Umeå School of Architecture warmly welcomes employees, students a lecture with Achsah Gwebu, Senior Lecturer at the University of Johannesburg titled "Common Ground: Who Gets to Live Where in Johannesburg?", as part of the open lecture series UMA Talks.
Johannesburg’s urban landscape remains deeply shaped by apartheid’s legacy of racial segregation, unequal access to land and property, and persistent spatial inequality. More than three decades into democracy, the question of how to house the city’s residents remains urgent.
Common Ground examines the evolution of state housing in South Africa, tracing the relationship between the apartheid-era Model Native House and the post-1994 Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) house. It asks why a housing model developed under racial segregation has persisted within a democracy committed to dignity, equality and belonging.
The lecture explores how the emphasis on delivering housing at scale has increasingly marginalised architectural design. It considers what is lost when housing is treated primarily as a matter of numbers, finance and project management, rather than as an opportunity to create dignified homes and meaningful communities. It also examines the diminished role of architects in state housing delivery and the potential for their renewed participation.
Ultimately, Common Ground looks beyond the number of houses built to ask what kind of city is being produced. If housing is about more than shelter—if it is also about access, opportunity, identity and belonging—then who shapes our homes and neighbourhoods matters as much as who gets to live in them.
The lecture invites audiences to reconsider architecture’s role in addressing spatial inequality and imagining a more equitable Johannesburg.
Achsah Gwebu is a South African architect and researcher. She is a Senior Lecturer at Africa’s largest postgraduate school of architecture, the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg.
The UMA Talks are a free and accessible series of events. The series is devoted to advancing architectural discourse from both an international perspective and local perspective, and strives to enable the public, students, teachers, and researchers both within architecture and from other fields to get insight to and participate in the educational activities and academic research taking place at Umeå School of Architecture. Theorist, practitioners, artists, and other relevant guests are invited to speak or to participate in roundtable conversations or similar formats. Read more about UMA Talks.