NEW PARADIGMS? - thoughts on the KZNIA ARCHI-EDUCATIONAL conference at DOCKLANDS HOTEL in the point on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th of October 2012 or ‘. . . . . now, where the hell did I leave my chalk?

Nice Venue! And great organisation – doff hats to Georgie, Kevin and the team – although the collapse of an adjacent, non-restrained, crumbling, brick wall on the eve of the conference could perhaps have stood as a worthy metaphor for the conference – if only in my own head!

I’m reminded of a cartoon that has been doing the rounds on facebook recently – Elephant on the shrink’s couch says ‘Doctor, sometimes I can be standing in the middle of the room and no one sees me!’

So too with architectural education and the launch of OPEN ARCHITECTURE (the cause-celebre of the conference) an on-line, webinar based programme of learning - toward council registration as a professional architect without ever setting foot in a university – no clarity yet on whether this will lead to a degree or just the nod from SACAP!

OPEN ARCHITECTURE is a joint initiative of KZNIA, SAIA and the School of Architecture at UOFS in Bloem. One of the founding principles – and this from memory – I am a lousy ‘note taker’– is that SA doesn’t have enough registered Architects! Justification for this statement is to make comparisons with architect/citizen ratios in Europe and the States! Tell that to the hoard of recent archi-graduates that aren’t able to find full time employment in SACAP registered practices – a precondition to SACAP registration – and also to the number of established, experienced professionals who are severely under-employed due to the vagaries of public infrastructure spend and B-BBEE/AA.

What wasn’t discussed – and this is/was the elephant in the room for the duration – is that the initiative arose largely in response to the virtual destruction of the much loved and respected UKZN school by Malagapuru’s mini-me despot, and the ‘shafting’ of an entire generation of dedicated teachers and academics in the name of ‘transformation’ – internationally acclaimed academics like Rodney Harber, Wally Peters, and Derek Wang were un-ceremoniously ‘dumped’ (it was made quite clear that super-annuation wasn’t on the cards),  Dennis Radford ran for cover – ended up in Sheffield - and a whole bunch of others - Kevin Bingham, Kelly Aspinal, Barbara Jekot, Alethea Duncan-Brown, Paul Sanders and myself - were made to feel so ‘unwelcome’ that we all literally ‘threw in the towel’  -  some to be snapped up by other schools – Wally by UOFS, Rodney by DUT, Paul Saunders by QUT in Brisbane, Barbara Jekot by UJ and Kelly Aspinal by the school in Darwin, Australia. 

What also wasn’t talked about was the difficulty that many of our undergrad students had experienced  in getting re-accepted into the UKZN school to complete their post grad masters - with many of them applying to (and likewise being snapped up by) other schools – UP,  NMMU, UCT, UOFS, UJ etc. These, often excellent graduates, are now ‘lost’ to Durbs – perhaps forever!

It was, as ever, really encouraging to see the work of Rajeev Kathpalia (the best till last?) and his coining of the term ECOLOGICAL-REAL-ESTATE – come again? - and to hear of the great learning taking place at CPUT with their teach/design/build studio  – I have my doubts about the ethics of using poor communities as design/play opportunities especially given our fiercely polarised histories of privilege and hardship – I hold that the poor deserve the BEST of and from us! It was also great to see Richard Stretton’s inspiring vertical studio at UOFS that enquired into the possibilities of MATERIAL to in-FORM. 

So what COULD HAVE BEEN, wasn’t. NEW PARADIGMS? Not really. Are we addressing the fact that our buildings use up 50% of all generated energy while accounting for 50% of our landfills and for the most part reinforce and exaggerate the already wide chasm between rich and poor? And is this having any impact on how we teach a new generation of architects or is it at least shaping the way we  currently practice our game?  It seems not.

The  conference petered out by Saturday lunch into back-patting smugness (again) by a profession that has all but lost its’ relevance in the complex, contested pseudo-eco/socio space that we imagine we occupy  –  we have become nothing more than corporate sluts, scrapping over the bones of a once proud tradition – Rome is clearly on fire?  – and it was left to Jono Bennet (one of the UKZN refugees now re-located in UJ after his well-judged Master’s dissertation at UP in 2011) to remind us that ARCHITECTURE and ACTIVISM can be spoken of in the same sentence in his spirited presentation about recent interventions in Slovo Park and Alex.

Is it BAU – business as usual - or just EDUCATION OTHERWHERE?