It was with great pleasure that the Media in Africa Group team hosted a group of architects, designers and specifiers at the DAS event, which was held in Midrand in March 2023.

The day started with a presentation from Andrew Payne of Studio Drew. He shared his project, the dramatic “Black house: Material and sculptural form in harmony”. Our favourite quote of his presentation: “When there is a single vision between the architect, contractor, client and sub-contractor, the result is more than the sum of its parts.”

William Grove from BMI Coverland spoke about how it’s more than a roof in his presentation, “Building new horizons”.

Henning Rasmuss from Datascape Architects took everybody on a roller-coaster ride through the challenges around data centres in his fast-paced presentation, “Connecting the dots: Snapshots of the African data centre landscape”. He said: “The data centre explosion is not a South African story, it’s a global story.”

Veld Architects’ Gillian Holl encouraged local architects to enter global competitions with her presentation, “The journey to the World Architecture Festival”, where the team presented their beautiful project, “Amari”. She said: “Here in South Africa, we think outside the box. We must enter. We must showcase our work. We must be proudly South African.”

Marco Ferdinandi shared the key considerations when choosing air-conditioning in his presentation, “Introduction to Mitsubishi electric air-conditioning systems”.

Exploring “Design by deduction and reduction”, Vedhant Maharaj from Rebel Base Collective shared some examples of the practice’s more challenging projects. “Push the boundary. We are good here (in South Africa).”

Charlene le Roux took the delegates through her presentation, “Blum, solutions that meet the latest design trends”.

Leaf Structures’ Thembakazi Mdlopane shared some technical details of their work in her presentation, “Collaborating over the divide: The evolution of the free form roof at the new University of Cape Town (UCT) d-school”. She said: “Collaboration between the teams on the project is very important for success.”

Finishing the day, Stephan Gildenhuys from BC Gildenhuys and Associates shared his internationally award-winning work, “The quantification of municipal spatial planning: The Ekurhuleni Growth Management Strategy”. “Because we cannot quantify, we cannot measure; and because we cannot measure, we cannot manage,” he said.

A huge thank you to all the sponsors for making this day possible.