Mayat Hart Architects and Heritage Consultants from Johannesburg recently won in the category Educating Practices at the international 16th Docomono Rehabilitation Award (DRAW21). This category refers to pioneering studies and low budget interventions that have contributed to raising awareness of the need to preserve modernist architecture in challenging locations and conditions.

Mayat Hart restored Aiton Court in Hillbrow. Bernard Cooke and Angus Stewart originally designed the modernist apartment building in the 1930s. Founded by Yasmin Mayat and Brendan Hart, the firm sees itself as “a young, design-driven artchitectural and heritage practice”.

Organized in 10 categories, the Docomono awards recognize exceptional projects of rehabilitation from all over the world, which respond to the complex and dynamic conditions with which architecture must engage today. “The aim was to reveal how the safeguarding of heritage can be accomplished in different settings and with varied means and to highlight the importance of its reuse in contemporary life, as a key tool for sustainability at a time of global change.