I’m trying everything to transform education globally by building schools that nurture kind, brave, and confident children. We are making school the best space in a child’s life and ultimately, I’m trying to shape the future by creating the best possible “now” for every child.

I am a 36-year-old architect building a business with the ambition to transform education globally. We build schools. Hubo have niched into the intersection of education, recreation and play. Most excitingly, we are evolving every day, designing schools, parks and playscapes, and constantly expanding what we believe learning environments can be.

I am an Orthodox Jewish man, married with a six-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. My wife is a paediatric physiotherapist. In many ways, we all go to school every day, to learn, to grow and to work.

I consider myself a lifelong learner. That means I am comfortable in the unknown. I have come to understand education deeply, and I have seen what can happen when space and educational philosophy truly intersect. The results can be extraordinary.

I love when a school trusts its children and I love when a school trusts its architects. We co-create schools- to do this we need partners with a good self esteem.

We build schools from the ground up, not simply as buildings, but around the culture, values and aspirations of the people who inhabit them. Drawing on my own experience in Bnei Akiva, and working alongside an incredible educator with a PhD in education, we are able to engage deeply with a school, understand how it feels, capture what makes it unique, and then use design to bring out the very best of it.

I think I was nominated for a Jewish Achievers Award because our design of Galliot Park has had a very visible impact on many lives. Because of the nature and prominence of the project, it has helped transform the Glenhazel community, while also making our architectural practice far more visible.

At the same time, we have been designing schools in Johannesburg, Surrey and Miami that are impacting thousands of children in much the same way as the park. These projects are changing how children move, learn, interact and experience school. Our work is being recognised with some of the biggest awards in the industry, but we remain passionate, driven and grounded in the belief that the work itself matters most.

Over the years, we have also completed many projects that have directly influenced Jewish education. I have seen how thoughtful design can shift the way children think, move and live. It can change the goalposts, creating a level of ambition that feels genuinely world-class, even when it begins in a relatively small community in Johannesburg.

Increasingly, these projects are being noticed by the global educational and architectural community. I believe our relevance within the Jewish community will continue to grow as we embark on a major transformation of Torah Academy, using everything we have learned to help shape a school that can become a benchmark for Jewish education.We also leaned on our community in a very real way earlier this year, when people came out in huge numbers to vote for us in the Architizer A+Awards, helping us become a Popular Choice Winner. It was incredibly meaningful to see the community view our work almost as an extension of itself, to rally behind us and to realise that their support could genuinely make an impact.

That kind of credibility matters because it gives us the platform to pursue much bigger ambitions.

Our real strength is our ability to work deeply with teachers, school leadership and children. We listen, we learn, we understand the culture of a school, and then we use design to amplify what is already special about it. The awards give us credibility, but it is that human connection, and our obsession with how children experience space, that gives us the potential to create real change.

We are not trying to build the best architectural practice. We are trying to transform education. To do that, we know that we have to operate at the very highest level in the world, but architectural ability alone is not what sets us apart.

South Africa is a nest of extraordinary talent, and we are trying to leverage that talent to make a meaningful impact. We are fortunate to be working with many of the leading private schools in Johannesburg, but our ambition extends far beyond that.

As our global footprint grows, and as our city continues to change politically, socially and economically, I hope we can find ways to take what we are learning and allow it to filter into the broader educational community. We have just secured our first school project in a township, and that excites me enormously.

The Reggio Emilia philosophy itself emerged from a resource-conscious approach to education, built on the belief that children are capable, curious and deserving of rich environments. It reminds us that transformational education is not necessarily about expensive buildings. It is about imagination, dignity, opportunity and the way space supports learning.

I feel a very strong connection to South Africa, and I believe there is a reason Hubo was born here. We love that our practice is being invited to work in places like Miami, Surrey and Winchester, but we are equally excited by what that global credibility can mean back home.

Our ambition is to put South African educational design on the map, to create change through osmosis, and to allow the ideas, confidence and standards we develop in one school to gradually filter into many more. Ultimately, the greatest measure of our success will not be how far Hubo travels, but how widely the impact of our work can be felt.

Recreational activities

Sons of Football – consistent 6 a side action soccer game twice weekly
Watching football- on a good season I try and make the time to watch a game a week.
Travel – Milan design week to Miami WAF, I make sure to have one international trip per quarter.
Reading – lots… from Jim Collin’s to Ken Follett
Air shows- Airports and all things aviation- my son was born with a passion for helicopters and this has seen us visiting Rand Airport weekly, travelling to Virginia Airshow and just flying a lot.
Shul- we go every Shabbat to the Base or Mizrachi