26’10 south

Growing up in the Namibian desert, I learned from people who built, repaired, and crafted much of what they needed. Moving to Johannesburg offered a very different set of lessons. Studying architecture in the 1990s, during South Africa’s transition to democracy, revealed the power and unpredictability of change. A year in the Netherlands at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture further broadened my perspective on projects across Europe and Asia. Returning to South Africa, I worked on rural development projects with Peter Rich Architects before founding 26’10 South.

Experiencing all these diverse cultures, climates, and ways of building has made me wary of dogma or ready-made solutions, as they can obscure meaningful insight into the unique magic of a place or situation. Drawing by hand, alongside technology, allows ideas to emerge that neither tool can produce alone. The result isn’t just a building, it’s something that fits its place in a way that feels obvious in hindsight, even if no one could have predicted it at the start.