Heinrich Wolff of Wolff Architects, South Africa will give a keynote lecture at this year’s Australian Urban Design Awards titled Network Systems.
Led by Heinrich and Iize Wolff, Wolff Architects is an architectural practice interested in the nexus between design, advocacy and research. The practice’s portfolio includes a number of civic-scale projects, including schools, museums, hospitals and market places.
Among other work, Heinrich will discuss the practice’s Watershed project, a design they say “demonstrates that an educational institution can show leadership in the formation of the city by serving interests beyond those of the brief.”
Watershed is a business incubator located in an existing industrial shed on the Cape Town waterfront. Wolff Architects proposed a new publicly accessible street through the shed that creates a pedestrian network between key programs. Although the street is enabled by the business incubator project, it acts as a device for creating economic opportunities for small businesses – a kind of market – and offers a new public space to citizens.
In 2012 Heinrich authored the book Heinrich Wolff – Architecture at a Time of Social Change, which considers post-apartheid architecture in South Africa and the new role of the architect.
Click here to see a video of Heinrich discussing the ideas explored in the book.
The work of Wolff Architects has been included at various international exhibitions, including the Venice Architecture Biennale, Shenzhen Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Architectural Biennale, the Sao Paulo Biennale and the South American Architecture Biennale.
Heinrich’s presentation will precede the announcement of the 2017 Australian Urban Design Awards, to be held in Brisbane on 25 October at the State Library of Queensland.
View the shortlisted projects here.
The Australian Urban Design Awards are organized by Architecture Media and convened by the Planning Institute of Australia with the support of the Australian Institute of Architects, the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, the Government Architects Network Australia, the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council, Consult Australia, Engineers Australia and the Green Building Council of Australia. The principal partner is Cement Concrete and Aggregates Australia, with supporting partners PTA Landscapes, Holcim, Wood Solutions, Christie and the Queensland Government.
