First the gay and lesbian community got its own red carpet movie bash. Then every embassy in Pretoria wanted theirs. Then serious nonÂÂfiction film buffs got the Encounters film festival and hard-line political activists followed suit with the Tri-Continental festival and its focus on the countries of the South.
Now it’s the turn of urban spaces theorists to dabble in their favourite topic: ”The impact the built environment is assuming in general development settings.” This is the theme running through the Architect Africa Film Festival due to take place in major centres in the next three weeks.
”We are showing films that look at suburbia and the effect, for example, of transport costs. We have films on sustainability and the oil crisis and what is going to happen as our cities morph into today’s design formats,” says Karen Eicker, the festival’s organiser. The programme includes documentaries with screamingly relevant titles like The End of Suburbia and there are works about the decline of Fifties modernism in Caracas and Eritrea.
How did the festival evolve?
It came about as a way of trying to raise awareness about architecture and the built environment and also to make a platform of communication for built environment professionals. Our built environment affects everything we do, from transport to where we live and where we work.
Why should the layperson actually care about it?
Because good design, or bad design, has such a huge impact on our lives. On our psychology, on our culture, on our behaviour and on everything that we do.
But if the average person cared more, what impact could their caring have on the way your profession conducts itself?
It could impact on the choices that they make. They have buying power, where they choose to live, where they choose to shop, how they choose to engage their communities. All that has to do with the built environment and on how people hold professionals and decision-makers responsible for the built environment.
How can a festival like this link into people’s pro-activity — if they become more aware?
It’s just a case of taking that first step of raising awareness among the public, among decision-makers and policymakers. To get architects to interact with the public and to create awareness.
Is Rosebank the right place for raising awareness around these issues?
To start off with, Rosebank is the right place. It is easily accessible. But we are having township screenings in Jo’burg, Durban and Cape Town — in Kliptown, KwaMashu and Khayelitsha. This is intended to really engage people in terms of capacity-building and skills empowerment for the smaller to medium enterprises in the townships — the contractors, the architects and the small developers in those environments, as well.
What are the hot issues your profession is most interested in now?
The most critical, from a developing country point of view, is rapid urbanisation on a mass scale and how that affects our cities in terms of infrastructure and infrastructure that still has to come.
But in this country and around the world we are still looking at issues of capacity-building and skills empowerment. Our construction industry has a huge shortage of skills.
We are also looking at issues of good, sustainable, energy-efficient design. In that respect architects and other designers, such as engineers and urban planners, have to be held accountable for educating their clients and providing the right product for people.
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