Browsing by Author "Fraschini, Matteo"
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- ItemOpen AccessBetween nature and culture: a stone masonry school and walking path at the Strand Street Quarry(2015) Rolando, Jean-Sebastian; Fraschini, Matteo; Silverman, Melinda; Fellingham, Kevin; Coetzer, NicThe dissertation design seeks to make present and enhance the inherent qualities of the Stand Street Quarry in order to reintroduce its heritage narratives into the public realm. The proposed intervention aspires to, if anything, subtlety. It seeks to make the value of the histories of the site evident to the user in such a way that they are compelled to find meaning individually, to interact with the site and the landscape in a meaningful and personal manner. Minimalistic design solutions were sought out in order to produce a product scheme that embeds another layer of human intervention in the palimpsestual narrative of the Signal Hill territory.
- ItemOpen AccessBridging urban discontent(2015) Du Plessis, Devin; Fraschini, MatteoThere exists an incoherence in many contemporary cities between built architectural, urban fabric and the main transport arteries that feed the city. This incoherence leads to dangerous and disused space in the city which leads to disconnected parts owing to the untraversable nature of these left-over spaces. While there are large engineering solutions to such problems, this project seeks architectural solutions. Contemporary tools can be used to analyse and handle the problem; leading to a healthier city with happier people. The current tools at an architect's disposal allow him/ her to respond to a variety of contextual geometries of varying complexity. These tools present themselves in the form of algorithm based software. The concepts of the project seek to create flows through the city by making spaces that show movement and interrelation and encourage constant activation. To do this a specific city has been used as a case study and a particular site selected for a hypothetical architectural project to be designed. This design grapples with the aforementioned issues and solves the challenges firstly by trying to understand why the dead spaces exist and accepting that the transport elements which led to the disconnect cannot necessarily change. This is a positive project seeking to uplift the city.
- ItemOpen AccessCreating Connections in the City: From road to street; and buffer zone to landscape: Residual highway space as a tool in stitching segregated neighbourhoods into the urban fabric(2015) de Beer, Christine Caryl; Fellingham, Kevin; Fraschini, Matteo; Silverman, MelindaThe fractured form of the post-apartheid South African city, created by city planning laws based on racial segregation, sustains inequality. Under apartheid, neighbourhoods were designed to exist in isolation. This isolation was created and reinforced by infrastructure and large areas of open space. This project recognises that residual space created by the highway could be an opportunity to stitch together the urban fabric. The project aims to address these spaces by using program to create connections. It finds its program in a sports centre on the border between Bonteheuwel and Langa. By understanding how our cities came to be fragmented globally, and its impact in South Africa, this project unpacks case studies that have created connections, extracting strategies that are useful and can be adapted in the South African context. It reviews literature that highlights new thinking about the city and the shift in the planning agenda from separation to integration. The project aims to address the separation between the two neighbourhoods of Bonteheuwel and Langa. It does this by transforming a road that divides, into a connective street; and by inhabiting the buffer zone with program in order to create an active landscape. The strategic choice of site is at an intersection of a new connection made into Langa, and presents the opportunity to address both these conditions of road and buffer zone. By creating an active street edge, the urban fabric becomes continuous between Bonteheuwel and Langa. The precinct has been designed so that the landscape offers the potential of connection by being programmed with urban agriculture, sports facilities and recreational space. These two predominant ideas prompted the conceptual understanding that the building becomes the transition between urban edge and landscape. A ramp is used as a mediating device to negotiate level changes both from inside to outside, as well as navigating the internal topography of the building. By recognising the opportunity of these residual spaces alongside the highway, these sites can be used to stitch together the isolated neighbourhoods in our city.
- ItemOpen AccessFinding the place of the artisan in developing Woodstock(2015) Simos, Christos; Fraschini, Matteo; Silverman, Melinda; Fellingham, KevinArgument - The relationship between Cape Town and its socio-economic change has resulted in developments often disassociated with immediate context ,but rather following capitalist ideals with very little to no variation. This results in social alienation of existing communities with the new developments. These new developments are internalized enclave models with no engagement to their edge conditions but in the case of Woodstock, are selected solely for their proximity to the city center and their low start-up cost. These developments are also restricted to the measures of the urban scale and take a place in the morphology of the city by creating a new dialogue and place. However they do add value to the city and initiate a flurry of similar developments around them using the basic model of the enclave. In this dissertation I propose the existence of a hybrid model that lies between syntactic values learnt from enclaves of malls and the armatures of the main street/s. By engaging with examples like the biscuit mill and Woodstock exchange and looking into their syntactic structure in comparison to the structure of dedicated malls (such as canal walk), I will be able to construct a set of design characteristics from which I can propose a new spatial model. This together with a critical look at the two main roads (Victoria road and Albert road) that run through Woodstock there will be enough local research into the overall form of the two contrasting models. Question - Dealing with an existing urban fabric which has undergone many infrastructural changes over the past 40 years, the new model of the enclave takes on a new form in Woodstock yet is bound by the spatial parameters of the existing morphology. The question of how much how much can we change something without losing its original value whilst working within its limitations? Locating the design intervention - Based on the theoretical research into enclaves and armatures, I isolate "anchors" which facilitate the function of an enclave and act as the main attractors of people. Naturally spaces form around these "anchors" and a series of linear paths leading up to them. In the case of Woodstock I have chosen the Woodstock station, and its adjacent site. The main intervention is this site and its structures climaxing at the stations entrance. The initial diagrams are a series of models and sketches which explore the path/ sand structures supporting this movement. The programme itself builds off the tradition of artisans and craftsmen of the area which manufacture, market and sell in the same space. Tectonics are derived from the typology of the buildings found on site and are tailored related to the artisans who will use these spaces. The existing structure contributes to the overall expression and is explored as an adaptable spatial model. Conclusion - Describing a new model is context dependant and the theory serves as a guiding set of rules which are used to establish the argument. Breaking of these rules creates the new but must be critically analysed for is values or its shortcomings.
- ItemOpen AccessThe illusion of time: a study of heterotopic interstitial space and interplay of dynamic movement systems as an architectural strategy to investigate new modes of space making in the age of the network(2015) Patel, Suaad; Fraschini, MatteoWithin a thriving modern society, nothing is more important than the constant flux of information, communication, transportation and plethora of other activities all moving and intermingling with one another over time and space. This dissertation is a purely hypothetical project which aims to explore the links and relations between spaces; specifically, the connection between the creations of heterotopic interstitial space within the urban fabric due to the interplay of dynamic movement systems in society. Within this particular project, the role of architecture will focus on a building typology (the heterotopia), which encompasses the merging of movement and stasis to inhabit the void created by the dynamic movement systems within our cities. It will aim to challenge intense, fast paced networks of flows, by temporarily obstructing and exaggerating the fluidity of communication, information, transportation and technology. An architectural system which has the ability to deal with the complexities, multi-layered and multi-dimensional systems of information, communication and transport, that current society has to deal with on a daily basis. A gateway to the city, the potential site location sits on the periphery of the Cape Town CBD- a forgotten area in-between an old industrial region and transport route. The chosen site, now completely derelict, used to once function as a manufacturing and repair warehouse for boats many years ago. This dissertation will focus on an architectural design process which deals with the intertwined existence between people and the datascape/system, within a world of pixelated elements and bits merging together to generate the whole. An architectural revolution brought about by technology, this study of heterotopic interstitial space and the interplay of dynamic movement systems as an architectural strategy, aims to investigate new modes of space making in the age of the network. In so doing, resolve issues of dislocation and disconnection, and ultimately accentuate the importance of 'place' as site.
- ItemOpen AccessInclusive urban centres(2016) Madzingaidzo, Tawanda; Fraschini, Matteo; Makeka, MokenaThis dissertation is about addressing the need to make township centres a more socially and economically inclusive space for the majority of the inhabitants. It is about transforming the current status of a township from a dormitory or residential zone that simply repels its inhabitants to look for a sense of wellbeing and livelihood elsewhere to a township with an active centre that retains its people through promoting and supporting context specific socio-economic opportunities of the place It has become evident in many South African townships that there is an entrepreneurial activity that supports the livelihood of people within the settlements yet this activity is largely unsupported in legislation and in built infrastructure. The entrepreneurial activity is mainly found in the informal and formal small scale, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and the neglect of this mainstream township economy, is reflected in its spatial exclusion from central business districts within cities around the country and within the township centres themselves. The Khayelitsha Business District is a township urban centre that finds its SMME economy operating on the centre's periphery while large scale enterprises, coming from outside the township dominate the built half of the business district. It is precisely this lack of representation of the formal and informal small scale, medium and micro enterprises within the Khayelitsha Business District that this dissertation seeks to address and provide a suitable architectural and urban intervention. It seems intuitive that through infrastructural interventions, that promote active social and economic participation of the majority of the population, can one seek to create spaces of socio-economic inclusion. Appropriate urban planning strategies, such as those suggested by professors David Dewar and Fabio Todeschini in their book "Urban Management and Economic Integration", and architectural examples, such as the ancient Greek Agora, will be analysed and used to equip me in imagining an inclusive vision for the further urban development of the remaining half of the business district and in designing a building that celebrates the aspirations and needs of the SMME economy. It is my hope that such an urban scheme and building will contribute positively to the ideal of an inclusive urban centre.
- ItemOpen Access(Re)-programming typologies of public infrastructure to serve as a tool for cultural evolution: a re-imagination of the Cape Town Station(2016) Schmidt Von Wühlisch, Jochen; Fraschini, Matteo; Makeka, MokenaThis design dissertation aims to explore the Cape Town Station as an opportunity to support the social evolution that is on our doorstep. For this I chose to explore the balances in the concepts of culture, society and identity; and consequently the ideas of typology and programming within the infrastructure of a major railway station/public transport node. Individual and social identity is an omnipresent topic in the architectural discourse. Countless theories exist that attempt to understand the composition of identity; the lack thereof; the origin; the contestation and the evolution of what makes us US: a unique and conscious being that belongs. Navigating this vast topic of architecture + identity is not an easy task, and it is easy to attach to existing discourse within the larger field of discussion of aestetic and imageability. This dissertation therefore will approach the problem from a completely different angle, and will use the issue of identity in a post-apartheid South Africa as a basis to explore method of design that is appropriate for the Post-Apartheid context in South Africa.
- ItemOpen AccessRe-Connecting: a redevelopment of the Wynberg Precinct(2016) Chokupermall, Jason Allan; Fraschini, Matteo; Makeka, MokenaThis dissertation aims at motivating a redevelopment of the Wynberg Precinct which includes reconnecting the western and eastern fabric of the precinct which has been initially divided due to the installation of a train station. Wynberg is located in the southern suburb of Cape Town and is a highly active transport interchange which includes a train station and 3 taxis ranks with an estimated average daily density of 21,000 commuters. Subsequently, the high density of commuters transiting daily through the Wynberg precinct has consequently generated the opportunities for informal traders - street traders - to appropriate open spaces and street edges within the precinct to develop their micro enterprises. Associated together, the transport interchange, the street traders and commuters, had overtime shaped the character of the precinct and stimulate the public realm. This dissertation is also motivated by the current 'informal trading and mass commuting' phenomenon arising within the Wynberg precinct. The precinct is an arena for contest for spaces and spatial inclusivity between the street traders, commuters and taxis. The planning and configuration of the Wynberg precinct has predominantly been driven towards the integration of the train station and the taxis ranks but not much considerations have been placed on the integration of the street traders in the precinct. Consequently, as a result of such planning attitude, traders contest for space to trade, pedestrians contest for clear sidewalks while Taxis contest for clear streets without any obstructions. Furthermore, the dissertation also aims at reconnecting the commuter's routes between the transport facilities. There is a discontinuity in the commuter's routes from one transport facility to the other. Commuters are required to find alternative routes - using the street itself - to have access to their respective transport facilities since the street traders in the precinct occupies the sidewalks. Subsequently, using the street as a pedestrian route holds a further impact on the vehicular flow around the precinct.
- ItemOpen AccessUrban accupuncture: Architecture as a catalyst for environmental and water conservation in the context of the Kilimanjaro Informal Settlement(2016) Main, Kenneth; Fraschini, Matteo; Makeka, MokenaThe following dissertation will attempt to establish an approach to dealing with the issue of waste contamination and water conservation in the natural and urban landscapes of the riverbed, its rivers' edges and its man-made peripheries. This research locates itself at the northern boundary of the city of Windhoek along a stretch of polluted riverbed in the Kilimanjaro Informal Settlement (KIS) where public environments are undefined, unhealthy and in many ways disconnected from the greater metropolitan areas. In the creation of an architectural approach 'urban acupuncture' will be explored in an attempt to create Architecture that has the potential to influence areas beyond its physical boundaries and which can re-establish and re-imagine the value of the river for its unseen influence in shaping the city as rapid urbanisation is taking place. In this section of the city, particular aspects of environmental degradation, water conservation and lack of basic infrastructure form a basis of inquiry to which an urban framework has been proposed. Drawing on theories of landscape urbanism, this urban framework acts to establish an alternative and more efficient infrastructural system which collects, stores, recycles and reuses wastewater for both drinking and irrigation purposes. Seen as the bi-product of this urban framework, the KIS Agricultural Learning Centre has been proposed which provides the necessary link between this infrastructural insertion and both the public and social constructs of the Kilimanjaro Informal Settlement.
- ItemOpen AccessWaste farm: a productive landscape for integrated waste management(2015) Mashazhu, Mabasa; Fraschini, MatteoIn 2010 the city of Cape Town partnered with the Department of Environmental Affairs to initiate a project to investigate and evaluate the possible re-opening and licensing of Historic and Old landfill sites. The project to reassess these landfill sites is due to the fact that the three main operating landfill sites in Cape Town are nearing capacity. This calls for the city to re-imagine its waste management infrastructure. Meanwhile, within the urban areas of Cape Town, there exists a network and constellations of informal waste pickers working in conjunction with buy-back centres and recyclers to form an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable solution that diverts volumes of recyclable waste from landfills. These informal waste pickers contribute to filling in a gap within the formal recycling system but there is no infrastructure supporting these individuals on whom the formal recycling industry depends on. Most of the waste pickers sleep 'on the streets' with little access to amenities such as water, toilets and washing facilities. The spaces they occupy/sleep make it hard to store their pickings and hence they are forced to sell as soon as they collect. It also forces them to make multiple trips to the buy-back centres whom they are always at the mercy of, particularly when the ever changing price of recyclable waste is low. This project aims at creating a productive landscape that uses waste as a vehicle to enhance the livelihoods of informal waste pickers and encourage local communities to see the economic and environmental value of recycling waste. By providing secure storage and sorting, safe/hygienic sleeping and cleaning spaces coupled with social and productive areas; the project seeks to unlock the potential of recycling using a suitable architectural intervention that is self-sustaining.