Architecture ZA 2018

Architecture ZA 2018 (AZA 18) will be taking place at various venues in the inner city of Pretoria during the week 3-5 May 2018. Presented and hosted by the South African Institute of Architects (SAIA), the three day event – two days of conference presentations and one day of tours and masterclasses – will be co-hosted by the University of Pretoria (UP). Under the theme WeTheCity: Memory & Resilience, the programme will focus upon issues of design and practice concerning environmental potential, cultural heritage and human settlement. South African professional architects and other cultural producers will share experiences and perspectives with cutting-edge international practices from around the world. Members of the public, students, designers, urban thinkers, economists, engineers, quantity surveyors, artists and planning specialists are encouraged to attend.

The acceleration in global urbanization – exacerbated by climate change – dramatically shapes the cities in which we live. As a result new opportunities are being created toward compact cities, improved energy consumption, economic and social dynamism, market creation, human development and climate change adaptation. Different scenarios of change are envisaged as to how we live, engage, interact, and survive either as individuals, or as part of a collective within the urban environment.

Cities not only need to be sustainable, but also become more adaptive and diverse so as to be more resilient in the face of such new scenarios. The theme for the AZA 18 considers these scenarios collectively under the heading WeTheCity: Memory and Resilience. The term ‘resilience’ is the ability of a system to absorb, or recover, from certain disturbances without losing its functional identity, while memory refers to the significance of phenomena that hold on to properties that matter to and for a place – it is about objecting to the loss of meaning.

It is against the above background that the role of professional architects is changing, implied by the wording of WeTheCity. The latter is a proclamation, but also a provocation, implying a call for participatory action into how we shape our cities collectively.