Thireshen Govender is an architect, urbanist and researcher practicing in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was awarded the Chevening Scholarship through which he undertook a Masters in Urban Design at The Bartlett (University College London). Following extensive travels, he founded UrbanWorks in 2008, a design-research studio concerning itself with the design and implementation of transformative infrastructures in post-traumatic sites. He is the co-author of Township Economies: People, Spaces, Practices (2020), which brings new insights into how frontier territories are being established through rampant informal practices. Thireshen has taught and lectured at various international schools of architecture and has been a tutor at the inaugural Venice Biennale College in 2023. His research through the University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture, where he led Unit 14: Rogue Economies, documents the hidden forces shaping our cities while experimenting with methods on radical speculation in the context of extreme urban crisis. His teaching and research are advanced through his role as Core Faculty Member at the African Futures Institute, as a tutor for the Nomadic African Studio, and as a Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg. He is also an Independent Director at the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation, an organization which contributes to the economic and social transformation of marginalised neighborhoods in Southern Africa through research, policy and interventions.