Browsing by Author "Steenkamp, Aletta"

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    Complexity + Connection: Looking at Harare Square in a Context of Transformation
    (2024) Thomas, Anna; Steenkamp, Aletta
    There is a collective harmony that erupts from group dynamics and behavior. We can see this in a flock of birds, a school of fish, or herds of land animals.1 A collective movement and grouping as one, that has the impression of centralized and intentional control as a group, yet all evidence has found that flock motion is the aggregate result of individual actions. Each member of the flock, the herd, or the school is acting on the sole basis of it's own individual and local perception of it's immediate environment.2 “... and the thousands of fishes moved as a huge beast, piercing the water, They appeared united, inexorably bound to a common fate. How comes this unity?” - Anonymous poet, 17th century A bird participating in a flock holds the necessary behaviors that allow the movement coordination required for it to move with it's flock mates. Flocking theory is essentially the behavior gathered from a large group of individual agents that interact with each other to create emergent collective behavior. The same principle can be tied to a community of people. How can we liken this behavior to a community? Group dynamics are almost the silent co-partner that creates a community. Every member of the community is an independent agent, and their actions, movements and contributions have an impact on the greater motion of the whole. As external participants of a community that architects and designers often find themselves to be, it is important to recognize the role that is required of you, and act in a way that uplifts through improvements rather than dictates through change. This is done through a communicative approach, and the communication of what is desired through design is brought forward through a collective interaction whereby participation is essential. So how can we, as the designers of these spaces in which community self organizes, create space that facilitates, contributes, uplifts, and empowers public entities to create healthy urban environments that are able to morph and improve over time. Doing so without altering the organic organization of the social world, but rather nurturing this through physical space. The theory of this project is based off my site of choice, Harare Square in Khayelitsha. Working in this space was an eye opening experience, where the contrast of my own life is so apparent, and the desire to transform this space is one of a delicate yet important nature. Throughout this project it is important for me to realise the impact that architects have within and around a space. It brought about an awareness that I have always known, yet through this project the gravity of it's importance became apparent. That is, as the architect one must not step into these environments with a notion of fixing, but rather with the narrative of contributing to the working systems and elements which are already successful within these spaces. There is a classic image of architect and urban planner, Le Corbusier, gesturing towards a scale model, which represents an urban design proposal. It is the quintessential example of a top down approach where the human scale is overlooked and the birds eye view is optimized. In comparison, the image below represents a community engagement approach to design, where members of the public are welcomed in to participate in the initial stages of the design process, in this case a bottom up approach is favored, and the question of design is looked at from the human scale. The question of what human scale is, and what it entails, will be interrogated later on in this paper
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    Escape to recovery. Discovering architectural innovations for mindful meditation with landscapes
    (2024) Yang, Jihyun; Steenkamp, Aletta
    The expansion and exploration of the interplay between architecture and landscape seeks to heal the disconnect between these two disciplines. The dissertation focuses on how the two aspects’ integration can provide tranquillity and solace amidst the modern urban environment. Existing as two separate identities, with all its natural beauty, Cape Town experiences this defined contrast. Buildings and complex infrastructure have severed humanity from their landscape, urging people to blend the constructed and the natural. Through the four fundamental concepts of landscape discovery by Christophe Girot, the exploration of a site nestled between the high urbanity of Cape Town and the serene suburbs of Hout Bay and Llandudno. The site offers a different perspective of tranquillity, something indifferent to the city experiences. The investigation proposes to develop and illustrate how nature can significantly impact human well-being. Spaces concentrating on rehabilitation incorporating the natural environment as a primary stimulant are introduced. Designing is the primary element of the inquiry and how spaces can be created to generate certain pauses and moments for the people to connect this relation between architecture and landscape. The design of the exterior spaces and pedestrian routes in between are carefully considered to enhance the people’s experiential value. The built form draws from the environment as it engages with the landscape
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    Threads of connectivity: Placemaking as a catalyst for bridging the infrastructure divide along the Voortrekker corridor
    (2024) Masipa, Xenophen; Steenkamp, Aletta
    Architecture is a craft which requires that the architect constantly and intricately create and negotiate relationships between elements. How do buildings interact with their context? What is the relationship between inside and outside? What is the relationship between materials? Infrastructure systems play a vital role in cities, distributing resources throughout the city to ensure its functionality and continuous development. In the book Points + Lines, Stan Allen describes urban infrastructure as artificial ecologies which manage the flow of energy and resources within the city (Allen, 1999). For artificial ecologies to function sustainably, the systems must be interconnected across different infrastructure silos and embedded within the context. However, infrastructure does not just refer to physical infrastructure but also social infrastructure, so it becomes vital to how these systems are connected. Spatial planning was vital in shaping South Africa's spatial environment and was used by the apartheid regime as connectors and dividers. Today, large segments of the City of Cape Town are still subject to the implications of apartheid spatial planning. Communities were divided into cells reinforced with infrastructure buffers (Watson, 2001); this spatial arrangement promoted vehicular movement, which few could afford, thereby restricting access. Although the Voortrekker Road corridor has an established diverse fabric, the railway infrastructure along the corridor also restricts access for some communities. However, this has led to the development of a network of desire lines in and around the railway corridor. The lack of integration by infrastructure with its immediate context creates an opportunity for architecture to connect the city's divided components. The research is focused on the Voortrekker Road Corridor infrastructure network. The paper seeks to understand how infrastructure networks can become integrated with the use of placemaking to serve surrounding communities better. To do this, the paper will focus on unpacking the spatial structure around infrastructure networks and the components of a sustainable city and the importance of public space. This theory and technology paper is divided into five sections with subsections; the first section introduces the site background and conceptual intent. The following section unpacks the structure of Cape Town by analysing the past and future trajectories and proposals by various academics and practitioners on how the city can be improved. The third section analyses the structure of the Voortrekker Road Corridor. The Fourth section unpack the identified Transport Accessible Precincts. Urban Framework and Architectural intent follow this. The final section unpacks two key technological case studies. Followed by the closing and way forward. Infrastructure systems are crucial to sustainable city development; therefore, connecting with surrounding communities becomes crucial. The aim of the project is to create architecture that promotes connectivity between the fragments around infrastructure.
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    Your place or mine? The love hotel as a post-domestic hyperreality
    (2024) Pienaar, Alex; Steenkamp, Aletta
    “Your Place or Mine? The Love Hotel as a Post-Domestic Hyperreality” is a thesis project which explores themes of pleasure, intimacy and domesticity; as well as its antithesis, postdomesticity; within the city of Cape Town. The foundation upon which my research is based is an inquiry into queer and feminist theory, but the end-goal of the project is to create a proposal which can be relatable and accessible across gender and sexual boundaries, spanning various scales including the body, architectural and non-architectural space(such as the space occupied or inferred though bodily movement), the city and beyond. “The Love Hotel”, is an imagined building which accommodates a multitude of programmes centered around spatio-relational aspects of pleasure and intimacy in our post-modern context. The exact parameters of this architecture will be defined over the course of this paper. In Part 1, I will begin my inquiry with a background study on queer phenomenology in architecture, introducing the concept of Drag Architecture. I will follow this with a look at Closeting in terms of the queer experience and architectural manifestations of this concept, introducing the Boudoir as an important spatial archetype. In Part 2, I will delve into the intricacies of Domesticity, tracing its history from the 19th century, as well as the profound impact it had on gender and sexual relations of the next two centuries. The influence of commercial products and technology for the home as well as an introduction to the important theme of Post-Domesticity will also be discussed. This will follow with a comparative case-study of three important modernist queer homes; St Anne's Court by Raymond McGrath, E.1027 by Eileen Gray and The Glass House by Philip Johnson to explore possible alternative models for a new post-domestic space. In Part 3, I will explore themes of sexuality and pleasure in a more urban setting. I will briefly return to the 19th century to discuss the influence of domesticity on urban planning, comparing the practice of the Flâneur to the gay practice of Cruising. Next, I will use Bradley Rink's analysis of De Waterkant In Cape Town; “Village People”, as a spring board to discuss the commercialisation of sexuality and its dilution in the urban practice of Quartering, followed by a discussion of these themes in the design of the Erotisch Centrum in Amsterdam, by Moke Architecten. At this point, the reader would be fully-equipped for an analysis of the Love Hotel, a Japanese building typology of sex hotel; and the Fun Palace, a design by Cedric Price, which explores some of its ideas in a less overtly-sexual format. The final section of this paper, Part 4, will outline a site of investigation for my own reinterpretation of the Love Hotel on an historical site in Cape Town's City Center. In this section, I will explore the history of the site, as well as the intricacies of preserving the existing building's historical ‘skin 'through the Façade Retention Method. Rebuking this method as potentially insensitive, I will then explore different approaches to architectural ‘skin' in some technical case studies. I will conclude with a brief overview of the topics discussed in this paper and lay out my plans for the next section of my thesis and how I will approach designing the new Love Hotel.