At the heart of service delivery is a glaring shortage of professional skills in the built environment and a lack of transformation.

The twenty-fifth International Union of Architects (UIA) World Congress, which is being held in Durban from August 3 to 7, would provide an opportunity for local and African architects to reflect on where they were going, while learning from and benchmarking themselves against some of the best practices and professionals in the world, said Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi.

Speaking at the opening of the congress, he emphasised that the built environment was a major force to improve the quality of life for all.

He said it was important for the architectural profession to contribute to the wider development agenda of both the country and the continent. Those driving development would look to architects to ask hard questions, create humane and sustainable urban environments and then look at how these could be rolled out to the working class and rural environment.

The Minister stressed that the built environment was far more than “glass, concrete and steel” and that architects needed to respond to a plethora of challenges, including poverty, unemployment, urbanisation, homelessness, informal settlements and the use of scarce resources which, in South Africa’s case, was water.

In addition, culture and values needed to be included into the built environment to promote pride and social cohesion.

Nxesi stated that, [it was fitting] that the UIA congress was taking place 20 years into South Africa’s democracy, as the country had to deal with the apartheid legacy of divided cities.

He noted that, in South Africa, there was a need to drive a more radical development agenda. It was necessary to redefine the built environment in a way that would awaken creativity and change the perceptions of those communities living within and engaging with it.

He added that the congress also came at a pivotal time for South Africa, both in terms of the overall National Growth Plan and in relation to the national infrastructural plan, which “concretised this” through a number of strategic projects.

At the heart of this was the need for the skills and expertise offered by the architectural profession and related industries, the Minister stated.

Against this background, Nxesi said the Department of Public Works (DPW) was employing a more radical transformation agenda within the architecture, urban planning and design, property and construction sectors.

He commented that it was sad to note that, after 20 years of democracy, just 24% of built environment professionals were black and only 9% female.

As part of a more radical approach to phasing in transformation, the DPW would be closely monitoring broad-based black economic-empowerment (BBBEE) issues. It would scrutinise BBBEE scorecards and work closely with industry bodies to increase representation and ownership of companies within this sector.

He said the department would also employ resources to develop young professionals so that the built environment professionals better reflected the demographics of the country.