Starts:
06:00pm, Tuesday, 26 January 2021
Until:
07:00pm, Tuesday, 26 January 2021
All talks are free and accessible to everyone, but for security reasons, we do require attendees to have a registered Zoom account.
All times are stated in UK time (GMT)
Lesley Lokko, recipient of the 2020 RIBA Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education, is joined by Nicky Watson, Zoë Berman, Gugu Mthembu & Thandi Loewenson in a discussion chaired by Matthew Barac. Lokko founded and led the Graduate School of Architecture (GSA) at the University of Johannesburg, and has taught at institutions including Iowa State University, University of Illinois, Kingston University, University of Westminster and the University of North London. From January 2021, she begins building the African Futures Institute, an independent postgraduate school of architecture in Accra, Ghana.
On receiving the award, Professor Lesley Lokko said:
I am deeply humbled by the jury’s decision. This award is for everyone who came out in support of the Black Lives Matter protests, which put such difficult and challenging questions on the table for us all. It is also dedicated to the teachers and students at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, whose tenacity and inventiveness have charted a new path for architectural education.
The event will be chaired by Matthew Barac, Reader in Architecture at London Metropolitan University. Lokko will be joined by Nicky Watson, Zoë Berman, Gugu Mthembu & Thandi Loewenson for a discussion that will look at both the award itself and its context, as well as the the personal narratives behind the nomination.
Cover Image Credit: © Tonia Murray, Unit 12, GSA
Panelists
Lesley Lokko
Lesley Lokko is an architect, academic and the author of eleven best-selling novels. She is founder and director of the African Futures Institute, an independent postgraduate school of architecture in Accra, Ghana. She was formerly Dean of Architecture at the Spitzer School of Architecture, CCNY, and was the founder and former director of the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of London (2007). She is the editor of White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture (University of Minnesota Press, 2000); editor-in-chief of FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture and is on the editorial board of ARQ (Cambridge). She is also a series editor of the Design Research in Architecture (UCL Press), together with founders Jonathan Hill and Murray Fraser. In 2004, she made the successful transition from academic to novelist with the publication of her first novel, Sundowners (Orion 2004), a UK-Guardian top forty best-seller, and has since then followed with ten further best-sellers, which have been translated into fifteen languages. She has lectured and published widely on the subject of race, identity and architecture, and has served on a number of juries and awards over the past decade.
Nicky Watson
Nicky Watson is RIBA Board Trustee for Learning and chairs the RIBA Education Committee. Nicky chaired the judging panel of the 2020 RIBA Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education. She joined JDDK Architects in Newcastle in 1993 and since 2000 has been one of four Directors of the 20 person practice specialising in hospice, housing, visitor centre and heritage projects. Since 2015 Nicky has been the RIBA Council member representing the North East.
Zoë Berman
Zoë Berman is a Founding Director of design group Studio Berman that brings together a network of collaborators and architectural experts. Zoë teaches at a number of schools of architecture and is a proponent of open, accessible and engaging approaches in design education and discourse. She is the founder of Part W – an action group of women working across architecture, design, infrastructure and construction who campaign for gender parity across the built environment.
Gugulethu Mthembu
Gugulethu Mthembu is a young practicing architect, performer and gender activist. Her performance work, entitled Embodiments, has been published and performed internationally. Her work draws on African oral storytelling, slam poetry, design research and critiques of colonial and patriarchal power structures. A graduate of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, her work argues for the right to present ‘live’ work in place of a traditional written thesis, a tradition that, ironically, replicates the viva voce format of academic and judicial testimonies.
Thandi Loewenson
Thandi Loewenson is an architectural designer/researcher who operates through design, fiction and performance to interrogate our perceived and lived realms and to speculate on the possible worlds in our midst. Mobilising the ‘weird’ and the ‘tender’, she engages in projects which provoke questioning of the status-quo, whilst working with communities, policy makers, artists and architects towards acting on those provocations. Thandi is a tutor at the Royal College of Art, London, a Visiting Professor at the Aarhus School of Architecture and a co-foundress of the architectural collective BREAK//LINE.
Chaired By
Matthew Barac
Dr Matthew Barac is Reader in Architecture, London Metropolitan University. His PhD investigated design dynamics at the interface between formal and informal urban orders, winning plaudits including the RIBA President's Award for Research and the International Bauhaus Award. Honorary roles include editorial board positions for scholarly journal Architecture & Culture and the Architectural Review, jury membership for the Global Architectural Graduate Awards and the RIBA Research Awards, and chairing the board of trustees for charity Architecture Sans Frontières-UK.