Cape Town architecture practice SAOTA has made history after becoming the first practice to receive the South African Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal for Architecture.
Cape Town, South Africa (31 August 2026) – South African architecture has given us another reason to feel proud, and this time, a Cape Town practice is making history.
SAOTA has been awarded the 2026 Gold Medal for Architecture by the South African Institute of Architects, the highest honour the South African architectural profession can confer. In a significant first, the medal has been awarded to a practice rather than an individual architect. And perhaps there is no better time for that recognition than SAOTA’s fortieth year.
Founded in Cape Town in 1986, SAOTA has grown from a founder-led studio into an international practice whose work now stretches across 86 countries and 193 cities on six continents. Yet its design studio remains right here in Cape Town, allowing generations of South African architects to build extraordinary international careers without leaving home.
“Recognition from one’s own profession is the recognition that matters most,” SAOTA says. “This medal belongs to everyone who has built the practice over four decades.”
That idea of collective achievement is at the heart of this award.
For four decades, SAOTA’s work has been shaped by an understanding of landscape, climate, light and, perhaps most importantly, the way people experience the spaces around them. Those lessons were learned in South Africa and have travelled with the practice around the world, not as a rigid style to be copied, but as a way of thinking that can respond to very different places and people.
The results can now be found far beyond the residential architecture SAOTA is perhaps best known for. Its portfolio includes projects such as Kings Tower in Lagos, the New Engineering Building at the University of Cape Town and the proposed 9Miles Learning Centre in Strandfontein, alongside hospitality projects including Amanruya in Bodrum and Six Senses The Palm in Dubai.
Behind those buildings is a much bigger South African story.
Today, SAOTA is led by nine principals and supported by a broad team of architects, consultants, collaborators and creatives. Over the past decade, the practice has taken on 280 interns and first-year graduates, while since 2015 it has awarded 99 bursaries supporting 58 individuals through architectural study.
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With 85% of its clients based outside South Africa, SAOTA has created an unusual bridge between Cape Town and the rest of the world. South African talent is designing for global cities while continuing to live, work and create from home.
It is a wonderful reminder that you don’t have to leave South Africa to make your mark internationally. You can build something here, grow something here and still see your ideas travel across oceans and continents.
The Gold Medal arrives ahead of another celebration of SAOTA’s journey, with “Shaped by Place: 40 Years of Architectural Practice” opening in Cape Town in October. The month-long exhibition will look back at the practice’s four decades of work and the places that have shaped it.
This isn’t just an award for a building or a beautiful collection of designs. It is recognition of four decades of people, ideas, mentorship, collaboration and South African ingenuity.
SAOTA started in Cape Town in 1986. Forty years later, the world knows its name. And now, for the first time in the history of the SAIA Gold Medal, the highest honour in South African architecture belongs not to one person, but to an entire practice.
What a beautiful way to celebrate 40 years.
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