Sarah Calburn

Sarah Calburn founded her Johannesburg architectural practice in 1996 after completing a Masters in Architecture by Research at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She graduated from Wits with distinction in 1987 and has worked in Paris, Hong Kong, Sydney and Melbourne. She locates her ethos in the conceptual space between landscape and architecture, and her multi award-winning firm is committed to a mode of architectural practice which is able to sustain both a creative and a critical dialogue with its social and physical environments. The practice has enormous experience in the residential market and has been recognised internationally for the quality of its work.

Sarah has sat on the committee of the Gauteng Institute for Architecture. She was Program Director of the first Architectural Biennale held in Joburg, Sept 2010: Architecture AZA 2010, which saw wide ranges of inter-disciplinary local and international practitioners put into the critical conversation around the urban futures of Joburg. In 2009, she initiated a series of CPD accredited Design Masterclasses called 'Rapid Thought Transport: Architects re-imagine Joburg'. She is passionate about the re-empowerment of architecture in what she perceives as the rapidly privatising, developer-led urban environments of South Africa.

She has taught design at various local and international universities, lectures at various architectural events, writes on architecture and urbanism, and has been part of numerous university examination and other competition judging panels. Her work and writing have been published in both local and international magazines, newspapers and books, including the Landscape 1000, Phaidon Atlas of World Architecture and Wallpaper magazine.