it’s world architecture day on monday and the south african profession says beautiful buildings can shape the world the south african architects council says curved 19 highlights the importance of architects in building healthy working and living spaces to talk more about this i’m joined by insidison dooku president of the south african council for the architectural profession thank you very much for your time this sunday afternoon so can you tell us how has covert 19 changed the ways that we need to look at creating work and home spaces that allow for easier flow of space for more social distancing we can foresee that something like covert 19 or possibly other pandemics will be with us for some time and that changes the environments that that shape our world yes thank you very much for having me yes the conflict 19 has had quite a huge impact on how the architects will have to reconfigure that design theory and also to look at the configuration of the public spaces that we in public spaces there’s always a lot of people and now we have to look into um to try and respond to social distancing i think we can learn from french baroque gardens which actually we can use as buffer zones to actually respond to such social distancing and also um you know because of the the issues of the the mobility you know we have to respond to to to emergencies and then we must consider looking at that using the lightweight structures the structures that can be prefabricated and and flexible partitions that can be moved quickly can change you can put it together and and and change the space to respond to the to the issues uh that have been created by the covet 19. and also i mean um if you’re looking at the cities i mean the cities are actually based on the densities urban designers must rethink notions of density as a sustainable approach to growth to grow and expand cities and so now we have to look at how the notion will change and how and that can be changed now because the the the kovic 19 has really created some kind of a shift in in mindset it might be world architecture day but in the south african context we also have to look at what role transformation is playing and how architects have the ability to mold spaces um within the south african and african context yes yes the yeah there is a huge role for architects to play in that space in terms of molding the transforms to transform the the architectural space because of the appetite legacy and we have social a special injustice that needs to be dealt with by by just configuring configuring the the spaces uh architects will play a big role in in changing and transforming the the the space and and architecture responding to to those spaces because what has happened and in the past they they they have been you know planning has created this uh segregated city where you have event centers um away from the the the the accommodation or the the housing and people have to use transport a lot of money uh spent uh on transport to to travel from that the spaces where they stay to the city and that is hitting the poor people most and it has to really be re-looked at and then we need to actually take that energy and opportunities and that are actually presented by our cities and and to try and pull that energy in that energy into into the areas where where people are staying basically what we need to look at it now is to have an integrated society in terms of the space where we don’t have people that are staying in certain areas because there are any a certain living there are no living so they are condemned to rdp houses and then the ones up those above those are condemned to social housing and then you have a suburbs on the other side so we need to integrate our society through the planning and then architecture can really play and happen design can play a big role in really reconfiguring our cities to be transformed post lockdown we have to look at job creation and the construction industry is one area of huge potential for job creation but simultaneously we also need to look at climate change and the impact of construction on uh biodiversity and climate change and trying to use green materials where are we in south africa in terms of measuring ourselves against global best practice yes we we have a green building council in south africa that has been pioneering in that direction but i mean the green architecture is supposed to be a normal way of designing buildings i we we should use it as a normal practice instead of looking at it as an outside and approach or a standalone approach yes i know for a fact that i mean it has gained that popularity now that people are talking about green architecture but i mean if you design buildings that are responding to the climate if you position your buildings you know and very well on site facing the north understanding you know the the the the sun path where the north is where the south is where the east is i think and it it will encourage it to respond a lot to to to that kind of a question green architecture rather than using the solar panels and also other gadgets that are expensive and then we call that um a green architecture i think you know we just need to actually think more and more about about about how we design how we respond to climate you know so that at least even materials that we use we must use materials that are are reusable the materials that are not going to uh create uh problems i mean in terms of publishing you know the carbon footprint that we need to reduce i think is the way that we we need to approach our designs and also i mean in the country i mean there is a lot that has happened here there are buildings there that here in the country that are having a green star rating you know you you get rated to to a clean staff so how how much are you actually um reducing the carbon footprint so we have that and then we’ve been really uh you know involved in in in that kind of practice well thank you very much that was insidiso and dulco president of the south african council for architectural professions so much more than just the facade of a building that goes into the its architecture