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Prof Jeremy Smith at his inaugural lecture: ‘Being Finished is Finished’

04 September 2024 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Stephen Collett

A few days after the annual Sophia Gray lecture, the Department of Architecture at the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted the inaugural lecture of Prof Jeremy Smith.

Prof Smith, the Design Director of Irving Smith Architects in New Zealand and an Adjunct Professor in the UFS Department of Architecture, is known for his innovative approach to architecture that emphasises sustainability and the relationship between buildings and their natural surroundings.

Earlier this year, he partnered with RTA Studio – an architectural firm based in Auckland, New Zealand – and won the prestigious Dubai International Best Practices Award for Sustainable Development in the category of the Most Beautiful, Innovative and Iconic Building with the entry: The ‘Scion Innovation Hub, Te Whare Nui O Tuteata.

A changing climate

Themed Being Finished is Finished, the lecture attracted a diverse audience of architects, industry stakeholders, academics, students, and the general public. Prof Vasu Reddy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Internationalisation, welcomed Prof Smith and the attendees. He congratulated Prof Smith on this milestone, highlighting that a professor’s work often represents the beginning of much unfinished business. He noted that the UFS is proud to host such lectures, which celebrate and acknowledge excellence in research and practice.

Prof Paul Oberholster, Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, introduced Prof Smith, praising his impressive career and the numerous national and international awards he has received.

Prof Smith’s lecture focused on the evolving relationship between architecture and the landscape, particularly in New Zealand, where only a quarter of the original forests remain. “We know our climate is changing. In New Zealand we massively made landscape; landscape is everything. Modernism has asked us to use the lawnmower,” he remarked.

He believes in the importance of architecture that adapts and evolves within its natural surroundings, rather than imposing new landscapes. He introduced the concept of ‘soft architecture’, which involves designing buildings that fit into the changing landscape. This approach allows for a sustainable relationship between architecture and nature, ensuring that buildings enhance rather than dominate their environment.

He illustrated this philosophy with a project, the ‘Bach with Two Roofs’ house, which was damaged by a cyclone in 2014. The storm altered the surrounding landscape, and rather than simply repairing the house, Prof Smith redesigned it in a flexible and adaptive manner that might accommodate environmental change. This project demonstrated how buildings can be refurnished to adapt to a shift in the landscape, ultimately coexisting with and responding to the natural world.

“From life in the forest, the landscape shifted – the sun was hotter, the wind was stronger. Our building has lost its fit to the landscape. Refurnishing it, we need to acknowledge that this time a new forest will grow. It will be a stronger forest – it will be indigenous and will grow in relation to the building. In this shifting landscape, it’s not the landscape that needs to be refurnished. It is the building.”

Doing more with less

Prof Smith also discussed two award-winning projects: the ‘Te Whare Nui O Tuteata’ project and the ‘Feather House’. Both projects are examples of his commitment to sustainability and adaptive design – doing more with less.

The ‘Te Whare Nui O Tuteata’ project, part of the New Zealand government’s SCION Timber Research Institute, uses a diagrid timber structure that reduces material usage and allows the building to integrate seamlessly with its forest surroundings. The building was designed with a neutral carbon count, and the timber used was locally sourced, reflecting the natural landscape.

Prof Smith described the building as an educational invitation to visitors to ‘walk in our forest’ and learn new and sustainable ways of resourcing and building with timber. “The building behaves like a forest – the closer you get the more is revealed. Light filtering through its timber framework is also much like sunlight through a forest canopy – enhancing the building’s connection to its surroundings.”

In discussing the Feather House, Prof Smith highlighted the importance of designing spaces that can evolve with their inhabitants. “Design for the ‘there and then’ rather than for the ‘here and now’,” he said. “One cannot design a room for every occasion, but you can provide an invitation.” He advocates for creating architecture that anticipates future changes and adapts to evolving environments, ensuring that buildings remain relevant and functional over time. His design philosophy underscores connection rather than division of spaces and doing less rather than more to create adaptable and sustainable living environments. “Do not design the space based on whose shoes are in the shoe rack,” he commented.

News Archive

Socially inclusive teaching provides solution to Grade 4 literacy challenges

2017-01-23

Mots’elisi Malebese, postdoctoral Fellow of the Faculty
of Education at the University of the Free State (UFS) tackles
Grade 4 literacy challenges.
Photo: Rulanzen Martin

Imagine a teaching approach that inculcates richness of culture and knowledge to individual learners, thus enhancing equity, equality, social justice, freedom, hope and fairness in terms of learning opportunities for all, regardless of learners’ diversity.

This teaching strategy was introduced by Mots’elisi Malebese, postdoctoral Fellow of the Faculty of Education at the University of the Free State (UFS), whose thesis focuses on bringing together different skills, knowledge and expertise in a classroom environment in order to enhance learners’ competence in literacy.

A teaching approach to aid Grade 4 literacy competency
Titled, A Socially Inclusive Teaching Strategy to Respond to Problems of Literacy in a Grade 4 Class, Malebese’s post-doctoral research refers to an approach that improves listening, speaking, reading, writing, technical functioning and critical thinking. Malebese, who obtained her PhD qualification in June this year, says her research confirmed that, currently, Grade 4 is a bottleneck stage, at which learners from a low socio-economic background fall behind in their learning due to the transition from being taught in their home language to English as a medium of instruction.

Malebese, says: “My study, therefore, required practical intervention through participatory action research (PAR) to create conditions that foster space for empowerment.”

PAR indoctrinates a democratic way of living that is equitable, liberating and life-enhancing, by breaking away from traditional teaching methods. It involves forming coalitions with individuals with the least social, cultural and economic power.

Malebese’s thesis was encouraged by previous research that revealed that a lack of readiness for a transitional phase among learners, teachers’ inability to teach literacy efficiently, and poor parental involvement, caused many learners to experience a wide variety of learning barriers.

A co-teaching model was adopted in an effort to create a more socially inclusive classroom. This model involves one teacher providing every learner with the assistance he or she needs to succeed, while another teacher moves around the room and provides assistance to individual learners.

“Learners’ needs are served best by allowing them to demonstrate understanding in a variety of ways, because knowledge is conveyed and accomplished through collaborative work,” Malebese said.

She believes the most important benefit of this model is assuring that learners become teachers of their understanding and experiences through gained knowledge.

Roleplayers get involved using diverse expertise in their field
Teachers, parents and several NGOs played a vital role in Malebese’s study by getting involved in training, sewing and cooking clubs every weekend and during school holidays. English was the medium of teaching and learning in every activity. A lodge, close to the school, offered learners training in mountain biking and hiking. These activities helped learners become tour guides. Storyteller Gcina Mhlophe presented learners with a gift of her latest recorded storytelling CD and books. Every day after school, learners would read, and have drama lessons once a week.

AfriGrow, an organisation that works with communities, the government and the corporate sector to develop sustainable community-driven livelihoods through agricultural and nutrition programmes, provided learners with seedlings, manure and other garden inputs and training on how to start a sustainable food garden. The children were also encouraged to participate in sporting activities like soccer and netball.

“I was aware that I needed a large toolbox of instructional strategies, and had to involve other stakeholders with diverse expertise in their field,” Malebese said.

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