In the annual competition, the country’s best architectural students from eight major universities are identified based on their final theses and presented with awards throughout the year. The winners of each of the regional competitions then go on to compete for the national title and a prize of R50,000 at the Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year Awards.
“The students of today are the creators of the built environment of the future. We find ourselves in a challenging time where our finest young minds will have to adapt to unprecedented changes. We are on the brink of a fourth industrial revolution. Whereas, the first industrial revolution was centred on engineering, the second driven by electricity and mass production and the third by information technology, the fourth will hinge on human creativity. Already we are seeing massive levels of disruption as people completely recreate processes that we have taken for granted for decades,” said Musa Shangase, Corobrik commercial director told students and academics at the award ceremony.
Margeaux Adams' thesis is entitled Onder Hemel Bo Aarde. She says, “The research interrogates dominant western pedagogy and concepts of cultural superiority including the idea of architecture as a product of culture.
"It looks at colonial discourse with a specific interest in language and its use in constructing systems of knowledge and power and assesses architecture as an extension of this colonial language.
"Using post-colonial theory, the research intends to deconstruct harmful and inaccurate ideas of cultural superiority and its embodiment in our spatial landscapes. Noting that during colonialism and its succeeding ideology apartheid, erasure of people of colour occurred in various forms. Erasure of their identities under racial classification systems and the accompanying spatial erasure through spatial displacement and relocation.
"Within the spatial case study of the small Anglican mission settlement of Abbotsdale (a community of former slaves) the research addresses three central ideas from an architectural standpoint; identity, power and ritual. This community has experienced multiple forms of erasure within its physical and psychological landscape.
"The architectural proposal programmatically attempts to accommodate the remaining remnants of the rituals of the town and community. Therein acknowledging and giving value to the community's heritage and history. This takes physical form in the reinterpretation of the spatial role once played by the church in a mission settlement. The programme is a complex which includes an archive, an agricultural school, an event space, a community-based market and a bakery.”
Adams received first prize of R8,500, while Rene Vidjak won second prize of R6,500 and Aeron Stipanov received the third prize of R4,500. A R4,500 prize for the best use of clay masonry was also presented to Gabrielle Cutler.
Adams will represent the University of Witwatersrand at the national finals to be held in Johannesburg in April this year.
