Embedded Files
1st Runner-up, Timber Design Competition
1st Runner-up, Timber Design Competition
We are proud to announce that Inke Janse van Rensburg, an architecture student from the University of Pretoria , has been awarded First Runner-up in the 2025 Timber Design Competition.
This year’s competition reached new heights, with nearly 130 registered teams from nine universities across South Africa and beyond, highlighting the growing impact and innovation within timber architecture.
Inke’s project presents a regenerative architectural intervention in the Waterberg, positioning mass timber as the primary structural system. Through a design-for-disassembly approach, the project ensures adaptability, circularity, and long-term community benefit. The proposal integrates locally produced earth bricks and pottery crafted by Ndebele artisans, reinforcing cultural heritage while embedding traditional knowledge into the construction process.
Beyond its material innovation, the project emphasises community participation in both making and meaning, transforming the site into a platform for biodiversity education, skills training, and ecological stewardship. Inke’s work demonstrates how architecture can bridge people, place, and biodiversity, creating living environments that evolve with and for communities.
Congratulations, Inke, on this outstanding achievement and contribution to the future of sustainable and socially engaged timber design!
Maverick Prize Award, Timber Competition
Maverick Prize Award, Timber Competition
The CoDesign Studio from Unit for Urban Citizenship, University of Pretoria, working in partnership with the Melusi Youth Development Organisation (MYDO), has received an Honourable Mention (Maverick Prize Award) in the 2025 Timber Design Competition.
Student team: Timu Wassenaar,Tilon Smith, Daniela Smal, Mvuzo Mazibu, Dintle Mahlatsi, Margo Pio and Anekah Botha
Community partners: Hlakudi, Thompson, Gladys, Lerato, Chichi, Nthabiseng, and Kgothatso
Studio leaders: Jason Oberholster, Christian Greyling and Prof Carin Combrinck
Their project focused on the extension of MYDO 2, a vital youth hub in the Melusi informal settlement. Through a co-design process, students and community members worked side by side to conceptualise and deliver a 35 m² timber-frame extension. The intervention responds directly to community priorities, providing adaptable learning, gathering, and creative spaces.
The project demonstrates how timber can serve both as a sustainable, low-carbon building system and as a medium for social impact. Locally grounded and collaboratively built, the MYDO 2 extension embodies architecture as a platform for participation, empowerment, and resilience.
The team’s narrative was guided by the metaphor of the eagle: observing, listening, taking flight, and returning. This reflects their journey of co-design, from listening and mapping to building together and ultimately returning with a shared sense of authorship.
Congratulations to the team and the Melusi community for showing how design, when done with and not for, can create more than buildings: it creates relationships, agency, and future possibilities.
Thank you to the project funders Department of Science, Technology and Innovation, The National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) andSouth African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (NRF SAASTA) and to York Timbers, RAW Modular and Woodoc for your support
Commendation (2nd prize) at the prestigious National Corobrik Student Architecture Awards
Commendation (2nd prize) at the prestigious National Corobrik Student Architecture Awards
We are thrilled to congratulate Shannon Rees Govender for securing the commendation (2nd prize) at the prestigious National Corobrik Student Architecture Awards.
Her exceptional project, "Life in the Making: A Narrative of Craft Practices in Eshowe," beautifully integrates local craftsmanship with contemporary architectural innovation. Set within the culturally rich landscape of Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal, Shannon’s design engages directly with local artisans, basket weavers, potters, and other skilled craft practitioners to create a vibrant space of cultural exchange and sustainability.
Located at the historic Fort Nongqayi Museum Village, her project thoughtfully transforms the environment into a dynamic hub of Zulu craftsmanship. By creatively merging indigenous skills with modern technology, such as 3D printing and CNC timber construction inspired by traditional weaving patterns, Shannon's design not only honours local traditions but also ensures their innovative continuation.
Govender_Life_2024.pdfPage updated
Google Sites
Report abuse