Johannesburg native Thomas Chapman was 10 years old in 1994 when apartheid was officially dismantled. As a white male raised by progressive parents, he grew up aware of his privilege; interest in both political activism and the built environment led to separate master’s degrees in architecture and in urban design from the University of the Witwatersrand, where he addressed the spatial injustices of apartheid-era city planning in his thesis projects.
Yet despite his advocacy for public space, Chapman, now 33, found himself working for a firm specializing in tropical island getaways and safari lodges after graduating; one of his projects included the transformation of an island into private villages (Prince William and Kate Middleton honeymooned on one). To satisfy a desire for humanitarian work, he took on small public art installations in Johannesburg on the side. “I reached the point where it was completely schizophrenic,” says Chapman. In 2012, he made the jump and founded his own practice, Local Studio.
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