PHOTOS: Dook | PRODUCTION: Klara van Wyngaarden | WORDS: Alma Viviers
Alexander Opper’s work merges design, architecture and art. The man himself explains more about his fascinating work.
I trained as an architect in Cape Town and Berlin, where I lived and learned a great deal between 1995 and 2005. I then returned to South Africa to realise a small but significant project: a house for my mother – the One Megabyte House in Cape St Francis.
Since 2007 I have run an interdisciplinary design practice (Notion Architects) with my business partner, Amir Livneh, based in the inspirational city of Johannesburg. It feeds into my current research and writing related to the importance of design in a South African context.
As a designer I subscribe to the notion of Practice Led Research (PLR), which could be described as “learning through doing”. I also find the term “designerly research” useful in terms of understanding the reach of this non-linear way of doing and thinking.
As a result of my teaching commitments at the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) – in the Department of Architecture – I have made a conscious decision to focus on the smaller and more focused scale of object, furniture and exhibition design. Our practice does, however, take on interesting architectural commissions when they come up.
Notion Architects also collaborates with artists and other creative practitioners. We are currently completing an exciting collaboration with artists Terry Kurgan and Tegan Bristow called Hotel Yeoville (see top right). Until now, this public realm project, started by Terry about two years ago, has existed only in the form of a website (www.hotelyeoville.co.za). Terry approached us with the task of translating the virtual space – which deals to a large extent with the dynamics and possibilities of social networking in Yeoville – into a real manifestation in the form of a ground-breaking exhibition that will produce its own content early in 2010.
Other projects include Notion Architects’ participation, with new furniture designs, in the Southern Guild 2010 stand at this year’s Joburg Art Fair (Sandton Convention Centre, 26-28 March).
• Alexander Opper 072 438 0909, alexanderopper@gmail.com
