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04 September 2019 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Charl Devenish
Jon Jacobson
Delivering the 31st Sophia Gray Memorial Lecture and Exhibition in Bloemfontein, was Jon Jacobson from Metropolis Design in Cape Town.

What is inside and what is outside? What is coming alive in the light? Minimalism. Hugeness. Shadows. Soft. Art. Complex. Conversation. Ambiguity. Clarity. All phrases and words used by the most recent Sophia Gray laureate, Jon Jacobson from Metropolis Design in Cape Town, to describe aspects of his work.

He delivered the 31st Sophia Gray memorial lecture in Bloemfontein. The name of his lecture at this prestigious event, organised by the UUFS Department of Architecture, was in [de] finite. Jacobson is the first graduate in the department’s MArch with Design.

Nature plays a big role in many of his projects, with a blurred distinction between the inside and the outside of the structures he builds. His designs fulfil the desire of a union with nature. 

A detailed investigation

Jacobson creates places and spaces to celebrate being. “Architecture is undeniably art, but it is also embodied in the completeness of the lived moment,” he says. 

Every project starts with a detailed investigation. “What social theory will we engage with? How progressive is it? What attitude will we take to the environment, to the theory of family? What other personal concerns will we be worried about? It is important to engage critically with this information. Important to build a philosophical base for each project,” says Jacobson.

He also believes it is important to consciously ensure that form follows idea with the same intensity that it follows function and that it does not blindly follow other form. 

At Metropolis, Jon and his team are client centred in their approach to design. Jon explains the process: “Some of the content is brought from the client’s personal and social aspiration and some from contemporary architecture culture, but the most potent component is the hidden set of ideas that emerge from our own engagements with the living world such as popular science, geology, art, music, literature, philosophy, theology, mysticism, and many others. And this emerges in the hidden sense of the word, in its architecture content.”

Content approach to design

In house design, Jon categorises the content that informs the architecture of the house: content pertaining to the individual, their philosophy, values and beliefs, content derived from culture, architecture and the arts, passion, religion, politics, and content referring to the natural world and its processes. Content from each of these spheres is present in any of his work. 

Jon says a major implication of a content approach to design is that it requires a design framework that is largely operative at a level of idea rather than at the level of form. This contributes to creating architecture rather than just buildings. 

His design method allows conscious control over the relationship between the ideas, the forms, and the poetics of the projects. “And at any point in the building process, it is possible to trace back and to critically assess whether any particular form is aligning with the core ideas of the project,” Jon indicates. 

Jon’s first taste of grappling with the infinite of architecture was with a garden pavilion he built for rest and relaxation. “For the first time I felt that we integrated planning, content, sight, programme, structure, and materiality into one unified whole that was expressed with a minimum of means and that was more than just the sum of its part,” he states.

He strongly believes that the individual is at the centre of every architectural project. He says the belief systems, type of social needs, family dynamics, physical habits, and spatial practices of their clients need to be investigated in detail in order to facilitate a meaningful spatial experience.

He continues: “We see our role as designers to saturate the environment with the meaning that enhances our clients’ daily experience in every possible way – from the ergonomic and the practical to the spiritual. In the process, the logics and tradition of architecture and the ego of the architect sometimes need to make way for human need and aspiration.”


News Archive

Vice-Chancellor to receive prestigious lifetime achievement award in the United States
2013-05-23

23 May 2013

 - Acceptance Speech

The University of the Free State (UFS) is proud to announce that yet another major international award will be bestowed on the Vice-Chancellor and Rector, Prof Jonathan Jansen.

On 3 June 2013 the Education Africa Lifetime Achievement Award for Africa will be added to the multiple international and local achievements and awards Prof Jansen has received over the past months.

He will receive the award at a gala dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City, United States. The glamorous event is hosted in collaboration between Education Africa and Brand South Africa. Prof Jansen will join an illustrious list of recipients, including Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Richard Branson and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.

“I am deeply humbled by this award which I dedicate to the great teachers of our country, who under difficult conditions make our schools work for children of the poor; they are the real heroes of education," says Prof Jansen.

The Education Africa Lifetime Achievement Award for Africa is a highly regarded recognition on the world stage, awarded to individuals who focus the attention of the global community on the obstacles some of the poorest African nations face.

“He is a pioneering South African educator who is successfully transforming what was once a bastion of apartheid-era segregation and ideology into one of his country’s most inclusive and dynamic institutions of higher learning,” the organisers said in a statement.

As an extra honour to the UFS, one of its Council Members will also receive an award together with Prof Jansen at the ceremony in New York City next month. Ndaba Ntsele, also the Executive Chairman of Pamodzi Gold Limited and President of the South African Black Business Council, will receive the Education Africa Allegiance Award. This award is given to persons for their ‘steadfast support of the organisation [Education Africa] over many years.”

Prof Jansen’s other recent international awards and honours include the Alice and Clifford Spendlove Prize in Social Justice, Diplomacy and Tolerance from the University of California in the US and membership of the Laureate Chapter of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honour Society in Education.

For more information on these as well as the other awards Prof Jansen has recently received, click here.

 

 

 

 

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