Browsing by Author "Brunette, Tessa"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Digital boundaries: A study into how mobile devices and information + communication technologies can influence the social programming, spatial conditions and construction of public architecture
    (2018) Van 'T Hof, Marcus Daniel; Carter, Francis; Brunette, Tessa
    DIGITAL BOUNDARIES explores the notion of how ICTs and mobile devices can influence the social programming, spatial conditions and construction of public architecture. This topic is derived from the study of Urban Informatics which looks at three key actors: people, place and technology. This can be seen in South Africa where many young individuals inhabit public buildings in the urban environment purely to be connected to wireless internet through their mobile devices. This is done so that they are able to do research for studies, look for job opportunities or socialise. This digital infrastructure then becomes an important aspect of the public realm, not only for personal benefit and need, but for attracting people to place. Situated in the Nyanga Junction precinct south of Gugulethu, the architectural proposition looks at adding digital infrastructure to this complex precinct in the informal area of Cape Town through three scales of architecture; small, medium and large. The small scale is that of Wi-Fi hotspots at street level embedded within the informal market at ten strategically located sites. The medium scale interventions are upgrades to four existing trade posts elevated above at first floor level. Lastly the large scale which is of catalytic and institutional architecture at two proposed sites, of which one is the main architectural focus of the design dissertation and explored further. The architectural programme provides spaces for: IT learning and skills development to help individuals seek employment, collaborative hubs for those developing new entrepreneurial ideas, and youth hubs for students to study and socialise. These three scales and their locality have been informed by social thresholds developed through the theory and technology studies that have been influential in the urban strategy of the design dissertation. It has created a framework for digital infrastructure to be implemented that will help enhance the public realm for a safer and more conducive urban environment.
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    Envelopes of adaptation - an architecture of social thresholds and flexibility: investigating the socio-technical relationship between the built edge and social surface
    (2018) Moodley, Byron; Carter, Francis; Brunette, Tessa
    The concept of adaptability in architecture is one that very often bears technical rather than social connotations. What are the mechanisms and systems that allow buildings to adapt to fluctuating environmental and climatic conditions? These responses are often the driving force behind design considerations, placing emphasis on the manner in which the technical resolutions facilitate appropriate adaptability and environmental response. This adaptability is generally addressed through the building envelope, which acts as the mediator between the interior conditions of a building, and the exterior conditions of its environment (Lovell, 2010). However, beyond addressing these environmental conditions, there are greater urban and social conditions that bear equal weight within any design inquiry. Building adjacencies, ethnographics, social development and imageability of spatial ordering are all fundamental factors that need to be addressed within building envelope design (Lovell, 2010). The design dissertation inquiry explores the multi-faceted nature of building envelopes as well as an architecture of internal and external thresholds. The inquiry examines ways in which building envelopes respond to both the environmental and social complexities of a context, as well as how internal and external threshold and edge conditions can be design generative and communicative; expressing spatial organisations, conditions of privacy and mechanisms of adaptability. This topic of adaptive envelopes and defining thresholds in relation to social complexities has been explored in an architectural design project, which aims to practically address social and environmental issues. This exploration yields a set of key findings into an architecture of thresholds and adaptability in response to the sociotechnical conditions of a context where the lines between the formal and informal are blurred.
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    The junction: transcending sociotechnical divides through youth space
    (2018) Dowlath, Rahul; Carter, Francis; Brunette, Tessa
    Infrastructure continues to perpetuate the effects of splintering urbanism in South African cities. Where apartheid planning policies such as the group areas act used infrastructure as a mechanism of social organisation, this design dissertation proposes using architecture as social infrastructure to transcend these sociotechnical divides. The concept of the sociotechnical denotes the synergy of a city's infrastructural systems and its social life. In this design dissertation this idea is explored at various scales: at the urban level, through a development strategy that spatialises unsafe public open land; at the architectural scale, through surface articulation and interfacing with urban infrastructure; and at the technical level, through building performance analysis and technical design development in support of architectural goals. The project uses a distributed programme that stretches across communities in order to socialise the existing urban infrastructure of a pedestrian bridge. By leveraging the social significance of a local football club, the project proposes a social programme around the idea of a football clubhouse as a programmatic anchor. In reacting to urban infrastructure, the idea of imageability and presence are important considerations. These concepts enable youth to positively engage with the architecture, and allows the building to convey its purpose and programmatic intent, thereby creating a strong social interface with its users. Sociotechnical architecture is considered as an urban armature that socialises and spatialises urban infrastructure. The architecture therefore seeks the minimal amount of fixity to support a variety of flexible events surrounding sports and recreation activities. This is achieved through a selection of robust materials used in horizontal surfaces of social purpose, and the combination of structure, materiality and geometry to create a series of vertical surfaces of social presence and architectural imageability. The result is a strategic arrangement of architectural interventions deployed across a large urban scheme. By distributing the architecture across urban infrastructure, the project connects two communities and presents an architectural response to splintering urbanism.
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    Minimum built form for maximum urban impact: exploring the minimum built form that generates the greatest urban impact through architecture of closed-loop material systems
    (2018) Moreau, Daniel; Carter, Francis; Brunette, Tessa
    Current top-down city planning strategies implement abstract ideas and impose them on a society while neglecting a crucial sense of public voice and inclusion (Krause, 2011). Through exploring ideas of community ownership of space and flexibility of social inhabitation, the design dissertation aims to understand the minimum built form that generates the greatest urban impact through architecture of closed-loop material systems. The inquiry focuses on urban upgrade that is low in embodied energy and holistic in its processes and implementation, where the social side of community participation is overlapped with technical explorations of material re-use and local procurement that promotes inclusive architecture. The use of low-tech materials requires high amounts of labour, which generates a positive state of community buy-in and inclusion both qualitatively (dignity and ownership) and qualitatively (Job creation). The design dissertation demonstrates how a relatively small building can make massive improvements in activation of site and precinct, being catalytic with community participation and urban upgrade of a rich, authentic nature. The aspiration of this design research is to generate a speculative design framework and set of experimental design details that are useful to local municipalities, planners, urban designers, architects and NGO's that are interested in developing sustainable models for upgrade in under-resourced neighbourhoods of the Cape Town townships. With enough planning and unique tailoring of the building contract, procurement, project management and community involvement, these new typologies can offer more integrity than current and conventional builds. Unique teams require brave and unconventional practices that step out of the rigid comfort zone architects call the industry.
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    Planes of progression: an exploration of architecture's role in supporting the positive development of youth from disadvantaged backgrounds
    (2018) Mativenga, Tapiwanashe Emmanuel; Carter, Francis; Brunette, Tessa
    Youth from disadvantaged backgrounds develop at a slower rate than youth from well-to-do neighborhoods. They do not reach the same levels of development and are often kept within the unforgiving grip of poverty. The problem is compounded by the rising rate of urbanisation and informal settlements with slum conditions. Youth in these areas bear the consequences of such backgrounds; their development is hindered due to the absence of resources and spaces of youth development. In cases where those spaces are present, the quality of design, construction and maintenance makes them unappealing and less effective. A key concern is the lack of awareness and ease of access to these spaces by youth at risk in the area. This design dissertation explores how architecture and good design can be utilised to improve presence, access and utilisation of youth development spaces at three different scales, the urban, the street and the building edge. Using the Gugulethu Township in Cape Town, the design dissertation examines and develops a network of youth development distributed over five sites. This increases institutional presence and youth access. These sites use carefully articulated planes, strategically arranged to achieve a positive and appealing presence in the area. The planes allow permeability of youth off the street into the development space, separation of different levels of development and enable the buildings to utilise a cost effective approach to achieving thermal comfort.
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    Small buildings big improvements: addressing the need for community educational facilities in the informal city through provision of prototypical alternative learning and teaching spaces
    (2018) Tod, Catherine Ann; Carter, Francis; Brunette, Tessa
    Education, by its broadest definition, withholds and undeniable and indispensable potential for positive human development. This is particularly true in emerging economies where social and economic ills are rife. Addressing this issue is a meaningful step towards creating a more "equitable society" (VPUU, 2015) by providing a mechanism for emancipation. Individuals have a better chance of improving their quality of life with an educated mind. Contemporarily speaking, South Africa (an emerging economy) is enduring an educational crisis across many spheres that requires immediate attention. Due to historical disenfranchisement, many individuals have missed this fundamental human right and others (for numerous reason) have exited the system. These problems are ever prevalent to the poorer areas of the country, such as urban conditions like the South African township. The state institutions in these areas require support. Therefore, this inquiry seeks to address this issue. The design dissertation is fundamentally an exploration of teaching and learning space in the Informal City that sits outside the formal system - informal and alternative education - that serves to complement existing institutions. Informal educational space permits an ideal opportunity to experiment with new and innovative arrangements for educational operations and facilities in the South African township that provide a different spatial experience to conventional teaching and learning space. The architectural parameters can be extended.
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    Space & event in contested territories: Public assembly through place-making tradition exploring tectonics and materials of the circular economy
    (2018) Nunkoo, Abhinav; Carter, Francis; Brunette, Tessa
    Design is an iterative process. This design dissertation explores 'concept-form' by Tschumi (2010, pp. 15-19) who argues it is a generator of new conditions to freely inform or locate activities to generate events. Concept-form reflects a specific moment in a thought process when an architectural strategy becomes the generator for making buildings, Concept-form is about designing conditions rather than conditioning designs. The research by design dissertation report contains sketches, parti diagrams, and artworks as social, contextual and technical constraints are super-imposed as we move across scales towards a concluding architectural intervention addressing Space & Event in the context of contested territories in Cape Town.
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    The urban nomad: a critical look at the institutional architecture of nomadic users
    (2018) Njobe, Sanelisiwe; Carter, Francis; Brunette, Tessa