Habitat
updated Sunday 21 June 2009
The committee portfolio member responsible for Habitat is Sarah Calburn
She has initiated a series of design workshops which are currently underway. Please see the section: Design Workshops for more information.
Sarah Calburn founded her Johannesburg practice in 1996 after completing a Masters in Architecture by Research at the Royal Melbourne Insitute of Technology. She graduated from Wits with distinction in 1987, and has worked in Paris, Hong Kong, Sydney and Melbourne. Her multi award-winning practice specializes in design integrity, in the 'art' of architecture. She locates her ethos in the conceptual space between landscape and architecture, and is committed to a critical architectural practice which is able to sustain both a creative and a critical dialogue with its environment. Currently she sits on the committee of the Gauteng Institute for Architecture, from which position she has initiated a series of CPD accredited Design Masterclasses called 'Rapid Thought transport: Architects re-imagine Joburg'. She is passionate about the re-empowerment of architecture in what she perceives as the rapidly privatising, developer-led urban environments of South Africa. She lectures frequently at the various architectural events, writes on architecture, and has been part of various judging panels. Her work and writing have been published in both local and international magazines and books, including the Phaedon Atlas of World Architecture and Wallpaper magazine. She has taught at RMIT, and continues to teach and examine design at UCT and Wits.
See: www.sarahcalburn.co.za <http://www.sarahcalburn.co.za/> for more details.
Initiatives:
Design Masterclasses:
Rapid Thought Transport –Architects Re-imagine Joburg
Insert poster as well please - Is attached.
As committee member of the Gauteng Institute for Architecture in 2009, and from a position in the Habitat slot, Sarah Calburn (of Sarah Calburn Architects) has put together a series of design masterclasses which will give 4 x SAIA accredited Category 1 CPD points to practicing architects from all over the country. Unusually, these CPD points will be earned in an atmosphere which concerns itself with design and design-thinking, rather than with the usual professional practice or trade-related topics.
The masterclasses will run as a monthly series over 2009, each led by a different practicing design-orientated South African architect or artist, and will culminate in a publication which aims to project an alternative, or experimental view of contemporary Joburg. The series is entitled ‘Rapid Thought Transport’ precisely in order to critique and extrapolate to maximum potential our most optimistic urban becoming for many years: the implementation of the Bus Rapid Transport system – the ‘Rea Vaya’, which in combination with the Gautrain, could be seen to lay down the most potentially powerful public platform we have seen in the last 75 years in what is, we contend, the rapidly weakening public environment of Johannesburg. Conceptually we take the position that the time is ripe to experiment with architectural alternatives for Joburg, the time is right to explore an alternative vision which could be seen to issue a challenge to the endless unrolling of a privatized, repetitive and franchised urban environment which is losing, continuously, any meaningful architectural and urban intimacy and real access, and which fails to realize any ground breaking experimentation with itself and with its histories. The main focus of interest throughout all studios will be the problematisation of public/private access to the city and its ‘communal’ spaces.
We have already run the first two masterclasses, and the third is due to begin shortly. We had about 60 people come to the first presentation evening at David Krut Projects in Parkwood, and a great debate was sparked. We welcome your participation!
Please see the Gifa and SAIA websites for more details, or please contact:
Sarah Calburn: sarah@sarahcalburn.co.za
SA Architecture Week Sept 2010:
Sarah Calburn, Jean-Pierre de la Porte and Rodney Place are in the process of putting together the conceptual framework for the first proposed SA Architecture Week to run after the World Cup soccer event in Joburg in September 2010. The theme they have developed is nominally called “Post Event City – From centrism to speed and position”. The Architecture Week seeks to re-engage architectural in the wider cultural debate of Joburg. An alternative title for the Week might be “Cities and Counter-Cities”.
South African Cities Conference: 24-25 June, Wits:
The Future of South African Urban Studies
Sarah Calburn is a speaker at the opening Plenary of this event at the University of the Witwatersrand, which includes sessions by all the spheres of Built Environment professionals and academics.
Green Building Conference July 2009:
Sarah Calburn is a speaker at this forthcoming conference. Her talk is entitled ‘Mutual Deformations: Towards a green Agenda in Architecture’.
Institute for Advanced Architectural Research:
This is an initiative being set up by Sarah Calburn with Jean-Pierre de la Porte and a range of other players from Business Transformation, Landscape Architecture, Art and Business backgrounds which seeks the establishment of a SAIA accredited CPD and RPL course structuring body which would enable the re-empowerment and extra skilling of architects in the wider Built Professions. Three main areas being developed would be those of a Design as Research Think Tank, a multi-disciplinary Digital Studio, and the provision of an MBA in the Built Environment.
Critical engagement with the City:
I am taking a good hard look at the initiative by Old Mutual to replace the classic 60’s building ‘Mutual Square’ in Rosebank with a large new Edgars: a good demonstration of what could be called the franchising of formerly ‘public’ space, and a challenge to the current mania for fortified, quasi-public space in Joburg.
Architectural Debate Forums:
I am in the process of getting to grips with the introduction of a monthly debate forum at which 2 architects and 1 student will present projects around a critical agenda. The intention is to start the excavation and definition of at least 3 Schools of Thought in South African architecture: As Leon van Schaik once so memorably said, that there is only a living debate when at least 3 schools of thought can be identified, and my feeling is that at present, there is little or no conceptual architectural discourse in South Africa –
