Prof Salat is currently advising the government of China on urbanisation. As part of the activities built around Prof Salat’s visit, the University hosted a number of events in collaboration with the University of the Witwatersrand as well as two professional institutions, the Urban Design Institute of South Africa (UDISA) and the Pretoria Institute of Architecture (PIA), thereby promoting the development of partnerships between key institutions and promoting research innovation in the profession.

The first of these events was a two-day inter-disciplinary master class with design professionals in the built environment interested in the challenging issue of creating resilient urban forms in the face of rapidly urbanising South African cities, organised in collaboration with the PIA. During this time, urban designers and architects engaged with Prof. Serge Salat’s theories of resilience and the complexity within urban morphology that is required to create possibilities for resilience. They also looked at the study of urban form and its connection to sustainable and resilient cities. Professionals from around the country and the continent provided insightful engagement during the sessions and discussions. They identified the challenge resulting from limited inter-disciplinary engagement in all sectors of the built environment as contributing toward the lock-in that is being created in the newly developing areas of our cities.

The one-day seminar co-hosted by Wits and UDISA, provided a forum for professionals, students and academics from a number of Universities and private institutions to hear two keynote speakers, Prof. Salat, and Dr.Sophia Psarra from The Bartlett at University College London. There were also a number of presentations by researchers in the field of urban resilience which resulted in a strong engagement between the participants and speakers.

Both events received positive feedback from participants, indicating the value of collaboration between academics, professionals, researchers and their respective institutions in an attempt to tackle the complex, large-scale issues affecting the capacity of our cities to thrive in the future. It was noted that more such events (with even more integration between built environment professionals) would be welcomed.

Prof Salat is also presenting a three day workshop to architecture and planning students of the Universities of Pretoria and the Witwatersrand.

For more information on the activities of this project go to: http:/trustsa.weebly.com/index.html

Prof. Serge Salat is an architect, a graduate of the École Polytechnique and the ENA and holds PhD’s in architecture, economics, and art history. Serge Salat is the author of more than 20 books on art and architecture, including Cities and Urban Form. He has been a practicing architect and the project director of large infrastructure projects such as international airports and TGV train stations, and was Project Director of Ecocities urban planning in China, Tianjin. Presently Director of the Urban Morphology Laboratory in Paris, he is grouping the research efforts on sustainable form and metabolism of cities of main French National Research Centres such as CSTB (The French Centre for Building Science), various universities, engineering schools, and urban planning agencies. Urban Expert f or International Organisations including the World Bank,  IPCC, UNEP-SBCI, and the French Agency for Development in China, South Africa, Brazil and Colombia.

Dr. Sophia Psarra is Reader of Architecture and Spatial Design since January 2011, and editor of the Journal of Space Syntax. Before joining the Bartlett she was Associate Professor at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning University of Michigan in the US (2005-2010) and Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff University (1997/2004). Her research interests are in the area of conceptual and perceptual spatial characteristics and their relationship with patterns of movement, use and cultural content.  Her activities in these areas have resulted in publications, (Architecture and Narrative –The Formation of Space and Cultural Meaning, Routledge 2009), creative installations and design projects.