Workshop Review: The Future Embraced: Building Resilience and Agency in Practice

Prepared by Frank Pierard, Registered Urban Designer (UDIA) & Landscape Architect.

Kobus Mentz’s workshop on The Future Embraced provided a rare opportunity to step back from the demands of project delivery and reflect on how we position ourselves in a profession facing accelerating change. The book is rich with diagrams and insights, but the strength of the workshop was in drawing those ideas down to the level of application. For me, in the process of establishing a private design practice, the themes of resilience and agency are not abstract concepts but daily realities.

What stood out most was the emphasis on resilience, values and agency as the cornerstones of effective practice. Planning frameworks, client priorities and project conditions will always shift, but long-term impact comes less from one-off wins and more from consistently applying values and disciplined behaviours over time. That message resonated strongly, particularly as resilience and clear values become increasingly central to how design practices are led and delivered. It also felt timely for a profession under pressure from clients, regulators and communities alike to deliver with both speed and depth.

Another important theme was the translation of global challenges into local opportunities. Climate, technology and economic forces can seem overwhelming at a distance, yet they become meaningful when reframed through the tangible work we do: restoring and enhancing environmental qualities, designing for social cohesion, and shaping urban form that supports community life. This is not an abstract principle. It reflects the kinds of outcomes now being prioritised in projects, where design is increasingly measured by its ability to enhance both environment and community.

The workshop also highlighted the compounding nature of agency. Influence is not built through a single project or bold gesture, but through disciplined habits repeated over time such as rigour in advice, courage in decisions, empathy in collaboration, and clarity in communication. Over time these habits accumulate into credibility, and credibility is the currency that ultimately determines influence in our profession. This reinforced that establishing a private design practice is not about a single breakthrough, but about cultivating consistent behaviours that build trust over years.

The Future Embraced is not about prediction but preparation. It is a framework for acting with clarity, embedding values in our decisions, and building the professional habits that keep us future relevant. For urban designers, landscape architects and allied professionals, it serves as both a reflection of current practice and a framework for charting deliberate steps toward the future we want to create.