The ethos of both Charlotte Chamberlain & Nicola Irving Architects and Tarna Klitzner Landscape Architects is rooted in providing environments that are conceptualized within an understanding of the given natural and social environments. Their endeavor is to provide spaces for human interaction that encourage positive engagement within communities and within the broader context of our cities, towns and natural landscapes. They see this as only possible through collective thinking and actions.
Both Nicola Irving and Tarna Klitzner are involved as part time teachers in the Landscape and Architectural faculties at the University of Cape Town. This has given them the opportunity of continuing conversations in the realm of the studio.
Nicola graduated from the UCT Architectural Department in 1987. She has spent time working and living in both the UK and Australia, engaging with architects such as Richard Leplastrier and Peter Stutchbury. On returning to South Africa ten years ago, she has used the practice of architecture as a means to enquire into the ethics and norms around what a sustainable infrastructure for South Africans looks like.
Tarna graduated from the UCT Architectural Department in 1985 and furthered her studies with a Masters Degree from the Landscape Architectural Department at the University of Pennsylvania graduating in 1991.
Her projects have enabled explorations in the making of spaces that address ecological and social agendas, enabling Tarna to engage with process as a design and implementation strategy.
Both practices have actively engaged in the placement and design of a variety of building typologies and their contexts for over 20 years. Many of the projects have achieved national recognition across both disciplines, for the collective, cross-disciplinary nature of the way the offices work in the making of built spaces that are not binary, but embedded within their specific contextual special experience.