FOLIO is an online and print journal that is published every year by the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg. Experimental and cutting-edge, FOLIO will be peer-reviewed, showcasing the work of the GSA's innovative teaching environment, and attracting commentary, articles, and essays from global leaders in architectural criticism and design research. Each volume will be led by a specific critical paradigm, including emerging knowledge, experimentation, social responsibility, and transformation, with guest editors and contributors carefully selected for their expertise and innovations in the specified field. The intention is to provide an alternative model of architectural research publication, one that is specific to architecture and urbanism in a rapidly transforming and changing environment. In particular, FOLIO is interested in attracting, sustaining, and developing a new generation of African talent across a wide range of built environment disciplines.

Lesley Lokko is an architect, academic, and the author of nine best-selling novels, as well as head of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She completed her architectural training at the Bartlett School of Architecture in 1994, and went on to complete her PhD from the University of London in 2007. She has taught at schools of architecture in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa. She is the editor of White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture (University of Minnesota Press, 2000) and has been an ongoing contributor to discourses around identity, race, African urbanism, and the speculative nature of African architectural space and practice for over twenty years. She is a regular juror at international competitions and symposia, and is a long-term contributor to BBC World and BBC Radio 3 arts programs in the UK. In 2004, she made the successful transition from academic to novelist with the publication of her first novel, Sundowners (Orion 2004), a Guardian top forty best-seller, and has since followed with eight further volumes, which have been translated into fifteen languages.

Emmaneel van der Merwe is a graphic designer and the founder of New Found Form. She graduated from Stellenbosch University in 2007 with an honors degree in visual dommunication design. Between 2008 and 2012, she worked for various branding and publication firms in Cape Town, London, and Johannesburg. After a short year working with an architect as partner, she started her own graphic and product design company in 2014. Since then, she has collaborated with the Graduate School of Architecture on a wide range of publications, brand identity strategies, and marketing campaigns.

The Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg was formally inaugurated on September 30, 2015.