About | Adelaide SA

Introducing LAB OOS

A lab per definition is a place for doing scientific research or tests, to produce solutions or products, often of an innovative nature.

We love to design

True to the definition of a lab, we do 'research' first and only then revert to 'produce' a design solution based on the research's outcome. This approach has proven itself over and over again, as we have successfully designed various innovative projects since 1999 - e.g. houses (including additions, alterations and renovations) group housing, apartments, hotels, community halls, clubhouses, churches, schools and museums - to name a few.

Introducing Nicolaas Oosthuizen

Career summary

Nicolaas Oosthuizen studied architecture at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

After graduating in 1991 he started work at Jacques Botha Architects Inc. in Pretoria, where he worked for 7 years as a junior architect.

In 1999 he started his own architectural practice in Pretoria, namely OOS Architects Inc., where he worked for 8 years as a senior architect.

In late 2007 he and his family moved to Adelaide in Australia where he lived and worked at LAB OOS, a Design and Research firm until 2017.

At the end of 2017 he made a decision to start teaching architecture. Accordingly, he worked from 2018 as a lecturer and tutor at Waikato Institute of Technology in New Zealand, and from 2019 onward as a lecturer and tutor at UniSA in Adelaide.

He currently works at LAB OOS in Adelaide.

Project experience

Residential:

Houses (including additions, alterations and renovations), group housing, apartments, hotels

Commercial:

Shops (including restaurants), shopping centers, offices, ware-houses, factories

Institutional:

Community halls, clubhouses, churches, hospital, museum

Other:

Casino, mortuary, airport

Skills & Expertise

Lecturer

Senior architect

Project management

Office management

Asset management

Product design

Architectural and product evaluation

Architectural research and writing

Architectural models

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Architecture, University of Pretoria, South Africa

1991 (5 year course, equivalent to current M. Arch)

Career timeline

University of South Australia

Lecturer and tutor (Building evaluation - Property School)(Architecture and Environment - Architecture School)

2019 - 2021 (3 years)

Waikato Institute of Technology

Lecturer and tutor (Architectural technology - Built Environment School)

2018 – 2019 (1 year)

LAB OOS

Principal Owner

2022 - present

2008 - 2017 (10 years)

O.O.S Architects Inc.

Senior architect

1999 - 2007 (8 years)

Jacques Botha Architects Inc.

Junior architect

1992 - 1999 (7 years)

Organizations

Warrina Homes, Adelaide (Old age care)

Director - Board of Directors

2010 - 2012 (3 years)

Warrina Homes, Adelaide (Old age care)

Chairperson - Development Committee

Chairing their asset portfolio of $ 44 000 000 namely 100 homes, 80 high care facilities and head office

2010 - 2012 (3 years)

SA Council for the Architectural Profession

Professional architect

1997 - 2007 (11 years)

Courses

AutoCAD Release 12 2D ACAD
Revit 2017 Essential Training
Sketch Up 2018 Essential Training
Broadband Workshop Adelaide Hills Council
Professional Development for Architects SAIA
Entry exam SA Council for Architects

Publications

PROD

A game to improve the architectural mind

Buildings of Doors

From theory to practice

The Three-dimensional Architect

Conversations about architects and dimensions

The Four-eyed Architect

Conversations about architects and perception

Reflections on Energy

Essays about energy

Languages

English

Professional proficiency

Afrikaans

Professional proficiency

Personal

Married to Karien, parents of Magdalena and Johannes

Interests

Animals, fast cars and good music

Introducing my surname

I am often asked how one pronounces my surname, which can be a mouthful.

I thought the attached article which appeared in the The New York Times explain this dilemma best!

The New York Times

You Say Tomato, I Say Oosthuizen

By Richard Sandomir

April 9, 2012 7:21pm

Spelling Louis Oosthuizen’s out-of-Afrikaans surname is easier than figuring out how to pronounce it.

In a 2011 commercial for Ping, the South African-born Oosthuizen said: “There are two names on my bag. One, nobody can pronounce, even after I won the British Open Championship. The other is Ping, which does no damage to the tongue.”

In the ad, he pronounced his name as “Oo-est-hayzen”, with the first two syllables blending together quickly. But then Louis (pronounced “Loo-ie” as in Carnesecca) confuses us. In a video made earlier this year for Ping and Golf Monthly, he said, “Hi, I’m Louis Oosthuizen.” But this time, his name rolled out of his mouth in another way: “West-hayzen”.

What in the name of the CBS golf analyst Peter Oosterhuis is going on here?

If Oosthuizen himself shifts between pronunciations, then CBS Sports can’t be faulted for doing the same thing during the Masters on Sunday when Oosthuizen led for a while but lost in a two-hole playoff to Bubba Watson.

The CBS announcers called him “Oost-hyzen” and “Oost-hayzen”. They had no such problem with “Watson” or “Bubba”.

Now here’s the head-scratching part of this mystery. There are three legitimate ways to say Oosthuizen, according to his representatives at International Sports Management.

There is “Oo-est-hayzen” (which can also be “Oo-erst-hayzen”). There is “West-hayzen”, and there is “Oost-hayzen”.

David Feherty, CBS’s Irish-born golf analyst who had a home in South Africa during his first marriage, described the sound he uses to pronounce Oosthuizen as “oo-eh”. And if you say it quickly enough, it can sound like a “w”, and thus, “West-hayzen”.

And, he added, someone with an Australian accent, like the CBS golf reporter Ian Baker-Finch, might be thinking of pronouncing Oosthuizen’s second and third syllable as “hayzen, but will say it “hyzen”. The language maven in Feherty said that the last syllable in Oosterhuis’s name, which is Dutch and is usually pronounced “house”, should properly be said, “hase”.

A good explanation for the various ways to say Oosthuizen comes from Jack Wainer, a real estate title agent from South Africa who speaks Afrikaans. “’West-hayzen’ is the way that South Africans would say the name”, he said. Wainer, a naturalized American citizen who lives in Long Isalnd, said that “Oo-est-hayzen” accurately reflects the name’s Afrikaans roots. And he added: “Americanized, it’s ‘Oost-hayzen’. A lot of South African names are tough for Americans to pronounce.”

Oh, to be a South African golfer named Ernie Els.