Browsing by Author "Makeka, Mokena"

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    Inclusive urban centres
    (2016) Madzingaidzo, Tawanda; Fraschini, Matteo; Makeka, Mokena
    This 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.
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    (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, Mokena
    This 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.
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    Re-Connecting: a redevelopment of the Wynberg Precinct
    (2016) Chokupermall, Jason Allan; Fraschini, Matteo; Makeka, Mokena
    This 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.
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    Urban accupuncture: Architecture as a catalyst for environmental and water conservation in the context of the Kilimanjaro Informal Settlement
    (2016) Main, Kenneth; Fraschini, Matteo; Makeka, Mokena
    The 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.