In October, the Pretoria chapter of Designer, Architect, Specifier (DAS) took place at the Atterbury Theatre in Pretoria.

As with the other conferences, it was an insightful day for the architects, quantity surveyors (QSs) and designers who attended.

The programme

As always, the programme is designed to educate, delight and entertain.

The programme started with Wim van Schalkwyk from Zutari, with “Collaboration, by design” discussing how design thinking offers a “Social technology” for people to become co-creators vs bystanders. Wim discussed several case studies on how they implemented this with clients and actual projects.

This was followed by “Building new horizons” with Willem Grove from our sponsor, BMI Coverland.

Nadine Engelbrecht from Nadine Engelbrecht Architects discussed 2 refurbishment projects. Her sense of humour and real interpretation brought great entertainment

After the break, another award winning architect,Vedhant Maharaj from Rebel Base Collective presented “Design by deduction and reduction” to great comments from the crowd .

“Rethink the way you build” by Gary Powell from Siniat, challenged the architects on rethinking how they build and the possibilities available to them.

Paul Boshoff from Urban Concept discussed “The Southernmost Project: Exploring heritage, conservation and NFTs” – a refreshing taking on combining heritage with technology for preservation.

Rob Thane from LYT Architecture pulled back the curtain and showed the audience how LYT has evolved with the use of technology in his talk “Use of technology in creating a future-proofed design firm”.

The final guest of the day, Ian Harrison from Technical Finishes, had a very informative talk about “Future fit flooring with Technical Finishes”, discussing different resin flooring types and showcasing some jaw dropping projects.

There were also big winners on the day! Pieter van der Walt from WMS Architects, Carin van Heerden from Carne Interiors and Barnard & Burger Associated Architects all won prizes and lucky draws. Congratulations!

https://www.facebook.com/wmsarchitects/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/wms-architects-pty-ltd/about/

https://www.facebook.com/carneinteriors

https://www.instagram.com/carnedesigns/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/www.bbarchitects.co.za/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bba-architects/about/

Feedback from visitors

• Keep up the good work!
• Enjoyed very much.
• Thank you, excellent DAS event.
• I am very glad I attended.
• Superb, keep it up.
• Great morning, well organised and great speakers.
• I like the shortness of the sponsor talks. It informs and doesn’t bore.

A huge thank you to the following sponsors for making this day possible:

We’re looking forward to some more exciting CPD events in 2023. Hope to see you at “DAS, Not your Average CPD”!