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Join us for the first EXTRAS Architecture + Film feature for 2019 on Wednesday 13th Feb, at 17h00 at GSA Metro Braamfontein. Claire Dénis has always been a poet of mood and moment, and here succeeds in linking these skills to the creation of a story with oppressive tension and atmosphere. White Material could be her best film since Beau Travail: a disturbing piece of work whose power and grip increase, almost imperceptibly, as the film progresses to its awful and inevitable conclusion. Isabelle Huppert plays Maria Vial, a coffee farmer in an unnamed Francophone African state which is in meltdown. There is lawlessness on the streets and, as in Rwanda, radio DJs pour out inflammatory broadcasts. The colonial whites are being blamed. Every day is more dangerous for Maria, but she stubbornly refuses to leave, perhaps because she cannot imagine a life back in France, perhaps because decades of facing down quasi-insurrectionary threats from the workforce have left her unable to distinguish this grave crisis from all the other temporary mutinies.

In the trailer for a new documentary starring Bjarke Ingels, the Danish architect and founder of BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), has revealed the anxiety and pressure he feels to create ‘extraordinary’ architecture. Titled BIG Time, the feature-length documentary follows the 42-year-old architect from boardroom to building site as he visits some of the firm's in-construction projects. It also takes in his Via 57 West ‘courtscraper’ in New York, and his Mountain Dwellings housing and Danish Maritime Museum in Copenhagen. ‘To see abstract ideas become concrete reality is what it's all about,’ says Ingels. ‘We want to give to the world something it has not yet seen, and therefore does not fit into any of the boxes.’

Architecture is usually filmed from the outside, as an inanimate object. The few depictions of interiors are usually limited to still or static images of an empty building, reducing it to no more than an icon or sculpture. ‘rem’ uses an unconventional approach by combining the human stories and experience of both the architect and the users of his architecture. The film explores rem’s life, working methods, philosophy and internal landscape, from a never seen perspective of intimacy and immediacy. The result is having the feeling of being ‘inside’ his head. This perspective allows the viewer to understand rem’s ideas in a way they couldn’t otherwise. These ideas are not merely explained as intellectual concepts but the viewer also sees these ideas in practice -the reality on the ground. They see how these ideas come to fruition in concrete and metal. The film shows how these structures, some massive and some small -dotted all around the globe- affect every aspect of the lives of the people that build them, use them and live inside them.

We look forward to welcoming our returning M2 students, and incoming M1 students this coming Monday, for what we hope to be a start to an absolute stellar year! We begin with the handing out of unit selection ballots, after which the Unit Presentations which will commence. This will take place at our new GSA Metro premises, 68 Juta Street, Braamfontein. Be sure to be there at 9h30 sharp, and follow the signs to the GSA Metro entrance!

The FADA FabLab, an initiative of the Department of Architecture with financial support from the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture and the GSA, opens on Tuesday 5 February 2019. The workshop is open to all GSA students who have completed the Induction Course which will take place in February 2019 and will be organised by the GSA Adminstration Officer, Steffen Fischer. The Lab is located in G092, on the same level as the GSA Studios. The first phase of the FabLab is a temporary facility which will be open for four hours a day during Semester 1 (see opening times below). The full lab is expected to open in Semester 2 2019 and disruption is expected in May and August whilst renovations take place. General Enquiries: Steffen Fischer (steffenf@uj.ac.za) Software Training & Fabrication Assistant: Jesse Dymond (fadafablab@uj.ac.za) Technical Workshop Assistant: Xylan de Jager (fadafablab@uj.ac.za) Director: Denver Hendricks, HoD DoA (denverh@uj.ac.za) Opening Times: Monday: 9h00-13h00 Tuesday: 12h00-16h00 Wednesday: 9h00-13h00 Thursday: 9h00-13h00 Friday: 9h00-13h00

Following the 2015 & 2016 student protests in South Africa, which saw the terms 'transformation' and 'decolonisation' enter everyday usage in tertiary education, a new and exciting space has opened up in African architectural education. The lecture follows the setting up of the Graduate School of Architecture (GSA) at the University of Johannesburg, a decade-old institutional merger between an all-white Afrikaans-speaking university and an all-black technical college. The adoption of the AA's legendary unit system has yielded unexpectedly transformational results in a context far removed from its original 1970s London setting. Unit System Africa is now in its third year and, as its recent accreditation visit panel agreed, '[has created] a space for black students to find their voice.'