Hugo Sinclair

Fifteen questions, off-duty.

Role on the line

Exterior CGI for mid-rise and mixed-use schemes. Façades, public realm at ground floor, the way a building meets a street it did not grow up with.

Where I grew up

Cape Town, Gardens. The mountain on one shoulder, the sea on the other, the city told to argue with both.

Training

Architecture at UCT, then four years at a Cape Town practice doing competition boards before I came to London.

Years on the line

Nine. Five on architectural assistant work, four on full-time CGI.

The blade I bring

Material honesty at façade scale. If the brick is not brick, the render will tell you eventually.

Architect I would ride out for

Mokena Makeka for the streets, Peter Rich for the roofs.

Façades that read true on screen

Stock brick with real mortar courses, precast concrete with an honest joint pattern, rain-soaked Portland stone, dark-stained timber with knots.

Software I cannot lose

Rhino, V-Ray, and a folder of photographs of every London brick bond I have ever seen.

Earliest architectural memory

The District Six Museum at twelve, learning that a building can hold what was demolished as well as what was built.

The brief I am proudest of

A Lewisham mixed-use elevation set that survived a design-review panel without a single material change.

On the headphones while working

Hugh Masekela on slow days, Tumi Molekane when the deadline is moving.

London view I never tire of

The Bermondsey Street walk from the station to the river, where every façade is doing its own thing politely.

Coffee or tea

Rooibos in the morning, flat white at eleven, no debate.

Off the line

Sunday braai in my back garden in Forest Hill. Friends, music, no laptop.

The motto on my desk

"Brick is a promise. Render it that way."