Heritage Forum

The struggle Stellenbosch has with traffic is the symptom of a more general illness that negatively affects the quality of life of the inhabitants. In The Urban Transport Crisis in Emerging Economies the challenges regarding urban traffic felt by twelve developing...

The Kopupaka reserve in Auckland, New Zealand was recently appointed as winner of the World Landscape Prize for 2016. The 22 hectare-reserve consist of five storm water wetlands. Wooden structures were erected next to three of these wetlands, reports Dezeen. The...

Where there used to be a hole in the urban fabric of the Polish city Szczecin, there now stands the 2016 World Building of the Year, the Dialogue Centre, part of the Szczecin Museum. The space, on an important street corner, was used as a park before but was never...

Not only was the prizes for architecture announced at the recent World Architecture Festival, but the interior of the year was also made official. The Heike concept store in Hangzhou, China, by Shanwei Weng & Jiadie Yuan/Hangzhou AN Interior Design is the winner...

The annual award for architecture of distinctive quality built in North or South America, the Mies Crown Hall America Prize, was awarded to the Grace Farms project in New Canaan, California. Grace Farms is a non-profit organisation who aims to “create a platform for...

At the annual Frankfurt book fair, the German Architecture Museum (DAM) announced the list of the ten best architecture books for 2016. Two hundred and fourteen books from 88 publishers were entered and judged according to criteria such as design content, quality of...

On Monday, 14 November, there will be and Open House Event and Public Meeting for the Stellenbosch Municipal Heritage Inventory and Management Plan Project. It will take place at the Stellenbosch Town Hall, at the following times: Open House Event from 16:00 -...

Work by one of the most influential modernist architects, Le Corbusier, has recently been added to the list of World Heritage Sites, operated by UNESCO (the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Seventeen projects in seven countries were given this...

The Newport Street Gallery in Vauxhall, London, has quickly contributed to London’s skyline with its unique saw-toothed roof on one of the two new buildings flanking three restored industrial buildings from the Victorian era. And, having won the 2016 RIBA Stirling...

For one it is a ‘giant Easter cake’, for others it is visionary architecture: Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, his unfinished cathedral in Barcelona, Spain.     Archdaily reports the project, started 134 years ago, was apparently described as an ‘Easter cake’...

Do you believe a comfortable house in the suburbs will be to your children’s advantage, with enough space to play and enjoy the outdoors? Not necessarily so, says a new study by the Brookings Institution in the USA. According to Ars Technica it was found that growing...

The very high property prices in London are slowly pushing growth to outside the city. In a report in the Economist written before the British vote to leave the EU (23 June 2016), the ‘faulty land-use regulation’ is said to ‘throttle’ the capital. While the immense...

  Two recent academic studies – the one still needs to be peer-reviewed – have tried to prove Jane Jacobs’ 1961 tenets on good city living. In her seminal book on urban planning, The Death and Life of the Great American City, Jacobs argued that four qualities...

Where the rest of the world sees tourism as creator of jobs and economic empowerment, the centuries-old city of Venice is suffering because of the negative side thereof. In the past 15 years the city got 16 new hotels along the Grande Canale – in turn losing...

The recent earthquake in Italy is described by a survivor as Dantesque, according to a letter in the New York Times. About 290 people died in the quake which measured 6.2 on the Richter scale. The writer, chairperson of the Italic Institute of America continues by...

As part of the 15th Venetian Architecture Biennale visitors to this city can attend a symposium on the role of museums in 21st century cities on 24 September. ‘Museum of the 21st century 'Content - Form - Impact'’ is the title of the simposium to be held in...

The Cape Winelands district has a deep and varied cultural heritage. To protect the heritage resources within the Stellenbosch municipal boundary, the Municipality is in the process of compiling a heritage inventory and management plan for the area. Read this document...

Marius le Roux, previously director of the Stellenbosch Museum for 32 years, was honoured as a custodian of cultural possessions along with Simon Adams, Lourens du Plessis and Victor Honey. They received mayoral honours from the outgoing mayor, Condrad Sidego, in...

The University of Cape Town is presenting a part time Master of Philosophy in Conservation of the Built Environment. Professionals and managers working in the built environment are increasingly being required to conserve or take account of heritage and heritage...

Planned Focus Group Meetings for the Winelands heritage resources inventory and the related plan for the Stellenbosch Municipal area, are scheduled at central venues for the following areas from Tuesday, 23 August until Wednesday, 31 August 2016.   Franshhoek...

Amsterdam, known as one of the best cities to party, was the first big city to appoint a night mayor. But the parties - and the resulting economic injection it brings - have been a source of headaches for many an official and local. The easiest way to deal with this,...

The Architectural Review’s House of the Year has just been announced. The Cosmic House in Osaka, Japan, is an ‘exceptional example of moving the boundaries in an individual residential project,’ according to the judges. UID Architects is responsible for this series of...

The Stirling Prize shortlist has just been announced, with the new hopefuls and previous winners on the list. Two of the buildings are at Oxford University and a third forms part of the City of Glasgow College. According to Riba’s (Royal Institute of British...

The Danish architect Bjarke Ingels’ design for this year’s Serpentine pavilion is, according to various writers on architecture, the best in this project’s sixteen year history. Ingels, from the firm BIG, designed to curving ‘walls, leaning toward each other and...

In a video on the Venice architecture biennale by the magazine Monocle, the exhibition curated by the Pritzker Prize-winner Alejandro Aravena is one of the most socially loaded exhibitions yet. The title of the exhibition is “Reporting from the Front” and investigates...

Open Streets Cape Town recently hosted a successful discussion on the influence of technology on transport. At the end of May more than 60 people attended this event. Open Streets aims very specifically to reduce the transport carbon emissions in Cape Town by changing...