nadat hy dié oorsese besoekers begin rondneem het.

Volgens Henning was dit die begin van ’n nuwe fase: Hy het die verband tussen maatskaplike geskiedenis en argitektuur gesnap.

“Ek het nog altyd baie in die geskiedenis belang gestel,” sê hy. “In die algemeen verstaan ek stede deur middel van die geskiedenis – elke periode, elke dekade, word gedefinieer deur die dinge wat toe gebeur het of die geboue wat tot stand gekom het.

“Toe ek in Berlyn gewoon het, het ek die geskiedenis van alles geken,” vertel hy. “Ek het my hele lewe in Johanesburg gewoon, maar toe besef ek ken net ’n baie klein deeltjie van die stad se storie.”

Op ’n wandeltog deur die oostelike middestad – die voormalige “kleredistrik” wat nou deur die Maboneng-distrik begrens word – het Henning ou nywerheidsargitektuur gesien wat weens apartheid vervalle was nadat die tekstielbedryf na die tuislande verskuif is. “Ek het gesien hoe die regering die stad gebreek het… ek het begin verstaan waarom sekere dele van ’n stad herlewe en ander ondergaan.”

Henning het heelwat tyd in Hillbrow, Bellevue, Yeoville en Observatory deurgebring en bewus geword van die sikliese aard van die Goudstad se stedelike migrasie, maar ook tekens van lewe gewaar in plekke wat deur talle ander afgeskryf is as dooie kolle. “Jy kon nog na Café Zurich [in Hillbrow] gaan,” ’n ikoniese koffie-en-kuierplek waar Henning se pa, ’n Duitse immigrant, in die 1950’s tyd deurgebring het, “maar nou was daar ’n totaal nuwe geslag immigrante wat van Afrika pleks van Europa kom.” 

Oorgangsruimtes

In die 1990’s het Henning en Thorsten “op ’n reaktiewe manier begin werk”. Volgens hom het hy en Thorsten “hulleself na die Venesiese argitektuur-biënnale genooi, dronk geword en ’n voorlegging ingedien”.

Nadat hulle genooi is om ’n aanbieding te doen, het Henning besef hulle moet die storie van Johannesburg vertel. “Dit was nodig dat ons sekere goed moet weet om die storie ’n sekere houding en geur te gee.”

As gevolg hiervan het hy ’n “sterk mening ontwikkel oor net mooi alles wat met Johannesburg te doen het”, en dít het weer daartoe gelei dat hy, tesame met Thorsten, een van die gesogte stedelike denkers geword het as dit kom by die herontwaking van die stad. Die twee het deelgeneem aan talle tentoonstellings en publikasies wat fokus op Suid-Afrikaanse oorgangsruimtes, veral saam met Anne Graupner, wat nou Thorsten se sakevennoot en vrou is.

Volgens Henning het Thorsten en Anne “’n meer aktivistiese praktyk begin”, terwyl hy “meer hoofstroom” geword het. In 1997, ná ’n paar maande waarin hy in Hongkong gewerk het, het Henning saam met Anthony Orelowitz ’n projek van stapel gestuur wat uiteindelik Paragon Architects geword het.

Die gebou met die hyser

“Ons het maar soos almal anders begin,” sê Henning. “Ons het badkamers opgeknap en stoepe en kombuise gebou. Ons moes maar rondsoek vir werk.”

Nou, sê hy, is private huise die enige werk wat hulle nié sal aanvaar nie. “Ons het besluit om te fokus op groter ontwikkelaars en projekte waarmee ’n mens geld kan maak.”

Hulle eerste groot projek was die opknapping van die Peregrine Holdings-hoofkantoor in Sandton. Dit het onder meer die byvoeging van twee ekstra verdiepings behels, asook die uitgrawing van die terrein vir parkering en tuine.

In 2002 het Paragon sy “eerste gebou met ’n hyser”-projek gekry wat deel gevorm het van die ontwikkeling by Melrose Arch. Dié hyser is nou deel van die firma se geskiedenis: Henning verduidelik hulle het in daardie stadium geruime tyd reeds by die eiendomsontwikkelaar en -belegger Zenprop vlerk gesleep, en die direkteur het gesê hy sal dit oorweeg om vir Paragon werk te gee “wanneer ’n ander maatskappy ons vertrou om ’n gebou met ’n hyser te bou”.

Hulle het vir Zenprop gebel die dag toe hulle die Melrose Arch-projek gekry het, en het sedertdien so baie werk vir die maatskappy gedoen dat Paragon amper begin bekend staan het as Zenprop se eie argitekspraktyk. (Zenprop is ook die ontwikkelaar van die Norton Rose- en Alexander Forbes-gebou.)

Flink by die dak

Paragon was een van die vennote van ’n gesamentlike projek met POINT Architects & Urban Designers wat betrokke was by die oprigting van die Kaapstad-stadion in Groenpunt. Hulle het vanaf 2006 tot met die oorhandiging van die stadion aan die Stad Kaapstad in 2009 aan die projek gewerk.

“Vir my was dit een van daardie geleenthede wat net eenkeer oor jou pad kom,” sê Henning. “Ek het die deel van die projek gekies wat my die meeste geïnteresseer het: hoofsaaklik die dak. Die struktuur is tegnologies ongelooflik gevorderd. Dit behels meer as 9 000 stukke glasse waarvan net 6 800 dieselfde grootte is. Die dak moes ook kon lig en sak om in die wind uit te sit.”

Die stadion – en spesifiek die dak – het uiteindelik ’n hele aantal internasionale ontwerp- en konstruksietoekennings gewen, maar Henning het ’n groot prys daarvoor betaal: Hy het amper al sy kliënte in Johannesburg verloor omdat hy baie tyd in Kaaptad moes deurbring. 

Die soeke na ’n globale praktyk

“Ek en Anthony het oor die jare ’n reeks ander ondernemings begin wat nou die Paragon Group vorm,” verduidelik Henning. Dit sluit in Hub Architects saam met Jean-Paul Zietsman, Paragon Interface Architects met Marilize van Dyk, Paragon Habitat Architects met Nadia Tromp, Aspire Architects met Rendani Netshilema, Paragon Arquitetura [in Brasilië] saam met Leticia de Andrade, en Paragon Architects South Africa met Thulani Sibande. “Dit is die verhaal van ons reis saam met verskillende vennote,” sê Henning.

Hy werk reeds meer as ’n dekade in Afrika en doen nou uitsluitlik ontwikkelingswerk op die vasteland. “Ons het besluit een van die vennote moet fokus op werk in Afrika, en nou is ons verteenwoordig in 11 verskillende lande en besig met projekte in ses van hierdie lande.

“Baie mense nader ons omdat hulle die soort geboue wil hê wat ons in Sandton oprig,” sê Henning.  “Ons gaan nie na Ghana en ontwerp op ’n ander manier nie. Die verskille tree in die bouprosesse na vore en word eers later in die proses eg ‘plaaslike’ projekte.”

Een van sy projekte behels die oprigting van ’n brouery in Cabinda, Angola, waarvoor elke stuk ingevoer moes word – “selfs die skroewe, spykers en hamers”. “Ek hou daarvan om geboue op te rig op plekke wat groot logistieke uitdagings bied,” sê hy.

Volgens Henning word ’n groot deel van sy tyd in Afrika bestee aan die opbou van verhoudings. “Ons is nie besig met projekte in al 11 lande nie, maar ons probeer ons net so wyd as moontlik uitgooi. Ons weet nog nie eens waar die kolletjies is nie, maar ek probeer dit al klaar verbind!”

Henning sê hy “gebruik baie van sy tyd om deur vensters te staar”. Hy maak klein eenminuut-films waar hy ook al gaan: Hy skakel sy foon se kamera vir presies 60 sekondes aan en skep dan ’n massiewe visuele collage – van nagklubs, restaurante, bouterreine, selfs die kos wat hy eet. “Ek gebruik die video’s vir opdragte, en om goed aan te teken. Later keer ek daarna terug en kyk dit weer. Ek kyk hoe mense bou, ek bestudeer die pleisterwerk, die teëls…” Detail eerder as argitektuur is wat hom boei.

“Ons wil die beste kommersiële argitektuurpraktyk op die vasteland wees. Dit gaan ’n lang reis wees. Dis lankal nie meer geboue wat my opgewonde maak nie. Nou is ek besig om die onderneming te ontwerp.” 

Koop die nuwe VISI 66 The Office om ons artikel oor die nuwe Alexander Forbes-gebou in Sandton te lees.

Lees nog Afrikaanse artikels oor argitektuur.

The post Die man van nuwe hoogtes appeared first on Visi.

Lees in Afrikaans.

Henning Rasmuss is a co-director with Anthony Orelowitz at Paragon Architects. They were part of the design team for the Cape Town stadium and the practice that designed 15 Alice Lane and the new Alexander Forbes building on 115 West Street (featured in VISI 66 The Office). Henning now has his aspirations set on Africa. He speaks to Nechama Brodie about some of the landscapes that have shaped his journey.

The 1970s: The last building boom

As a child, growing up in Johannesburg, Henning would accompany his father on trips into “town”, catching the bus from Melville.  

“I would go look at building sites while he completed his errands,” Henning says. “He would put me up against a hoarding – there would be viewing holes cut into the sides, at adult height and at kid height. He’d leave me there for hours. It left a deep impression. I grew up watching the last big building boom of Johannesburg.”

Henning remembers watching the completion of the old Standard Bank building – a “hanging building”, built from the top down – and the Carlton Centre.

“What I remember most is the smell,” he says, “the smell of concrete and welding. The sounds and smells. The size of the excavations…”  

At some point Henning asked his father: “What do all these people do?”

Henning’s father explained that the only person who knew what everyone was doing on site was the architect.  

The 1980s: Broken buildings

Henning says he was slightly drunk the night he decided to study architecture – it was during his national service and he had to complete his university application forms, deciding between law and architecture.

“I asked one of my friends [which course I should choose],” he says. “He said ‘you’re such an arsehole already, you’ll make a terrible lawyer.’ So I ticked architecture.”

At university Henning says he “ate, drank and slept architecture,” together with a close group of friends that included Thorsten Deckler of 26’10 Architects (also featured in VISI 66 The Office). His studies coincided with the marked decline of Johannesburg’s CBD when major tenants abandoned the city centre for Braamfontein or the nascent CBD of Sandton and the suburbs. 

“We got into the idea of broken buildings, old industrial buildings, imploded buildings – the brokenness of stuff and the skeletons of buildings. It was a 1980s thing,” he says, of the obsession with structure and deconstruction, “like working with photocopies and Letraset.” 

The 1990s: Resurrection

Henning says that when he was a young graduate “everyone was talking about how Jo’burg was dead. It irritated me a lot – [being] a young architect in a city everybody said was finished. I wanted to understand why.”

After 1994, Henning began encountering “all sorts of foreign architects who had an interest in Johannesburg.” He gave tours of the city, and says “I only got excited about Jo’burg architecture when I started taking [overseas visitors] around.”

It cued a new stage: where, Henning says, he began to understand the link between social history and architecture.

“I’ve always had a strong interest in history,” he says. “Generally I understand cities through history – every period, every decade is defined by the stuff that went down,” or, case in point, the buildings that went up.

“When I lived in Berlin I knew everything’s history,” Henning says. “I’d lived in Johannesburg my whole life, but realised I only understood a fraction of its story.”

Walking through the eastern inner city – the former “garment district”, now edged by the Maboneng Precinct – Henning saw “old industrial architecture that had become derelict because of apartheid, when the textile industry had been moved to the homelands. I saw how the government had broken the city. I started to understand why parts of a city rise and fall.”

Henning spent time in Hillbrow, Bellevue, Yeoville and Observatory, marking the cyclical nature of Jo’burg’s urban migration and signs of life in what many others had written off as dead spots. “You could still go to Café Zurich [in Hillbrow],” an iconic coffee and hangout spot where, Henning says, his father (an immigrant from Germany) had spent time in the 1950s, “and see new generations of immigrants”, now hailing from Africa instead of Europe. 

Transitional spaces

It was during the 1990s that Henning and Thorsten started “working in a reactive way.”

Henning says that that he and Thorsten “invited [themselves] to the Venice [Architecture] Biennale. We got drunk and sent in a submission.”

When they were invited to present, Henning says he realised they “had to tell a story about Johannesburg. We needed to know stuff – and give the story an attitude, and a flavour.”

As a result, he says, he developed a “strong opinion on just about anything to do with Jo’burg,” which in turn led to him becoming [together with Thorsten] one of the go-to urban thinkers about anything to do with the re-emerging city. The pair participated in a number of exhibitions and publications engaging with transitional spaces in South Africa, working together with Thorsten’s (now) business partner and wife Anne Graupner.  

While Thorsten and Anne “spun off into an activist practice,” Henning says he became “more mainstream”.

In 1997, after returning from working in Hong Kong for several months, Henning started what would become Paragon Architects, together with Anthony Orelowitz.

The building with the lift

“We started like everyone else,” Henning says, of Paragon, “doing bathroom renovations and patios and kitchens. We hunted for work.”

Now, Henning says, the only work they won’t take is private houses.

“We went where the money was,” he states, saying that he and Orelowitz actively began pursuing large developers and developments.

Their first major project was the renewal of the Peregrine Holdings head office in Sandton, which involved adding two extra floors and excavating the site for parking and landscaping.

In 2002 Paragon was awarded its “first building with a lift” – part of the development at Melrose Arch. The lift is now part of the firm’s history: Henning explains they had been courting property developer and investor Zenprop for some time; the director had told them he would consider giving Paragon work “when somebody else gave us a building with a lift,” says Henning.  

They called Zenprop the day they got the Melrose Arch job, and subsequently went on to do so much work for the company that Paragon almost became viewed as Zenprop’s in-house architects. (Zenprop is responsible for developing both the Norton Rose and Alexander Forbes buildings.)     

Raising the roof

Paragon was one of the partners responsible for creating the Cape Town Stadium in Green Point, in a joint venture through POINT Architects & Urban Designers, working on the structure between 2006 until it was handed over to the City of Cape Town in 2009.

“For me it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” says Henning, adding that “I chose the parts of the project that interested me, which was mainly the roof. The structure was incredible high-tech. It involved over 9 000 pieces of glass, of which only 6 800 were the same size. The roof also had to be able to lift up and down, to expand in the wind.”

The stadium – and the roof in particular – went on to win a number of international design and construction awards, but the project came at a high cost for Henning, who says that he “lost almost all of [his] Jo’burg clients” as a result of his time away in Cape Town. 

Growing a global practice

“Anthony and I have started a series of other businesses over the years, which now make up the Paragon Group,” Henning explains, including Hub Architects with Jean-Paul Zietsman, Paragon Interface Architects with Marilize van Dyk, Paragon Habitat Architects with Nadia Tromp, Aspire Architects with Rendani Netshilema, Paragon Arquitetura [in Brazil] with Leticia de Andrade, and Paragon Architects South Africa with Thulani Sibande. “This is the story of the journey with different partners,” Henning says.

Henning has been working in Africa for over a decade, and now only does African development work. “We decided one of the partners had to go after African work, and we’re now in 11 countries, with projects in six of these.

“People come to us because they want the kinds of buildings we do in Sandton,” Henning explains. “We don’t go to Ghana and design in a different way. The differences will emerge in the building processes, and become ‘local’ later.”

One of his jobs included building a brewery in Cabinda, Angola, where every single piece had to be imported, “right down to the screws, the nails, the hammers. I’m interested in buildings in logistically challenged locations.”  

Henning says a large proportion of his time in Africa is spent trying to build relationships. “We don’t have projects in all 11 countries, but we’re trying to take our net as wide as we can. We don’t even know where the dots are yet, and I’m trying to connect them.”

Henning says he “spends a lot of time looking out of windows”. He makes one-minute movies everywhere he goes, switching his phone’s camera on for exactly 60 seconds, creating a massive visual collage – of nightclubs, restaurants, building sites, even the food he eats. “I use the videos for briefings,” he explains, “and to map stuff. Then I go back and look at them again. I look at how people are building, at the plasterwork, at tiles.” The details, rather than the architecture, are what absorb him.

“We want to be the best commercial architecture practice on the continent. That’s a long journey. I’m off buildings. I’m designing the business now.”

Get the new VISI 66 The Office to read our feature about the new Alexander Forbes building in Sandton.

Read more of Nechama Brodie’s articles here. 

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“Rescripting Architecture” is the theme for this year’s event, which follows the success of the 2010 festival in Newtown that attracted over 1 000 visitors. Festival convener Daniel van der Merwe explains the theme: “In the past, architecture has played an important role in shaping our landscape, but now, with the world population shifting to cities and increased pressure on resources, we need to start thinking of architecture as a provocateur of change,” says van der Merwe.

“More than ever, architects must play their role in creating better environments for the future. This festival, with its collaboration of architectural and cultural minds, is not about creating pretty things, but is about asking serious questions and pondering our collective future.”

Besides the conference with numerous international and local speakers, AZA also includes debates, masterclasses, exhibitions, a film festival and city tours. This year’s festival also runs in conjunction with the annual Student Architect Congress, and serves as the setting for the announcement of the SAIA Corobrik Awards of Merit and for Excellence, the “Oscars” of the local architecture industry.

Other international speakers are Rahul Mehrotra, an Indian architect and urban designer who is currently leading the masterplan for the Taj Mahal and its surroundings; UK architect and filmmaker Kibwe Tavares of Factory Fifteen, a creative studio specialising in animation, film and architectural representation; and Ghanaian Joe Osae-Addo, whose people-focussed site-specific eco-housing designs have won praise from Los Angeles to Accra.

Some of the speakers representing South Africa are Ora Joubert, the multiple award-winning architect and convener of a seminal reference book on architecture in democratic South Africa; Andrew Makin of Durban-based architectural firm designworkshop:sa; and Thorsten Deckler, co-founder of 26’10 Architects in Johannesburg.

Joubert and Makin, along with Elena Rocchi from Spain, will also present ‘A Piece of the City’ masterclass on Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 September. Conducted in the historical quarters of Cape Town’s inner city through guided tours with a temporary residential design studio as a base, the class will revolve around the larger context of the city and sites chosen as the focus of a design intervention.

For further information, festival programme and registration, go to www.architectureza.org

The winner of our AZA2012 Conference ticket giveaway was Boipelo Tlhalerwa.

More news from AZA2012

• AZA2012 comes to Cape Town
  The Architecture ZA 2012 Biennial Festival comes to the Cape Town City Hall from Thursday 13 to Sunday 16 September. Kicking off the official Creative Week Cape Town with international speakers including David Adjaye (UK) and Atelier Bow-Wow founders Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kajima (Japan), it is clear that Cape Town is not waiting for 2014 to unroll its design capital status.

• The architect as entrepreneur
  Day 1 of AZA2012: James du Plessis is impressed by Thorsten Deckler and Joe Osae-Addo who demand that architects push beyond obvious financial limitations.

• The puppetry of architecture
  Day 1 of AZA2012: Marine Leblond is blown away by Handspring Puppet Company’s presentation on the connections between puppetry and architecture.

• Architecture as a mirror
  Day 2 of AZA2012: Kibwe Tavares’s multi-disciplinary animations and Rahul Mehrotra’s work in urban India stand out for James du Plessis.

• Architecture for everyone, and elephants
  Day 2 of AZA2012: Marine Leblond is enchanted by Indian architect Rahul Mehrotra’s humility, ingenuity and endurance, and just can’t contain her monsoon of praise…

• Bow-Wow and Adjaye
  Day 3 of AZA2012: James du Plessis was most impressed with Studio Bow-Wow’s work in fishing villages and David Adjaye’s slave museum in Washington.

• From minimalist to monumental
  Day 3 of AZA2012: The day of starchitects went from Bow-Wow’s minimalism to David Adjaye’s monumental, but what about the ‘majority world’, asks Marine Leblond.

More news from Creative Week

• What’s on in Cape Town
  Cape Town is a veritable creative maelstrom kicking off with the ArchitectureZA Biennial Festival, which leads into Creative Week and culminates in the Loeries Awards weekend. Here’s our highlights.

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