Glensburg Town Planners
Glensburg Town Planners
Glensburg Town Planners

Our History

Glensburg began in 2017 as a think tank on Africa’s cities and has carried its name since June 2020. Here is where the name comes from, and what it asks of our work.
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The name

What Glensburg means

Glensburg is a made name. It joins two old words, one for land and one for settlement, and reads as the town of the valley.

Glensburg GLENZ-burg noun

  1. The town of the valley. From glen, a narrow valley, and burg, a fortified town.
  2. A research-led town planning practice in Johannesburg, South Africa, known by this name since June 2020.

Why we chose it

We chose the name for the balance it holds. The glen is the natural environment and the burg is the built one, and neither should override the other.

Striking that balance is our work, with authorities and with clients: not destroying nature, and not over-greening the city. The aim is in the second word. We want cities to be fortresses of sustainability.

glen noun
A narrow valley. From Scottish Gaelic gleann and Old Irish glenn, and used in English since the fifteenth century. Johannesburg already has it on the map, in Glenhazel, Glenvista and Protea Glen.
s joining letter
The s that joins two nouns in Germanic place names and reads as a possessive, as in Boksburg, Bok’s town. Here it gives the glen’s burg.
burg noun
A fortified town. Old English had it as burg or burh, Old Norse as borg, and German still has Burg, a castle. It goes back to a word for a hill-fort and, it is thought, beyond that to a root meaning high. It is the ending of Johannesburg.

Word histories: Merriam-Webster on glen and burg, and the Online Etymology Dictionary on glen and borough.

The mark

How the name is drawn

A surveyor shows the height of land with contour lines: close together where the ground is steep, wide apart where it eases. Our mark is the letter G drawn that way. Hill and valley share the same lines, and neither is drawn over the other.

1234
The land behind the mark. Drawing: Glensburg Town Planners.
  1. The burg The hill. The lines close into rings and tighten.
  2. The glen The valley. The lines open and run on.
  3. The summit One point, in brass. It is the only brass in the mark.
  4. The glen axis The G opens on one straight line, at 44 degrees. The land in our drawings runs along it.
The Glensburg Contour monogram: the letter G drawn as contour lines, with one brass point at its summit.
The Contour monogram: the same land, drawn as a G.

The firm

From a think tank to a practice

Glensburg was not founded as a consultancy. The idea began in 2016 with Urbanizim, an online magazine on urban planning in southern Africa, and became a think tank the year after.

  1. 15 June 2017 African Urban Institute A think tank on urbanisation in Africa is launched at the Central European University in Budapest.
  2. 2018 African Planning Society Formed by the Institute to promote best town planning practice across Africa.
  3. 2019 Dystopia Published by the Institute’s press, now Glensburg Press.
  4. June 2020 Glensburg The Institute is reorganised and renamed. The practice it had begun becomes Glensburg Town Planners, and the Society becomes the Glensburg Cities Institute.
  5. 2022 Announced The new names are made public in February.
  6. 2023 Glensburg (Pty) Ltd The practice is incorporated.

What came across

Three things came across. The Society’s aim, best town planning practice across Africa, continues in the training the Glensburg Cities Institute offers to African cities. The Institute’s press became Glensburg Press. And the habit of asking for the evidence first stayed with the practice, which is why we call it research-led.

The record

Began
15 June 2017, as the African Urban Institute
Named Glensburg
June 2020
Company
Glensburg (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2023/764252/07
Research arm
Glensburg Cities Institute, formerly the African Planning Society
Imprint
Glensburg Press, formerly African Urban Institute Press
Office
35 Fricker Road, Illovo, Johannesburg

The practice

What the name asks of us

A name is a standing instruction. Ours has four parts, the four the mark draws.

  • The glen

    Read the land first

    The glen is the natural environment, and good planning does not destroy it. Every instruction starts with the land as it is, and with what its zoning, its title deed and its services allow.

    How we work

  • The burg

    Argue for the town

    The burg is the built environment, and a city is not served by over-greening it. We argue each application as a case for how a place should change, on the development principles in section 7 of SPLUMA as well as the municipal by-law.

    Town planning services

  • The glen axis

    Strike the balance

    Between the two runs a line. Planners call it a transect: an order of places from open land to the centre of town, each with the mix of building and nature that suits its social and economic role. We work along it with authorities and clients.

    Our services

  • The summit

    Know before we advise

    We began as researchers. The Glensburg Cities Institute still publishes on how African cities are planned, regulated and built, and the practice draws on that work in its own guides and briefings.

    The Cities Institute
Common Questions

Questions about the name and the firm

What does Glensburg mean?

Glensburg joins glen, a narrow valley, and burg, a fortified town. It reads as the town of the valley. We chose it for the balance between the natural and the built environment, in which neither overrides the other.

How do you pronounce Glensburg?

GLENZ-burg, with the stress on the first part. The s sounds like a z.

Is Glensburg the same as Flensburg?

No. Flensburg is a port city in northern Germany. Glensburg is a town planning practice in Johannesburg, South Africa. The two names differ by one letter and share only the ending burg.

When was Glensburg founded?

Glensburg began as the African Urban Institute, a think tank launched in Budapest on 15 June 2017. The Institute was reorganised and took the name Glensburg in June 2020. The practice was incorporated as Glensburg (Pty) Ltd in 2023.

What became of the African Urban Institute and the African Planning Society?

The African Urban Institute became Glensburg in June 2020. The African Planning Society, which the Institute formed in 2018, became the Glensburg Cities Institute, the research arm of the practice. The Institute’s press is now Glensburg Press.