The iThemba Walkway and the Walkway Project, designed, researched and led by Dr Kathryn Ewing, Senior Lecturer in the Urban Design Programme within APG, have been awarded an Award of Excellence in the Built Project Category by the Urban Design Institute of South Africa (UDISA).

The award recognises a long-term, socially responsive, urban design research project that integrates participatory action research, design-build pedagogy, and sustained community collaboration in Cape Town. The Walkway Project exemplifies the Urban Design Programme’s commitment to engaged scholarship, where teaching, research, and practice are closely aligned and grounded in questions of spatial justice, care, and co-production. 

Central to the project’s success has been the contribution of successive Master of Urban Design (MUD) students, whose critical engagement and on-the-ground involvement informed both the research process and the built interventions. The project also reflects the collective support of colleagues within APG for practice-based research that extends beyond the academy.

Importantly, the award acknowledges the leadership, knowledge, and stewardship of community representatives and local stakeholders, whose partnerships fundamentally shaped both the process and its outcomes, particularly Xolile Ndzoyi.

This recognition affirms UCT’s role in advancing urban design scholarship that is collaborative, ethically grounded, and socially transformative.