GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews Unit 24 Co-leaders, Heidi Lu and Tonia Murray.

Unit Co-Lead. Heidi Lu is an architect and Unit 12 alum (2019). Her mixed heritage has given rise to her interests in the trans- Saharan/Atlantic slave trades, indentured labour and their subsequent development of race, hybrid cultures, identities and questions of the diasporic home. Her work moves through narrative, choreography, collage, montage, performance, and film. 

Unit Co-Lead. Tonia Murray is an architectural researcher and designer from Johannesburg. She holds a Master’s degree in Architecture from the GSA (Unit 12, 2019). Her mixed heritage has cultivated a strong interest in narratives of identity as a tool for architectural speculation, questioning how racial binaries may find alternative forms of material and spatial expression. 

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Unit 23 leader, Jiaxin Yan Gong.

Unit Leader. Jiaxin Yan Gong is a design researcher and architect based in Johannesburg. She is a Unit 14 alum (2019) and previously taught with Unit 14 in various capacities over a 3-year period. This year is her first year leading a new Unit framed in her research interest that focuses on the epistemological framing of how African cities are re-imagined to surface alternate re-readings of histories and futures of the city. 

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Deputy Director and Unit 22 leader , Anna Nnenna Abengowe and unit co-lead, Guy Trangoš.

Unit Co-Lead. Anna Nnenna Abengowe is an architect, designer and educator. She is the current Deputy Director of the GSA. She is the founder of PoD (Project on Documentation), a research platform and co-founder of he(r)e, otherwise, a digital space centered on African women spatial practitioners and thinkers. She holds a M Arch from Princeton University. 

Unit Co-Lead. Guy Trangoš is an architect, designer, and urban researcher. He is a Senior Lecturer at UJ and a principal at Meshworks Architecture and Urbanism. He holds a Doctor of Design degree from Harvard GSD, a Master of Science in City Design and Social Science from the LSE, and a Master of Architecture (Professional) from Wits. 

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Unit 21 leader, Craig McClenaghan.

Craig McClenaghan is a Johannesburg-based architect, exhibition designer, artist and educator, with a particular interest in ‘cultural narrative.’ In 2016, after thirteen years at Mashabane Rose Associates, he formally established his eponymous architectural studio, CMA, an exploratory multi-disciplinary design platform that engages with researchers, writers, artists, curators, teachers and students. 

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Unit 20 leader, Dickson Adu Agyei.

Dickson Adu-Agyei is a professional architect, founder of Adu Agyei Architecture studio, and the leader of Unit 20 at the GSA. He has over four years’ experience in teaching at the GSA. His research interest lies in a multi-disciplinary approach to design thinking and research. He is interested in how architectural representation can be formulated, expanded and articulated to reflect the African context through film and digital illustration. 

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Unit 17 leader, Gregory Katz.

Gregory Katz is an architect and a tutor at the GSA. His studies took him from UCT to NYC (Columbia University). He runs his small but vibrant practice from a bespoke duplex studio adjacent to his self-built family home and produces a wide spectrum of work for the corporate, retail, residential, leisure and education sectors. One of the characteristics of Greg’s practice is a desire to use each new project as a laboratory in which to explore the potentials of often quite conventional materials and construction methods, in new and unexpected ways. 

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Unit 15X Co Leaders, Bonolo Masango and Nomalanga Mahlangu

Unit Co-Lead. Bonolo Masango‘s architectural ambitions seek to integrate multiple tales, memories, and meanings in the making of architecture. Along with teaching at the GSA she also works at MMA Design Studio, an award-winning architectural design studio that engages in the African landscape through a contemporary interpretation of indigenous knowledge and cultural practices. 

Unit Co-Lead. Nomalanga Mahlangu is an artist, architect, and academic from Moloto, Mpumalanga. She holds a Master’s in Architecture from the University of Johannesburg, and a B Arch from the University of Witwatersrand. Nomalanga teaches in the DoA and at the GSA. Her research interests interrogate the need for permanent architectural solutions in the context of an ever-changing and shifting society. 

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Unit 15X Leader, Dr Finzi Saidi

Unit Co-Leader, Dr Finzi Saidi has been the Unit leader for the last six Unit15X Landscape themes, which explored projects in emergent African cities, including Johannesburg, Kampala, Dar-es-Salaam, Windhoek, and Zanzibar.  

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Unit 8 Leader, Jaco Jonker

Jaco Jonker graduated cum laude with a Master’s in architecture at UJ in 2015 and is a regional Corobrik award winner. Jaco is a practicing architect, ex-economist, a father, and director at Starfield Architects. With interests in generative and computational design, design visualisation, ecology, aquatics, and contextualism Jaco has developed a fluency in alternative and radical thinking around how South African architecture can be imagined. 

GSA Director, Professor Mark Raymond interviews GSA Unit 7 Leader, Ngillan Faal.

Ngillan Faal is a Gambian architect and urbanist, interested in the processes of spatial production at all scales; and how we interact with them to create new spaces and patterns of occupation - the systems and tools by which we “make”. Currently the Programme Convenor for Making at the GSA and the Unit 7 Lead, she has recently set up a small studio – Faal & Kompin, to pursue research into African practices of making. This research interest is extended through her Visiting Research Fellowship at WITS University. Ngillan has worked in formal architectural practice in Johannesburg and London, and in policymaking on climate, equity, and urbanisation for groupings such as UN Habitat. She holds an MSc. in Urbanisation and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and completed her professional architectural qualifications at the Universities of Sheffield, East London, and the Bartlett, UCL.