Architecture as an art of care

Traakmaak Studio is based in the Department of Architecture at the University of the Free State. Led by Professor Hendrik Auret, Traakmaak provides an alternative philosophy of architectural design defined by a care-saturated practice of making.

Traakmaak is a curaklesia, that is, a gathering place for people who have been called to care through making. We develop, teach, and make in ways that are inspired by care, helping people see familiar things differently. In doing so, we invite students, scholars, and communities to respond co-creatively to the places and dwellings that matter most to them.

traakmaak

[verb]

traak (Afrikaans, verb): to care or to be of concern, to be of interest. Literally, how you touch, affect, or move someone.

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maak (Afrikaans, verb): to make.

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traakmaak (neologism): to make as an outpouring of care. To make in such a way that the care in the work, the care in me, and the care in others resonate, matter, moves, and call out to each other.

Our vision is a built environment, dense with care, which dignifies human dwelling.

Contemporary buildings are often disconnected from human care.

The construction industry has been distorted by performance measures that value quick efficiencies above slow ecological regeneration, heritage approaches that promote bureaucratic procedure rather than conservation, a calculative cost-per-square-meter mindset unable to poetically draw near sites, and a short-term focus on productivity and financial risk management devolved from the long-term value of craft and co-creative making.

The result is that architectural design has been flattened and struggles to connect with people and place.

Architectural education in South Africa remains burdened by a legacy of colonial thinking, and an increasing reliance on digital tools has created a disconnect between students and the real places and people that they are designing for.

Together, these forces have distanced architecture from care: for people, for place, and for the relationships that connect them. But indifference can be overcome.

OUR APPROACH

Our approach is to pioneer novel methodologies that are tangible and call architects back into the art of care. We want architects to be reacquainted with care and materialise this care in their work.

Traakmaak Studio provides an alternative philosophy of architectural design by drawing near one guiding awareness: care. We are training care-ful built environment practitioners, able to work sympoietically (co-creatively) with communities and the more-than-human. We are pioneering novel, strange-making design approaches and decolonized architectural teaching methods.

"Every place asks something of us. Traakmaak is about learning to hear that call and responding in ways that resist detached design by returning architecture to its most fundamental condition: being touched by place, and responding with care.”

- hendrik auret

founder, traakmaak

We train architects and built environment practitioners to design with care, equipping them to work collaboratively with communities and the more-than-human world.

HOW WE WORK

We develop novel design approaches and methodologies that draw us nearer to places, people, and communities, opening up ways of seeing that are shaped by care.

We reimagine architectural education through decolonised, collaborative, and place-based teaching and research shaped by care and grounded in the dignity of human dwelling.

leadership

Hendrik auret

Prof. Hendrik Auret is a professional architect and academic based at the University of the Free State (UFS). His research revolves around practicing and teaching architecture as an art of care.

He has published several peer-reviewed articles and delivered many public lectures, including guest lectures at the University of Calgary (2012), the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO, 2017), the Namibian University of Science and Technology (Windhoek, 2024), Ulster University (Belfast, 2024), and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim, 2026).

His first book, Christian Norberg-Schulz’s interpretation of Heidegger’s philosophy: Care, place and architecture, was published by Routledge in 2019. In 2020 he was awarded a Y2 rating from the National Research Foundation. From 2020 to 2026 he served as chairperson of the Permit Committee of the Free State Provincial Heritage Resources Authority. Hendrik has facilitated siteDAtes in South Africa, Norway, Ireland, and Namibia.