South Africa’s Department for International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) seems to hide from Pretoria, crouching behind a hill, with its back towards the city. The best views of it are from above on the Meintjieskop*, from where it looks like a fat beetle with a set of angled legs protruding from one side of its body. Some people have described it as a beached whale skeleton, and it certainly is a real Leviathan of a building. My main impression of the O. R. Tambo (DIRCO)

We’ve been trialling a new way to engage people in our research – using a clothes horse, a handful of pegs and some photographs of government buildings printed on cloth. The idea is a bit like an in-depth vox-pop. My colleague Selemo Nkwe and I arrive in a busy city centre, shopping mall or bus station and set up. We unfold our clothes horse and peg on the cloths. People are busy on their lunch-break or shopping, but they stare; some hesitate. We invite them to come and see,

Four researchers will join Prof Julia Gallagher and the 'Understanding Statehood through Architecture' project in September 2018. Dr Daniel Mulugeta Gebrie and Joanne Tomkinson will take up postdoctoral research positions, and Kuukuwa Manful and Innocent Batsani Ncube will begin PhDs. Click here to read more about the team members and their research. #DrDanielMulugetaGebrie #JoanneTomkinson #KuukuwaManful #InnocentBatsaniNcube #JuliaGallagher