Jhono Bennett

CUSP brings together theory, fieldwork, and practice-based research to produce grounded public knowledge. We combine spatial and visual methods with collaborative research practices — grounded in ethics: credit, consent, and care. Our research does not stop at the academic paper. We work through exhibitions, toolkits, visual outputs, and public conversations. #CUSP #ResearchPractice #PracticeBasedResearch #CollaborativeResearch #UrbanMethods #SpatialPractice #VisualResearch #PublicKnowledge #UrbanResearch #Ethics #Care #Consent #KnowledgeProduction #urbanstudies

Urbanization unfolds unevenly. Some places are planned for, invested in, and protected. Others are shaped through neglect, extraction, and exclusion. These conditions are not accidental — they are produced. CUSP studies peripheralisation as an active process: how political decisions, economic systems, and design practices shape unequal urban worlds. By paying attention to the edges, we learn something fundamental about how urbanization works — everywhere. #CUSP #SpatialJustice #UrbanInequality #Peripheralisation #UrbanPolitics #UrbanEconomies #UrbanDesign #UrbanTheory #GlobalUrbanism #UnevenDevelopment #UrbanEdges #Justice #UrbanResearch #builtenvironment

CUSP is a research platform focused on how urbanization unfolds — and how it is shaped by inequality, power, and uneven development. We understand the periphery not as a place, but as a process — produced through planning, policy, infrastructure, finance, and governance. Over the next few weeks, we’ll introduce who we are, what we’re working on, and what comes next. #CUSP #Urbanization #Peripheralisation #UrbanResearch #SpatialJustice #UrbanTheory #GlobalSouth #UrbanStudies #Inequality #BuiltEnvironment #Urbanism #Planning #UrbanFutures #researchpractice

This year marked my first year teaching at UCT — and my first year fully returning to South Africa after completing my PhD. It has been a year of restitution in more ways than one. Working with the brilliant @apg_uct students — alongside @contemporary_strandloper @relational_researcher and @dylan_mcgarry — we explored what repairative architectural practice might mean along the False Bay coastline. Not as metaphor, but as method. @repairativearchitecturesza Together we traced layered histories of forced removals, ecological fragility, fishing economies, waste infrastructures, spiritual practices, governance boundaries, and everyday acts of care. False Bay became both classroom and archive — a stretch of beach carrying southern African histories of dispossession, resilience, extraction, and coexistence. For me, this studio was also a personal re-grounding. A way of situating post-PhD research back into lived context. A way of asking how repair moves from theory into pedagogy, from writing into walking, from critique into practice. The students approached the coast with seriousness and generosity — mapping, listening, counter-mapping, proposing processes rather than objects. They understood repair not as fixing, but as staying with damaged ground. As designing with what remains. It has been a privilege to return and teach here. To learn from this coastline again. To restitute myself through practice, through collaboration, and through the layered histories that shape southern Africa’s urban futures. #RepairativeArchitectures #UCTAPG #SouthernUrbanism #FalseBay #ArchitectureAsRepair PostPhD SpatialJustice TeachingAndPractice CapeTown @bealiebenberg @thalia.archidesigns @thalia_coetzee @lungiswachris @juliachamberlain_ @_liambrien_ @liamlineveldt @hhxmegnich @iynahk_designs @ab.02x21 @bythamsa @jennbramley @josiemiddleton_ @raeesharneker @ginger.architecture @milan_prioreschi

Topaz 🖤

Hello 2026! We officially launched CUSP in November 2025 — and still, these first months were full of vibrant conversations, collaborations, teaching, passion, and momentum. From Johannesburg workshops and field-based seminars, to grant applications, publications, and new research partnerships, we began exactly how we hope to continue: working across the Global North and South, taking peripheral urban regions seriously as sites of knowledge, creativity, and future-making. CUSP focuses on gender, environment, infrastructure, and inequality — and on how extended urbanisation is lived, negotiated, and reshaped every day. Not from the centre outward, but from the margins inward. We’re deeply grateful to everyone who helped make this beginning possible — including collaborators at @tumarchitecture , @gcro_sa , and @uj_gsa — and excited for what’s ahead in 2026. Thank you for being part of this journey. Here’s to collaboration, curiosity, and care in 2026 ✨ #CUSP #UrbanPeripheries #ExtendedUrbanisation #SpatialJustice #UrbanResearch #ArchitectureResearch #GlobalSouth #AcademicLife #LookingAhead #HappyNewYear

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS Co-Writing Southern Urban Architectures Funded by the IJURR Foundation We’re inviting 30 early-stage PhD scholars from across Southern Africa to join a unique workshop series on: • Urban Maintenance • Spatial Justice • Reparative Architectural Practice Build critical writing skills, deepen your research, and connect with scholars and grassroots practitioners working on Southern urbanisms. WHO CAN APPLY? • Early-stage PhD scholars (1st year or about to start) • Working in architecture, urban studies, planning, or related fields • Based in Southern Africa • Able to join in person in Johannesburg or Cape Town (or request hybrid access) Submit a 250–300 word motivation via the link below: /southernurbanworkshop WORKSHOP DATES Johannesburg – Oct, 2025 Theme: Recognizing Grassroots Urban Knowledge Cape Town – Dec, 2025 Theme: From Extraction to Co-Production Hybrid (Online) – Jan 29–30, 2026 Theme: Repairing the Narrative Note: No travel or accommodation funding provided. Applicants must already reside in their selected location. More details & application form: /southernurbanworkshop Organized by: Jhono Bennett, Guy Trangoš, Philippa Tumubweinee, Catalina Ortiz & IJURR #SouthernUrbanism #SpatialJustice #UrbanRepair #IJURR #ReparativeUrbanism #DecolonisingUrbanism #CoWriting #PhDOpportunity #UrbanStudies #Architecture #GlobalSouthResearch #SouthernUrbanPractice

Join us tonight, 24th January at 6 PM for an Instagram Live exchange between Jhono Bennett and DORMANTYOUTH! 💡 What’s on the agenda? We’ll be discussing interesting spatial qualities of urban environments and what we can learn from our city’s past in order to create better spaces for Joburg’s future. 🔥 Jhono Bennett will bring his untapped knowledge about Johannesburg and the Spatiality of African cities. 💎 DORMANTYOUTH will highlight their past exploits in curating and unpacking nightlife culture, revealing a bit more about their understanding of the scenes in this electrifying world. This is more than a conversation, it’s a glimpse into the heartbeat of Groove Biennale II. Don’t miss it! 🚨 📅 Set your reminders: 🗓️ Friday, 24th January ⏰ 6 PM 📍 Right here on IG Live! 📸 photograph by: @jackiekingphoto #GrooveBiennaleII #BiennialsConnect #BritishCouncil #NightEmbassy #jagermeister

A powerful start to the UCL//Wits_Center & Periphery Project - supported exchange between @bartlettarchucl @uclsitprac , @witsschoolofarts , and @witssoap ! ✨ This past week in Johannesburg, we we explored the city’s water infrastructures and the people who shape them—exploring how writing, editing, and listening can serve as critical tools for navigating the complex dynamics of globalized projections: Rooted in the concept of the edit—both metaphor and methodology—this project challenges entrenched knowledge hierarchies, reimagining writing and sounding as decolonial, climate-just, and critically spatial practices. Through hybrid workshops, field engagements, and public events, we are fostering cross-cultural dialogue, drawing from site writing and sonic modalities to rethink how the city, the body, and the environment become inscribable, translatable, and ultimately, actionable. These exchanges are building towards a special issue of @the_ellipses_journal , built from a growing series of field notes, co-produced insights, and creative outputs. See more at http://betweenthetextandtheedit.notion.site

Happy to share that I have successfully defended (pending minor corrections) my doctoral thesis titled: “Locating Southern Architectures: Situating a Reparative Practice within the Post-Post City.” This thesis represents a practice-oriented and deeply interpersonal exploration of South Africa’s urban spatial dynamics. It engages with the historical, socio-political, and cultural layers shaping contemporary urban spaces in Southern Africa. Through a series of interconnected creative projects, I developed a situated inquiry into South Africa’s spatial historiography, design practices, and spatial languages. The research offers a nuanced, though partial, perspective on the complexities of South African urbanity, drawing from theoretical and conceptual exploration while reflecting on my professional practice through 1to1 – Agency of Engagement. Central to this work is the concept of ‘repair’, viewed not only as the physical act of fixing but also as a social and spatial ethos fostering connection across scales—from the self to the city. The study underscores multi-authored, process-driven approaches to urban engagement, embracing collective design collaborations and community partnerships across South Africa. It also critically reflects on the biases embedded in tacit knowledge, including those linked to the country’s colonial and apartheid legacies. I am incredibly grateful to all my collaborators, mentors, and the communities that contributed to this journey. This milestone marks a new chapter for my work that in continues to explore and expand reparative design practices in Southern Africa and beyond. Thank you for being part of this journey! #SouthernArchitectures #ReparativePractice #UrbanResearch #PhDDefense #DesignForSocialJustice #SpatialRepair #PostApartheidCities

Onwards , homewards, and through the what-what and back again. Next year will be interesting 🙌🏼

Co-Productive Research Ecologies Workshop: Supporting a Collaborative Research Ecology Using a co-developed metaphor of the Bartlett Research Ecology, I had the privilege of developing and facilitating the Bartlett Co-Productive Research Ecologies Workshop under the guidance of the amazing The Bartlett, UCL’s Faculty of the Built Environment Team. Alongside Ann Thorpe we led a single-day, immersive, and collaborative event designed for researchers at various stages within the Bartlett Faculty. The workshop was opened (and initiated) by Bartlett Faculty acting Dean Jacqui Glass and featured critical input from guest speakers Lakshmi Priya Rajendran and Vice Dean of Research Ian Hamilton, whose insights significantly enriched the discussions. The workshop aimed to open the discussion on building stronger collaborative research practices, promoting more resilient interdisciplinary collaboration within the Bartlett Faculty. It was structured to support better collaborative practices and foster insightful exchanges and supportive discussions to understand and implement a supportive research ecology within our faculty. The workshop engaged with the dynamics inherent in collaborative research through a co-produce a Research Canvas Tool. We focused on collecting shared experiences and insights from invited participants and worked to further develop a practical research tool. Graphics (as usual) by the amazing @art_ik_er . More updates to come soon!