Who We Are
Arch-live Architects is a South African based studio for architecture. It is one of the few 100% Black Female owned and run practice.
We are Architects. Design is what we love. Established in 2007 with formal practice beginning in 2012, Arch-live Architects has grown its own traction, with project commissions in several South African Provinces. To us the clients brief and story behind is our driver as the Founding Director, Ms Letsabisa Shongwe notes. The process must be deeply collaborative to bring about that a holistic built solution that is practical and well resolved to each individual brief.
Arch-live Architects is led by a dynamic director, who holds a vision for creative and contextually responsible design. She works closely with her design and production team. Gosh we respect the process of the creation of a built product and plug well with engineers and building project consultants.
Our participation is directly from inception to closeout or how the brief may wish. We get the job done. Above all we live for the fun of the process and thrill of the satisfied returning client.
Our Goals
To participate in growing in an everchanging market, to expand beyond our borders and backgrounds, to relish in the dynamic of other cultures and architectural create solutions through material us, environmental elements, and constraints, and to collaborate with others with shared values. A melange of possibilities. To expand our interior design component as we are seeing a growing call to develop deeper in these briefs.
To build our selected buildings and continue to innovate in materials.
Words From Our Founder
It should always be that the designed product moves us. It’s an art affair. I often say if we are moved by the ideas, then the client will be moved. To achieve this move ,we must indulge in their dream. This poetic exchange of notes and sketched dialogue cements the brief.
Every new project brief is an opportunity of exploration to ignite the soul and delight the human experience through buildings. A pulsating theatre of sciences and arts culminating In a thoughtful neat building that is practical and aspirational. Architecture can heal us, inspire us, increase our revenue, shelter us, subdue us, contain us and uplift us.
Architecture has the ability to raise self-esteem and restore human dignity, be it a sprawled luxurious solution of elongated glass and slab that are showered with sunlight, or a clever modest arrangement of practical neat spaces that oozes warmth from light and material.
Arch. Letsabisa R Shongwe PrArch B.Arch MIA, Registered architect (SACAP) (SAIA) MD
Member of South African Institute of Architects
Pres. of South African Council for the Architectural Profession Interim 4th Term
V.P of South African Council for the Architectural Profession -5th Term
Exco member – Council for the built Environment ZA
2005 – Recipient of coveted Annual National Corobrik Award 1st Runner-up ZA
