The Lab and The Field
Unit 17 asks How and Why we make Architecture in the way that we do. Our research focuses on the tectonics of Architecture – we expand traditions, challenge conventions and experiment with alternatives. Tectonic research is not just about technology and craft; insofar as materials are bound up with connotation and meaning, tectonics have deep cultural resonance. A brick is not the same brick in Alex as it is in Sandton.
Experimental research is typically conducted in a laboratory setting, as it provides a controlled environment and allows for precise measurements and observations. Many of the architecture practices that we admire and try to emulate in our own practice have in-house R&D labs where the team tinkers with new tectonic ideas, often long before the appropriate project materialises. Frank Gehry’s studio had already prototyped the shimmering titanium skin of the Guggenheim in advance of that commission, before their Basel switching stations HdM were coiling bands of copper, Heatherwick Studio are fabricating cut crystal at the scale of building glass for some indeterminate future project. In today’s pressure cooker context, having readymade innovations to hand is a good strategy for advancing the craft. For us though experimentation is more than a work-around, it’s a design philosophy. There’s a feedback loop where the making process offers a designer questions, where making (in)forms concepts – practice opens theory.
Materials and methods experimentation is normally the purview of the engineer and the materials scientist, but it is the architect, society’s imagination engine, who is uniquely positioned to link tectonic exploration and tectonic application – to make the leap from the lab into the field, and back again…
Supervisors
Gregory Katz
Unit Lead
Gregory’s early international work has had a profound influence on his practice methods. A characteristic of Greg’s practice is a desire to use each project to explore the potentials of often quite conventional materials and construction methods in new and unexpected ways. That architects are central to the evolution of how buildings are made also feeds into his teaching at the GSA, where R&D are taken to extremes deemed too risky to implement in the built work (for now).
Tlhologello Sesana
Unit Tutor
Tlhologello is a reflective practitioner, conscious designer, and storyteller who draws inspiration from her own indigenous culture(s) and practice(s). As the co-founder of Sesana Sesana Studio, she explores her research interests through art, architecture, and artisanship. Her studio uses these modalities to shape narratives, confront history, and foster healing. She graduated from TUT with the Corobrik Student of the Year award and has lectured, tutored, and reviewed exams at various universities.