Contributors
FOUNDER + CONTRIBUTOR
Khensani Jurczok-de Klerk is an architectural designer, researcher, performer.
At the centre of her practice is an interest in spatial storytelling and commitment to spatial education. Her her practice focuses on intersectionality and safe space, questioning the role that architecture plays in relation to Gender-based violence. She is conducting a PhD as a fellow at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) ETH Zürich.
She is local to South Africa and Switzerland.
CONTRIBUTOR
Abdé Batchati is an architecture graduate.
She’s interested in community-based and self-organized systems, centering both self-empowerment and holistically sustainable approaches. While actively engaging with wider kinds of knowledge, skills and people, she wants to create spatial experiences that encourage play, reflection and involvement.
She is local to Germany while deepening her relations to Togo.
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
Afaina de Jong is an architect and researcher.
She works on the boundary of architecture and art with her studio AFARAI. Her work is deeply connected to represent people and cultural movements that are not traditionally represented in architectural form. De Jong situates her work and its form languages, colors, patterns and narratives in the public realm as part of the collective imaginary. Her discourse is international and intersectional, connecting counterculture with architecture. As a studio AFARAI considers itself a feminist practice that encourages change on social and spatial issues and that accommodates differences.
She is local to Amsterdam, the Netherlands by way of Suriname, South America.
CONTRIBUTOR
Aisha Wanjirū Mūgo is an urbanism & migration researcher, film photographer
With a background in Urban Studies and Migration, she has a strong passion for African cities and African mobility. She is deeply invested in developing new ways in which we can begin to (re)-think and (re)-imagine urban space and movement within the African context. She uses the medium of analogue photography as to immerse herself in reclaiming and returning the gaze, committing herself to her lifelong project of Archiving the Self.
She is local to Kenya.
CONTRIBUTOR
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
Anna Abengowe is an architect and spatial practitioner.
She is the founder and principal of The Agency [spatial agency africa, 2019], deputy director and academic lead, and Unit 22 co-lead at the Graduate School of Architecture (GSA) University of Johannesburg (2022-2023). She is the co-founder, saay|yaas design collective (2020), co-creator of her(e), otherwise digital platform (2021), co-awardee of the Graham Foundation Grant (2022) and an academic advisor at African Futures Institute (AFI, 2024). She actively develops new, transnationally relevant platforms in experimental and speculative pedagogy, research, and practice for architecture, urban, and other spatial practices across Africa.
She is local to South Africa, Nigeria and the US.
CONTRIBUTOR
Aude Tollo is an architectural designer, researcher and writer.
She is currently completing her Part 2 in architecture at the Architectural Association. She is part of PATCH, a collective founded by the 2020-2021 cohort of the new architecture writers based in London. Her personal practice is multidisciplinary and looks at non canonical ways of knowing and archiving through earth architecture representation and speculation.
She is local to the UK, Switzerland and Burkina Faso.
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
Danielle Harris is a fashion designer, networking design facilitator, educator.
In the ongoing deepening of holistic design principles of design between clothing, body and object, she expands the conventional understanding of design practice in exchange with the BA + MA students. These questions shape her progressive teaching methods from conceptual drafts to practical assembly procedures "rethink representation - accessVOIR". She has a Masters in Art, Design and Innovation and a CAS in Digital Cultures, University of Basel.
She is local to Switzerland.
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
Fatima Bintou Rassoul SY is a curator and cultural practitioner.
She explores archives and Trans-African narratives in her work. Through her curatorial practice, she investigates how communities embody these stories and seek to create third spaces and new geographies to anchor untold narratives. Fatima views archives as vessels of shared memory, aiming to deepen understanding of societal foundations. As the Director of Programs at RAW Material Company, — a Dakar-based center for art, knowledge and society — she designs transdisciplinary projects that foster intellectual and artistic creativity in Africa.
She is local to Senegal.
CONTRIBUTOR
Gabriela De Matos is an architect, urban planner, curator, and activist-researcher.
She is aligned with the concept of action-research in Latin America. She graduated from PUC Minas in 2010, specialized at UFMG in 2016, and holds a master's degree in Rights, Conflicts, and Other Legitimacies from Diversitas, FFLCH USP. Founder of Arquitetas Negras, she was named Architect of the Year 2020 by IAB RJ and served as president of IAB SP. Her work focuses on gender and race in architecture, linking it to culture and visual arts. In 2023, she co-developed the Brazil Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, winning the Golden Lion. She is CEO of Gabriela de Matos Architecture Studio.
She is local to Brazil.
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
Ilze Wolff is an architect.
She co-directs Wolff Architects with Heinrich Wolff, a practice concerned with an architecture of consequence. Their built work includes public infrastructure projects, cultural educational buildings, exhibition architecture and urban interventions of repair and restoration. Ilze has developed an enduring yet critical public culture around architecture through initiating exhibitions, film projects, public interventions and publication. She is the co-founder and editor of the publication and research platform pumflet: art, architecture and stuff which focuses on the black social and spatial imaginaries.
She is local to South Africa.
CONTRIBUTOR
Iyo Bisseck is a designer, programmer, and artist.
Her work explores biases that show the link between technologies and systems of domination, with a specific focus on racial bias in the realisation of virtual agents.Through her work as a website designer, she also supports many initiatives to have a digital archive. As an artist, she is interested in creating alternative and collaborative narratives using virtual tools.
She is local to France and Cameroon.
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
Kabelo Malatsie is an organiser and curator.
She is currently living and working in Bern, Switzerland.
She is local to South Africa.
CONTRIBUTOR
Lesego Bantsheng is an urbanist, researcher, sculptor, and landscape architect.
She is interested in cosmologies and technologies from rural geographies. Through research, machine learning, clay, and mycelium she explores speculations regarding both the past and future of rural and peri-urban spatiality. She thinks of the archive as a series of prompts that can be re-evaluated through critical fabulations.
She is local to South Africa and The United Kingdom.
CONTRIBUTOR
Lethabo Xulu is a designer and researcher.
She considers herself as a futurist, embracing "All of life is design" as a philosophy for life. Originally trained a fashion designer, she now explores African cultural typologies through various built environments and objects. Inspired by the Bauhaus movement, she examines the global impact of African design on design history. She uses fine and applied art to foster conversations around these contributions.
She is local to South Africa.
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
Margarida N. Waco is an architect and writer.
Among other things, she is currently a PhD candidate at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) ETH Zurich, an associate lecturer and studio lead at the Royal College of Art - School of Architecture (UK), an editorial advisor to The Funambulist where she previously headed the Strategic Outreach and served as contributing editor. In 2024, she was awarded the Journal of Architectural Education Fellowship.
She is local to Cabinda and Denmark.
Contributions:
Homeplace - A Love Letter
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
May al-lbrashy is an architect and architectural historian.
She is founder and chair of Megawra-Built Environment Collective a twinship between an architectural firm and NGO, and coordinator of Athar Lina Initiative, a participatory initiative that conserves the heritage of al-Khalifa in Historic Cairo and conceives of it as a driver for community development. She holds a PhD in archaeology from the School of Oriental and African Studies and has taught at numerous universities in Egypt. She is a recipient of the Prince Claus Fund Impact Award in 2022.
She is local to Egypt.
CONTRIBUTOR
Meriem Chabani is an architect and urban designer.
Her interest lies in putting the margin at the center. She is co-founder of NEW SOUTH, a practice investigating. She currently teaches at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris Malaquais (FR), Royal College of Art (UK) and HEAD Geneva (CH). In 2020, Meriem won a Europe 40 under 40 award from The European Centre for Architecture and The Chicago Athenaeum.
She is local to France and Algeria.
CONTRIBUTOR
Mmakhotso Lamola is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, writer, and architect.
Her intimate process-based research practice forges new modes in archiving to create more personal and softer narratives about urban space, identity and contexts. She produces research and work that releases the impetus to discover, in favour of the need to recover, heal, listen, and give voice to the silenced; in this way she aims to complicate what seems simple and advocate for vulnerability above all else.
She is local to South Africa.
CONTRIBUTOR
Neo Twala is a post production coordinator.
With a background in promo directing and edit assisting, in the past few years she has had the privilege of working on Netflix productions as an assistant editor and VFX assistant editor, which she believes has exposed her to the detail of post production. With each production having its own identity, she has gained a significant amount of experience from the reception of scripts, to picture lock and finally, to delivery. She is looking forward to sharpening her skills with each production and using them for good in South Africa’s film and television industry.
She is local to South Africa.
CONTRIBUTOR
Sara Frikech is an architect and a doctoral fellow in landscape and urban studies.
Her work - including models, objects and installations - stems from a deep interest to understand the many layers of our hybrid realities. She employs overlooked narratives and lenses to explore issues connected to the built environment. In an attempt to find ways to reflect upon existing spatial forms and to reimagine new ones.
She is local to the Netherlands and Morocco.
CONTRIBUTOR
Sumayya Mohamed is an urbanist, photographer and researcher.
Born and raised in central Johannesburg, the city’s many daily rhythms, textures and forms have become central to informing her work and creative approach to spatial research. She is passionate about documenting the city, its history and its stories hoping to shift perspectives and reimagine how we move through and think about cities and its people.
She is local to South Africa.
CONTRIBUTOR
Tapiwa Manase is an ar(tist)chitect, researcher and designer.
She believes in: multidisciplinary collaboration, community-based design using holistic bottom-up approaches. Tapiwa translates climate, socio-cultural heritage, economic framework and local identity toward informing positive perceptions of overlooked communities, using architecture as a tool.
She is local to Austria, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
CONTRIBUTOR
Tonderai Koschke is an architectural researcher and educator.
She is a lecturer at Weissensee School of Art and Universität der Künste Berlin, focusing on post-colonial identities and power dynamics in the built environment. Living in Germany and Switzerland, she has worked at Architangle publishers, Boltshauser Architekten, and as a curatorial assistant at the Architecture Museum in Munich. She also co-founded Isusu Ffena, a pan-Afrikan collective based in Berlin.
She is local to Germany and Zimbabwe.
CONTRIBUTOR
Tshegofatso Mako is an interior and architectural designer.
She is the founder of Makography Studio, an Interior studio as well as Makorder which focuses on providing objects for essential living. Previously she obtained her Masters degree in architecture at Politecnico di Milano. At the core of her design approach is expressive, creative, social design.
She is local to South Africa.
ADVISORY CONTRIBUTOR
Zineb Seghrouchni is a curator and programmer.
She is the founder of DAR cultural agency, a Rotterdam-based cultural agency and platform aiming at creating space for artists who question the status quo through multiple perspectives. DAR creates cultural programs and represents some of the finest (emerging) contemporary talents in art, design, and architecture. As a writer, curator, designer, agent and researcher, Zineb brings a unique sensitivity to space, community, art and culture, through regeneration and unconventionality. Before venturing out to start DAR, she was the woman behind the international succes of the Creative Industries Fund NL.
She is local to the Netherlands and Morocco.
CONTRIBUTOR
Ola Hassanain is a visual Artist, educator and critical space practitioner.
Her practice works through a concept of 'space as discourse', developing 'spatial vocabulary' as means to aspire to different political ecologies and alternative futures. Ola is currently lead lecturer at Blackerblackness Master course at Sandberg Institute. She is currently a resident at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She has had various commissions Chicago Architecture Triennale, Sharjah Triennale amongst others.
She is local to Sudan and based between Amsterdam and Khartoum.