LOUW, Michael P (Mike)

Architect

BArch 1998 (Pretoria) - Final design title: Strydom Square Regeneration; MPhil 2012 (Stellenbosch)

Mike worked as an Architect in the United Kingdom for two years where he was involved with large commercial projects before returning to South Africa to join the team of CHRIS MULDER & ASSOCIATES INCORPORATED in Knysna. The company was subsequently changed to CMAI Architects and Mike became a Director of CMAI Architects in 2006.

Mike was Design and Project Architect for more than seventy upmarket houses in the southern Cape and he fulfilled the same role for a number of commercial buildings in the area, including the adaptive re-use of the Parking Shed, the Sawtooth Building, the Monorail bridges and the Turbine Hotel & Spa on Thesen Islands. He was part of the design and implementation teams for a number of large mixed-use developments, including Thesen Islands, Pezula Private Estate and Crossways Farm Village.

He attended the Glenn Murcutt Master Class in Australia in 2005 and he also completed a postgraduate MPhil degree in Sustainable Development Planning and Management at the University of Stellenbosch. His research interests include sustainable Architecture & Urbanism, Architectural history and materiality. Mike currently teaches second year Technology in the BAS programme at the University of Cape Town School of Architecture, Planning & Geomatics. He also runs the annual Imizamo Yethu platform design-build project.

(September 2012)

List of projects

With photographs
With notes

Freespan Bridge, The: 2006. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Design Architect

Freespan Bridge, The: 2006. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Project Architect

Monorail Bridges, The: 2005. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Design Architect

Monorail Bridges, The: 2005. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Project Architect

Parking Shed, The: 2005. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Design Architect

Parking Shed, The: 2005. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Project Architect

Sawtooth Building, The: 2006. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Design Architect

Sawtooth Building, The: 2006. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Project Architect

Tree House: 2010. Crossways Farm Village, Thornhill, Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), Eastern Cape - Design Architect

Tree House: 2010. Crossways Farm Village, Thornhill, Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), Eastern Cape - Project Architect

Turbine Hotel & Spa: 2010. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Project Architect

Turbine Hotel & Spa: 2010. Thesen Island, Knysna, Western Cape - Design Architect

Entries in books by LOUW

Louw, Mike. Style and structure. In Eclectic ZA Wilhelmiens : A shared Dutch built heritage in South Africa. 2014. Visual Books

Louw, Michael . Technological Trajectories from North to South. In Common Ground : Dutch-South African Architectural Exchanges 1902-1961. 2021. LM Publishers