This year, on 7 and 14 October, we're hosting a programme of thought-provoking short talks exploring what's shaping tomorrow's cities, from urbanisation and sustainability to digital innovation and emerging technologies.

Join us to explore our work in architecture, urban design and interior design, and discover why we're the only African studio in a worldwide collective dedicated to sustainable citymaking. Meet our specialists in BIM, computational design, visualisation and branding. Ask questions, challenge ideas and make connections. And don't forget: we're hiring. If you're looking for your next opportunity, you might just find it here.

Here’s what you can expect in Johannesburg on 7 October and in Cape Town on 14 October.

Johannesburg Studio
Date: 7 October
Time: 17:30 – 19:00
Venue: Rosebank, 21 Cradock Avenue

Programme starts: 17:30 – 17:45
Welcome and introduction by Master of Ceremonies Nhloso Nzimande, dhk Professional Senior Architectural Technologist

Time: 17:45 – 18:00
Subject: What if the greatest threat to good architecture is bad business?
Speakers: dhk Principal Peter Fehrsen + dhk Principal and Head of the Johannesburg studio Martin Lardner Burke
A candid discussion about the commercial decisions, compromises and opportunities that shape a leading architectural studio, exploring whether business thinking enables better design or if it just gets in its way.

Time: 18:00 – 18:15
Subject: The future you didn’t plan could be the future you get
Speakers: dhk Professional Senior Architectural Technologist Zanele Kingsley + dhk Professional Architectural Technologist Rachael da Fonseca
Careers are shaped as much by interruption, circumstance, luck and course correction as they are by intentional decisions and sometimes the hardest decision is knowing when to persist and when to let the plan go. But when does staying the course become the very thing holding you back?

Time: 18:15 – 18:30
Subject: Listening to the landscape
Speakers: dhk Candidate Architect Tammy Ohlson de Fine + dhk Professional Architect Karabo Moumakwe
Designers arrive with ideas for landscapes that have been shaped over millennia, by climate, time, ecology, culture and occupation. What happens to our designs when we let the earth speak first?

Time: 18:30 – 18:45
Subject: dhki Associate Kgalalelo Mosime + dhk BIM Coordinator Ntuthuko Majozi + dhk Associate Henry Boardman
Subject: Is multidisciplinary collaboration simply architecture with supporting acts?
Architecture celebrates collaboration, but still tends to cast itself in the leading role. If engineers, interior designers, BIM practitioners, urban designers, landscape architects and others fundamentally shape the work, why is architecture still so comfortable claiming the authorship?

Programme ends: 18:45 – 19:00
Closing remarks by Master of ceremonies Nhloso Nzimande + Brief Q+A
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Cape Town Studio
Date: 14 October
Time: 17:30 – 19:00
Venue: Old Cape Quarter, 66 Waterkant Street

Programme start: 17:30 – 17:40
Welcome and introduction by Master of Ceremonies Khumalo Mhlakaza, dhk Candidate Architect
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Time: 17:40 – 17:55
Speakers: dhk Associate Malika Walele in conversation with dhk Chairman Derick Henstra
Subject: Getting it right after getting it wrong
Careers turn into coherent stories only after the fact. Tough choices and flawed decisions at the time often only make sense retrospectively. In this conversation, Malika challenges Derick to abandon the polished version of his career. What choices would he make differently, what convictions cost him something? What did he get right only after he got something wrong?

Time: 17:55 – 18:10
Speakers: dhk Senior Associate Tanya Busschau Senior Associate and Head of Urban Design + dhk Urban Designer Siyabulela Keith Ntuntwana
Subject: Can you design a city for an experience you’ve never had?
Urban designers shape the ideas that influence how people access, move through and experience a city. But only a few have the power to implement those ideas. Is designing for everyone is the same as creating the conditions for genuine inclusion when lived experience is absent from the room?

Time: 18:10 - 18:25
Speakers: dhk Senior Associate Daniel Hookins + dhk Associate Christiaan Van Aswegen
Subject: Do buildings have an inherent right to survive
How can buildings remain relevant, viable and useful in a city that keeps evolving? Older buildings hold memory, meaning and identity, but none of these guarantees their survival. This conversation considers the tension between what a city cannot afford to lose and what it cannot afford to keep.

Time: 18:25 – 18:40
Speakers: dhk Associates Binayka Rama + Byron Moodley + dhk Senior Associate Vahin Parmananda
Subject: Has infinite choice made originality impossible?
We can now generate, test and refine thousands of possibilities without ever committing to a point of view. In these conditions, has the craft of design been reduced to an act of curation rather than origination?

Time: 18:40 – 18:55
Speakers: dhki Senior Interior Designer Marni van der Hoven + dhki Interior Designer Ntokozo Majozi
Subject: Contextual design or cultural appropriation?
Designers routinely borrow from places, traditions and identities that are not their own. But when cultural meaning is repackaged as design language, is contextual design simply another more acceptable term for appropriation?

Programme ends: 18:55 – 19:00
Closing remarks by Master of ceremonies Khumalo Mhlakaza

Cover image: Sean Gibson