Mayola Tikaka

Mayola is a Spatial practitioner born in South Africa currently living in London. He earned a first-class degree in Architecture from the University of Cape Town (2013 - 2015), and have worked at various architectural practices specialising in cultural and high-end residential before starting a Master’s degree in Architecture at the Royal College of Art (2018 - 2020). This is where I've begun to expand and define my practice. As a spatial practitioner my interests lie in the implications of how space, data and human organisation influences culture.

Mayola is part of the collective HAW(Head Above Water) that is a critical architectural editorial that focuses on those of african descent.

This year Mayola's project traces microfibres as it flows through and becomes the natural world. In recent history clothing has become a key conversation point in discussions around the anthropscene and microfibres part of this narrative. 

The project uses the tools in the architects disposal to investigate the global implications of industrialising the production of clothing and how this led to the culture of hyper-consumerism since the late 60s when polyester was commercialised. 

The project is a interogates the architectural framework that allows makes fast fashion possible and posits an alternative that challenges the distrution nodes and the apparel retail spaces could be transformed to mitigate the production of microfibres. This can be seen in the repurposing of large distribution centres as a place to compost old garments grow conifer and broadleaf trees to rejuvinate depleted forests in the UK in an effort to use plant based garments in place of synthetics. 

Lastly the project suggests a model that apparel brands could rethink their spaces in a post-industrial inorder to find meaningful use in a world without fast fashion.