Slow Topography The Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies

Hosted by CUBE (London Metropolitan University), this public event was the second in the Afropolitan Architecture series.  
 
"Slow Topography" was the second of three 'dialogues' convened at the British Pavilion in the context of the Venice Biennale (2023), as part of the research and knowledge exchange initiative entitled “Afropolitan Architecture: Imagining the African Urban Future by Design” in which the Africa Centre, London, has come on board as project partner. Supported by London Metropolitan University's Rescaling Fund, the project is a collaboration between the Centre for Urban & Built Ecologies (CUBE) and Dalberg Advisers who have made the project possible with support in kind.  
 
The intention of the dialogue series was to extend the energetic moment of the Biennale’s emergence, framed by Lesley Lokko’s curatorial provocation as the ‘laboratory of the future’, into the world of architectural practice and pedagogy with a number of key individuals positioned to consider what next. Under the rubric of ‘slow topography’, three themes shaped the dialogue between resident discussant Mokena Makeka and guest speaker Tara Gbolade.  
 
The first theme addressed the relation between design practice and the land. For both speakers, the question of engaging with the environment is part of the narrative of maturing as an architect. Secondly, we turned to a key theme for the Biennale as a whole which is the role, efficacy, and character of the architectural imagination. How do our experiences as architects challenge us to consider the question of ‘what if’? For the creative designer, in the context of Africa’s current and future experience of rapid change, is imaginative thinking an ethical obligation? Thirdly, the theme of scale is always at the heart of the architect’s engagement with the land: land as territory, as ground, as a spatial configuration and as an asset. How and why should we practice, as architects and urbanists, simultaneously at different scales of engagement, in trans-scalar ways, from the scale of the city in relation to both personal circumstances and global considerations? 
 
Speakers: 

Mokena Makeka is a Principal of Dalberg Advisors. He is an accomplished architect, artist, creative, curator, global leader, scholar, speaker, and urbanist. Current and recent roles include the Azrieli Visiting Critic at Carleton University School of Architecture and Urbanism (2020), Adjunct Professor Cooper Union, Board member of the South African Green Building Council, and Cape Town Central City Improvement district. He is an alumnus of the World Economic Forum Young Global Leader programme, a member of the WCS Young Leaders in Urbanism, and an Aspen Fellow in leadership 2020. He is at the forefront of thinking about contemporary inclusive cities in Africa with a focus on ecological and socio-economic justice.  

Tara Gbolade  (Director of Gbolade Design Studio, London; Mayor’s Design Advocate and Passivhaus Designer) is a Mayor’s Design Advocate and co-director of award-winning Gbolade Design Studio - an architecture practice specialising in residential and mixed-use developments. She sits on Design Review Panels across London where she advises the council on major planning applications. With an expertise in sustainable design, Tara has led public-sector sustainability guidance; setting the standards for Environmental & Socio-Economic sustainability; ensuring that high quality sustainable design is embedded within new developments, and in the regeneration of existing communities.     
  
Chair: 

Matthew Barac is an architect, writer, and academic. He is Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture at London Metropolitan University where his roles include leading CUBE: Centre of Urban & Built Ecologies and the PhD programme in Art, Architecture & Design. He is Co-Investigator on the London Afropolitan project, and leads Afropolitan Architecture, a research and knowledge exchange initiative developed in collaboration Mokena Makeka which was launched at the Venice Biennale 2023.