WHAT WE DO
AFREETEKTURE IS A CULTURAL CONSULTANCY. WE WORK WITH EMERGING AND ESTABLISHED COMPANIES, INSTITUTIONS, AND BRANDS IN A TIME OF RAPID CULTURAL CHANGE. THROUGH A CREATIVE, DESIGN-DRIVEN PROCESS, WE ANALYZE YOUR CULTURAL RELEVANCE, DEVELOP STRATEGIES TO HELP YOU PIVOT, AND SUPPORT IMPLEMENTATION SO YOU CAN TURN CHANGE INTO NEW VALUE, EXCITEMENT, AND FUTURE LEADERSHIP. OUR APPROACH IS GROUNDED IN OVER A DECADE OF EXPERIENCE PIVOTING THE DISCIPLINE OF ARCHITECTURE TOWARD CULTURAL RESPONSIVENESS, NOW EXTENDED TO COMMUNITIES, INSTITUTIONS, AND ORGANISATIONS ACROSS CONTEXTS.
– DR. SECHABA MAAPE
OUR OFFERINGS
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Consulting
We offer strategic cultural consultancy that helps organisations, companies, and creative practices adapt to shifting contexts. This includes analyzing cultural relevance, reframing narratives, and developing strategies that reposition offerings for contemporary audiences. From architectural projects to brand identities, we guide clients in pivoting toward cultural resonance, drawing on both design expertise and tools like AI to create strategies that are context-specific, future-facing, and implementable.
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Knowledge Design
We redesign knowledge systems for relevance in today’s cultural climate. This includes creating new curricula for universities or schools, rethinking journals and publications, reframing educational models, and reshaping content for institutions working in the knowledge economy. We review existing material, test cultural relevance, and develop new frameworks that connect with audiences and communities, ensuring that knowledge products are timely, engaging, and future-ready.
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Research
We conduct independent and commissioned research into the cultural efficacy of ideas, technologies, and practices. Our work ranges from testing how AI can enhance cultural design, to mapping how institutions engage (or fail to engage) with shifting cultural contexts. We provide partners with insights that inform strategy, product development, and organisational adaptation, building on more than a decade of experience researching architecture and cultural transformation.
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Public Engagement
We bring critical cultural ideas into the public sphere through talks, workshops and facilitation, exhibitions, publications, podcasts, and activations. This includes keynote lectures on cultural and technological change, training sessions on cultural integration, curating and launching events, and creating moments that spark conversation and reposition institutions and businesses. Our public engagements are designed to amplify cultural relevance, build visibility, and connect ideas to broad audiences.
"AFRICAN" Stamp_2025//
Place: Johannesburg
Photo Credit: Goncalo Gomes
Photo Edit: Dr Sechaba Maape
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OUR PHILOSOPHY​​
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At AFREETEKTURE, we believe cultural intelligence is the missing link in how organisations, institutions, and businesses respond to change. Technology, policies, and strategies on their own are never enough. Across fields such as digital technology, ecological sustainability and climate change adaptation, developmental processes, and creative content, the same pattern repeats: when initiatives are introduced without cultural and contextual grounding, they underperform, fail to gain adoption, or even reinforce inequality. Culture, how people make meaning, form beliefs, and act collectively, ultimately determines whether ideas succeed or collapse.​ This is especially urgent in Africa, and particularly South Africa, where the social and cultural landscape is shifting rapidly. Audiences, workforces, and consumer markets today look very different from those of even a decade ago. People who were once outside the conversation are now central as recipients of services, users of products, and participants in industries. Organisations that fail to adapt to this reality risk being out of touch and ultimately irrelevant. By contrast, those that cultivate cultural intelligence gain a decisive advantage: they design strategies, services, and outputs that resonate, build trust, and achieve lasting impact.​ AFREETEKTURE exists to make this possible. With more than a decade of research and practice, we help clients integrate cultural intelligence into their decision-making and creative processes. Through Consulting, Knowledge Design, Research, and Public Engagement, we enable organisations to pivot effectively, anticipate risks, and remain relevant in a rapidly transforming world.
OUR MESSAGE IS SIMPLE: NEGLECT CULTURE AND CONTEXT, AND YOU RISK OBSOLESCENCE. EMBED THEM, AND YOU UNLOCK ENDURING RELEVANCE AND VALUE.
OUR PROCESS​​
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“Rooted in African case studies and PhD research on how the brain adapts to changing environments and recalibrates through culture, our process blends complexity theory, systems thinking, design thinking, and futures literacy to enable deep cultural adaptation and organisational transformation.” Dr S.Maape
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1. Cultural Lens Audits (Low Level)
Rapid diagnostic of your current cultural relevance.
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Consulting: Quick analysis of your project, product, or practice with recommendations.
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Knowledge Design: Review of curricula, publications, or knowledge products for cultural resonance.
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Research: Baseline mapping of how your organisation engages with cultural shifts.
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Public Engagement: Short talks, panels, or public interventions to test ideas with audiences.
Deliverable: Report + recommendations.
Value: Accessible entry point, identifies gaps and opportunities.
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2. Cultural Strategy Framework (Mid LeveL)
Deep engagement to reframe and reposition your work in line with cultural shifts.
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Consulting: Development of strategic frameworks, narratives, and design briefs.
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Knowledge Design: Full redesign of curricula, journals, or content strategies for future relevance.
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Research: Commissioned studies that inform positioning and long-term adaptation.
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Public Engagement: Structured workshops and curated events to shape narratives.
Deliverable: Conceptual framework + narrative + strategic design brief.
Value: Clear direction for pivoting and amplifying cultural relevance.
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3. Cultural integration program (High Level)
Full integration into practice, producing tangible transformation.
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Consulting: Hands-on implementation, design prototypes, and sustained advisory.
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Knowledge Design: Creation of new knowledge systems, curricula, or cultural outputs — with end-to-end support, including accreditation and formalisation with regulatory and professional bodies.
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Research: Ongoing applied research projects that feed back into organisational practice.
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Public Engagement: Large-scale campaigns, exhibitions, and activations that anchor cultural alignment.
Deliverable: Tangible transformation (curriculum, exhibition, design, or campaign).
Value: Premium, long-term cultural alignment with measurable impact.