WITSIES WITH THE EDGE

[BAS Hons 2013, MArch Prof 2014]

SUMAYYA VALLY

Only architect named on "Time" magazine’s second Time100 Next list

Wits alumna Sumayya Vally was the only architect named on “Time” magazine’s second Time100 Next list released on 17 February 2021. As an expansion of the established Time100 list, it aims to “highlight 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future.”

According to the editorial director of Time100 Dan Macsai: “Everyone on this list is poised to make history. And in fact, many already have.”

The recognition, Vally told “Time”, “means that things are shifting and changing, not just for me and my voice, but for the generation behind me.”

Vally is the principal of Johannesburg-based architectural firm Counterspace, which she started with other Witsies Amina Kaskar (BAS 2012, BAS Hons 2014, MArch Prof 2015) and Sarah de Villiers (BAS 2012, BAS Hons 2014, MArch Prof 2015) five years ago.

The firm also received one of the biggest accolades in architecture in 2019, to design the Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Kensington Gardens. Delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, it will incorporate experiences of marginalised migrant communities via detachable components. Following community events at these locations, the parts will be returned to the central structure. The project’s aesthetic is inspired by gathering spaces common to those neighbourhoods, from open-air markets to religious centres. The design also makes use of bricks made from recycled rubbish.

Vally, who grew up in Laudium, an apartheid township in Pretoria, is also a lecturer at the University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture. Her interest in and passion for the ways in which people interact with their environment is rooted in her scholarly study. She encourages young architects to think more holistically about their environments and she emphasises that Counterspace is “interdisciplinary”. This is evident in her film Ingesting Architectures, which was screened at the Serpentine’s free online Arts and Ecology Festival in December 2020.

Before lockdown, another Counterspace project included converting an old Dutch Reformed church into a mosque in Brixton. It features a minaret made of light that appears only five times a day when prayers are said.