Browsing by Subject "Architecure and Planning"
Now showing 1 - 19 of 19
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemOpen AccessActivating the back-quarters: strategies of acupuncture for the neglected open spaces of Delft South(2016) Arnold, Anees; Silverman, Melinda; Isaacs, Fadly; Louw, MikeWith regard to low-income settlemnts in Cape Town, it has become apparent that the private relam is prioritised over the public realm. It is essential that we regard the public realm as an integral component of the lives of the people who inhabit this environment. Because of the living conditions, large portions of people's lives are conducted outside of this prioritised private realm. It is evident that public spaces within these environments become neglected due to a lack of ownership and management. The intention of this research is to find strategies of enhancing public life through encouraging shared open spaces – the urban commons. This thesis is process driven as opposed to product driven. The objective is to determine a replicable strategy that possesses generic solutions as well as providing strategies to address the specific. These strategies are explored and hypothetically tested using Delft South, Western Cape, as a site. With regard to the public spaces the present condition of the public spaces are not dissimilar to that in other areas of the same socioeconomic condition in South Africa. The public spaces have been neglected and there is limited space to provide additional public spaces within these areas. Therefore this dissertation explores the possibility of activating existing residual open spaces as well as neglected parks. It aims to use these as opportunities to provide shared public spaces nestled within neighbourhoods to meet the needs of the respective communities. Ultimately, the objective of this thesis is to develop a series of strategies which can be applied to specific conditions. This is to be to be done by interrogating my own design processes with the objective of being able to reorder it in a suitable manner. Specific to Delft South the areas positioned away from the active Main Road require attention. For the case of this thesis theses areas are referred to the backquarters and I have highlighted it as my interest of concern An introduction to my interest of adding new life to the public back quarters through enhancing the neglected open spaces. I will start off by problematising public spaces in low-income suburbs to outline the underlying issues specific to South Africa. This is followed by general principles that public spaces should embody. A large section, thereafter, will analyse the spatial structure of Delft South and how it is being inhabited. This analysis was done using various exercises to get both a quantitative and qualitative understanding. Using this as a basis, desired outcomes are explained in the chapter following this. All of these aspects are used to inform the architectural interventions.
- ItemOpen AccessAt the edge: An exploration of the boundary condition between architecture and nature(2016) Botha, Vivian May; Coetzer, Nic; Fellingham, Kevin; Crowder, AlbertrumAn interest in abandoned and derelict landscapes as environmentally appropriate spaces for architectural interventions led my dissertation research to the theoretical concept of terrain vague. The terrain vague sites found within the City of Cape Town revealed that it is the edge condition which differentiates these spaces as being outside the realm of the normative city. The unravelling of the edge from a state of order to disorder took my research to the historical fortifications of Table Bay and specifically, the Settlement's eastern boundary demarcated by the French Lines. A combination of redoubts and connecting rampant walls which marked the boundary between the order of the European settlement and the wilderness beyond. The Central Redoubt is the only remnant of these structures and is located on Trafalgar Park in the suburb of Woodstock. Trafalgar Park is surrounded and fragmented by a variety of boundary conditions and controlled access which results in the Park being severely underutilised. The dissertation design project looks at re-activating Trafalgar Park through the manipulation of its various edge conditions. The transformation of boundaries into pedestrian routes and public space around points of interest aims to improve accessibility and encourage connections between the Park and surrounding context. The Swimming Pool Precinct was chosen as the site for the architectural intervention as it is an impacted site that offers the opportunity to increase activity and improve the connection between the north and south of the Park. The interrogation of the boundary condition between architecture and nature through the design of edges and thresholds is the driving concept behind the architectural design. The dissertation design project aims to demonstrate that appropriate architectural interventions are able to increase activity in public areas within the City of Cape Town without the need for fences and controlled access.
- ItemOpen AccessBridging the divide between primary health care and community(2016) Buys, Lüet Schraader; Silverman, Melinda; Isaacs, FadlySouth African cities have a complex social and physical post-Apartheid layering. The historical legacy, referring here specifically to the inadequate roll-out of public facilities in areas and uprooting as well as separating of communities, have resulted in under serviced environments that can lack social cohesion and often struggle with poverty. Public institutions play a catalytic role within a community. To this end, health care portrays the government in a legible 'provider' role and is, in some ways, an obvious way to make citizens feel valued in comparison with other public institutions. Health care institutions impact the community in a unique way due to the combination of specificity of service and the emotive way it is experienced by the individual. This dissertation aims to research, define (and ultimately) test a strategy that aims to stitch together the fissure between community and institutions, by rethinking the urban interface of generic primary health care facilities. This research is structured around themes of theory, policy, the continuum of care and physical environments; each in order to better understand what and how the 'gap' between health care institution and community is constructed. Programmatic and/or spatial ideas that inform the architectural design. This dissertation asserts that providing 'traditional' generic institutions sustains rather than improves the life of the community. The research suggests that existing health care facilities can be more effective as public spaces by introducing new programmes, disaggregating the formal interface, redefining and activating a new urban threshold and providing meaningful open space. The design ultimately aims to act as a new skin or threshold through which institutions relate to the community.
- ItemOpen Access(DIS)JOINING (DIS)JUNCTURE(2016) Rawoot, Maashitoh; Coetzer, NicThis project began with an encounter with a place, an ambivalent place of disjunction between a mountain and a wasteland in the city. The subsequent uncovering of untold stories, traces of memory, about that place, reveal a site laden with a history of a deep connection between a people and their natural surroundings. Ensuing events of disjunction and displacement has indented into it layers, which has left it a severed site of strange contradictions. This paper explores the fragmented nature of the memory of a place; that it cannot simply be recreated, and in fact should not be. Rather, the dissertation research looks at ways in which art and architecture are manipulated to disrupt the way think we perceive a place and reframe our presumptions, such that latent layers of an existing place can be awakened and brought into presence in a new way. The project departs from the position that the disjunctions of a place can in fact be the site of shifting perceptions and unexpected connection, as is asserted by Stuart Hall in "Maps of Emergency: Fault Lines and Tectonic Plates": ..."Of course, fault lines… are also productive. Those escaping the vertical lines of force forge new lateral connections. New formations appear where older ones disappear beneath the sand. Borders, which divide, become sites of surreptitious crossing. Separate and inviolable worlds meet and collide. Where only the pure, the orthodox, were valorised, a new universe of vernaculars and creole forms comes into existence." This particular design process was one of actively harnessing all the layers of the site, past and present, strange and ordinary, connections and disjunctions, to bring about a new, shifted experience of the place.
- ItemOpen AccessFertile ground: enhancing local food production in Delft, South Africa(2016) Pieters, Frans; Silverman, Melinda; Isaacs, Fadly; Louw, MikeThis dissertation, situated in Delft, on the eastern edge of Cape Town, aims to improve livelihoods by establishing a productive urban agricultural operation that will create jobs, supply healthy food and reestablish farming as a lucrative business in an impoverished community. It is intended to inspire people to transform the landscape of local food production and sustainable agricultural practice. Most impoverished communities tend to feel the effects of a formal food system that is set up to deliver to more established urban areas. This forces low-income communities to rely on informal retail to supply healthy foods, often at a premium, both for user and supplier. Food supply chains are dispersed resulting in high food costs and over-reliance on an extensive transportation sector. My project aims to decrease this footprint allowing nutritious foods to be grown and sold locally, benefitting both the consumer and the producer. By investigating the leading NGOs promoting urban agriculture and food security in the Western Cape, I have been able to extract valuable spatial lessons from these organizations. I have then applied them to create a model of urban agriculture and local food production that can work in these demanding landscapes. I explored the natural and urban conditions at various scales to determine the number of inputs required for a successful operation. I also investigated selected technologies to enhance land productivity and food production as well as selected systems to establish a sustainable operation in a landscape where resources are valuable and scarce. With high unemployment a regular statistic in impoverished communities, there will always be labor available and when given the opportunity, local residents can take advantage of the many benefits that such a project can deliver. I hope to develop a model that can be implemented around communities all over South Africa and the world, where common challenges of food insecurity faced by millions of people everyday can be addressed through local food production and in the process, establish a new type of agricultural model that can supply both the formal and the informal food sectors. My project is about celebrating a new agricultural model, one that is integrated into the urban landscape with a particular focus on local production within an impoverished community. It consists of a production farm with educational, research and retail components and a large-scale greenhouse that is intended to change the landscape of Delft. The farm will run various agricultural operations in a sustainable manner where are resources and waste is recycled and reused allowing for a closed loop operation. Growing, processing, packaging and distributing of produce will take place from this centralized hub. The greenhouse will be the celebratory moment of my project and I envision it to transform the landscape of Delft and the way in which the farming is perceived from a local perspective. The building will showcase all kinds of food growing technologies and will become a landmark in the area as a place of education and production. Specialized crops and seeds will be cultivated, stored and displayed for visitors from around the world, a one of a kind building that fuses food production, education and public interaction.
- ItemOpen AccessGrounding Density: Mobilising the economic and spatial potential of low-income housing along the Delft South main road(2016) Brown, Kayla; Silverman, Melinda; Isaacs, Fadly; Louw, MikeThis dissertation comprises five chapters. The first chapter explores issues of housing and density. Case studies are used to examine the relationship between agency and housing as well as the trade-offs of efficiency of circulation systems in dense housing. The second chapter locates the research within the context of Delft South and, more specifically, along the main road. The idea of "Home as Economic Generator" is explored through studying housing and retail patterns. The third chapter moves towards a design outcome by choosing and analysing Sibanye Square as a site within Delft. Chapter four explores a variety of technical considerations that could develop into an architectural language by studying how people are currently building in Delft. Finally, chapter five proposes an architectural outcome that explores three typologically different housing developments located on and around Sibanye Square.
- ItemOpen AccessIncisions / Insertions: re-inscribing narrative into a city landscape(2016) Comninos, Alexia; Coetzer, NicDating back to the late 1700's from the skirt of Devil's Peak down to what used to be the shoreline of Cape Town, this once walled off city has undergone plentiful re-inscriptions of the landscape till today. Remnants of the old French line fortifications remain along the slope of Trafalgar Park, disregarded and lost in the city 'scapes. The reading and re-tracing to pre-existing and existing layers of the precinct has been developed through blackout art methods of incisions and insertions to acknowledge the pre-existing and the existing in order to create a new narrative for this land without a landscape. In establishing the character of the narrative and the architecture thereof, the imagination of the space transcribed from archetypes - people - from the surrounds and what could be their ultimate feeling for what should be placed forms the landscape and how their individual expectations meet with others. The narrative is split twofold, the one is that the moments along the Bigger story is the park intervention - traces of the incision old fort wall - strung into the city block and the other is the pedestrian insertion armature which cuts through the site, providing for a short cut to the train station. The path aims to take the pedestrian through a series of spatial experiences through the site. These experiences are shaped by the tectonic expression. The architecture of the new is at constant dialogue with the existing, playing on a series of incisions and insertions. The cross pollination of the varying programme in the precinct facilitates this dynamic spatial experience through the link.
- 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 AccessMinimal means of making place(2016) Swanepoel, Simone; Coetzer, Nic; Crowder, AlbertrumThis dissertation introduced a minimal means approach to architectural interventions in the landscape of the Western Cape. Learning from land artists such as Robert Smithson and Robert Morris, an intervention is powerful when experienced in isolation. The intervention supercharges the landscape, enabling the participant to notice things they might have overlooked otherwise. Simultaneously, when there are too many interventions, the dialogue they have with their surrounding environment becomes diluted. It proposed the idea that architecture is a means with which people interact with their environment. People make place by using what the land has Io offer and curate a place in relation to the surrounding landscape. Looking at the way people lay claim to the land, and in particular make place with boundaries, lies at the heart of the research. The place-making theories of Martin Heidegger and Christian Norberg-Schulz were not negated, but rather reconsidered in the landscape of the Western Cape, outside of the metropole. This research focuses on Kleinmond, a small-scale fishing town along the Western Cape coastline, which originated with fishermen settling along a small indent in the coastline, where conditions invite fishing activities. It was suggested that the land could only be exploited to a certain extent that is determined by the constitution thereof. The manner in which the urban fabric in Kleinmond has developed over the years has deprived civilians of a dialogue with the ocean. The project sought to redefine this relationship by making place through physical and implied boundaries with minimal means of intervention. The existing rhythms present in this environment: the fishermen's daily routine, the rhythm of the tides, the seasonality of the wetland water as well as the coming and going of visitors, were informants to the approach to the site. It was sought to redefine Kleinmond as a place worth dwelling in by proposing a building that acts as an end towards the harbour, as well as an edge for the slipway while offering amenity to an under-utilised site.
- ItemOpen AccessNeurosis - Continuum [ Architecture As Urban Therapy ](2016) Scriba, Christian; Coetzer, Nic; Fellingham, KevinThis dissertation is rooted within the personal struggle to understand the absurdity of spaces which exist within Woodstock, Cape Town. The project draws a psychological connection between the site and its absurdities, implying that spatial absurdity is the effect of problems of the personified "sitemind". By visualizing what are called "neurosis spaces" the expressions of site-mind anxieties, and arranging them into a speculative site, the project creates a space of analogy. A space for which architecture becomes a therapy. Architecture in application thereby embodies therapy, forming an intervention which itself enacts the speculative analogy. The proposal is therefore seated firmly between the real and the imagined. A victim Offender Rehabilitation center mediates the analogy physically creating an architecture that plays on spatial experience and programming to create a place of therapy, a machine of sublimation.
- ItemOpen AccessOver Growth: a metabolic densification of Cape Town(2016) Saczek, Ted; Silverman, Melinda; Isaacs, Fadly; Louw, MikeContemporary cities are experiencing unprecedented growth to cater for growing populations and immigration into urban centres. As a result cities are becoming increasingly densified especially in developing countries2. Densification, and the associated growth, provides many social and cultural benefits, but can lead to increased pollution, environmental degradation, the destruction of existing urban fabric, a lack of greenery, a lack of light to street level, unmanageably large, decaying buildings and increased pressures on infrastructure. This dissertation argues that the design of densified spaces is of utmost importance if we are to maintain a healthy operating space for humanity and the planet. Since before the industrial revolution our society has become governed by a mechanistic way of thinking that originates from technology and science. These thought patterns have shaped the way we design and perceive architecture globally. Many other aspects of society are also influenced by the same mechanistic thought, including our global economic system. This system focuses on indefinite growth; a goal that our finite planet cannot sustain. This paradigm suggests that new, complex approaches to city growth need to be considered to avoid impending disasters. Over Growth investigates various biological concepts that can be applied to densification. Metabolism is used to understand how Cape Town can become more socially and ecologically sound. It suggests that to retain its local character and multi-cultural identity new buildings should grow over valuable, existing urban fabric. The cell is used to interrogate basic increments of city growth. These range from from the scale of an urban block, to individual ERF sizes and to the basic units of the proposed architecture. Symbiosis suggests that cities can exist in harmony with the natural environment. City growth, as an organic process, facilitates the necessary shift away from rational, dualistic thinking towards more complex solutions. These ideas are applied to the South African context, and in particular, a site on Bree Street. Many cities in the developing world continue to aspire to the western models of development. The development of Cape Town is thus threatened by the predominant mechanistic worldview. Conversations with Gawie Fagan, an architect and occupant of the chosen site, gave insight into the city's future and its past, explained later. In general this process was open, collaborative and interdisciplinary to be congruent with the push towards complexity over mechanistic thinking. In short, I develop an approach to architecture that could most suitably alleviate the negative affects of densification in central Cape Town. These include: the deconstruction of spatial hierarchies by using the idea of cellularity to create a more diverse, inclusive social realm; the adaptation, configuration and tectonic of cells; the provision of structure, services and greening to accommodate future additions in a layered 'over growth' that is simultaneously occupied and under construction; and the malleability of the city's zoning regulations and its densification strategy.
- 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 AccessRe-presenting layers of history in the "natural landscape": an architectural exposition of the Silvermine Reservoir(2016) Jordi, Rupert Benjamin; Coetzer, Nic; Fellingham, Kevin; Crowder, AlbertrumThe story of how a particular place came to be is more than the knowledge of a chronology of events; it is intimately part of our experience of that place. By knowing even a little of the history of a place, our perception of that place is transformed. In Historical Ground, John Dixon Hunt uses the term historical ground to refer to the notion that memories, tales, myths, and historical artefacts adhere to a place. The question Hunt then asks is how an existing site, and its tales, may be told through the medium of architecture, or landscape architecture. The idea that each site accumulates histories which may be revealed through architecture, is the basis for my own investigation. In the context of the Cape Peninsula mountain range, I am interested in seeking out and revealing particular historical narratives through the medium of architectural intervention. This report traces the journey of my design research project from my broader interests in the history of the mountain range; through the clarification of my architectural intentions; to my initial siting and programming strategies; and finally to my first ideas about making architecture in this context. I would describe this process as one of walking, finding, linking, and ultimately responding. This report introduces several key elements which underpin my research project. These elements (or layers) are: mountain (my general site of inquiry); pathways (how movement is linked to memory and meaning); earth (a technical study of the encounter between earth and architecture); fire (and its effects on the landscape); water (a resource with a story); and the wall (an historical piece of infrastructure). Each of these elements guides the reader through my research process and highlights certain found histories and artefacts along the way. As each element is presented, my research hones in on one particular place in the landscape, which is ultimately the site of my design investigation. This site, with the addition of a final artefact (a found brief), becomes the site of an architectural proposition which seeks to engage and link all of these elements together.
- ItemOpen AccessSolid Grounding / Framing Movement: extending community opportunity in an urban park. Raw vs refined(2016) Bacon, Joanna; Coetzer, Nic; Fellingham, KevinThis dissertation follows a process of research and design. The project research is defined in the first section of the dissertation as a conceptual duality of raw vs refined. The study of a raw heavy materiality of architecture, in comparison to a delicate refined light weight architecture, where a link is developed presenting light, experience and embodiment of materials as the common denominators. The design is then developed and revealed throughout the next section. The final outcome of this project is a Resource Centre (carved into and added onto the park) to facilitate after hours' life of school children in Woodstock, Cape Town, chosen to actively involve and integrate the community with the park. The year began with a group investigation into a section cut through Cape Town. Starting at Devils Peak, moving down through District 6 and Woodstock, ending at the harbour. This presented a rich base of knowledge for this particular strip of land. Although my individual study was into rock – the upper portion of the valley section, I chose Trafalgar park as my site. It was chosen for its rich historical value and positioning in the city, with beautiful views of the main geological landmarks in Cape Town, namely Table Mountain, Lions Head, Signal hill and the ocean. The focal point and what drew me to this site was the solidity of exposed rock seen in the remnants of the 18th century defence system in the form of a redoubt. With old trees hinting at the existence of this wall, marking either side of exactly where it used to lie. The surrounding land forms a beautiful parkscape with many changing levels presenting great opportunity for intervention. Frequent visits to site allowed me to understand how the park and neighbourhood functioned, and how people used, or rather, underused the park in its existing state.
- ItemOpen AccessTo reimagine the integration of public transport with high-density neighbourhoods(2016) Terwin, Stephanie; Silverman, Melinda; Isaacs, Fadly; Louw, MikeTransport is the network that moves people between places. It provides a means of access and opportunity. Transport routes in Cape Town have become expansive due to urban sprawl. There is an unjust spatial economy due to modern and apartheid planning. Poorer urban residents live far away from places of opportunity and are forced to travel long distances and spend a high percentage of their income on transport. Minibus taxis are the mode of transport best able to provide a flexible and on-demand service within this sprawling urban form. Public transport interchanges remain largely undeveloped and undesirable places. The concept of transit-oriented development (TOD) has the ability to transform these undesirable places into neighbourhoods of intensified mixed-use development, offering convenience, access and amenities to people who use the transport interchange or live nearby. The project involves the analysis of the transportation network in Delft, a rapidly transforming settlement 21 km from the inner city of Cape Town. Although the settlement is located far away from the historic city core, its main road follows an important desire line connecting Khayelitsha, a dense working-class neighbourhood and Belville, an important economic node. This has led to significant densification along Delft Main Road and people turning their homes into shops. Some 600 minibus taxis service the area because there is no high capacity train line or bus rapid transit (BRT) route. The project is sited within an important civic node in Delft and is well located to the R300, N2 and Symphony Way (regional roads). Taxis currently hover on the side of the street due to the people count in the area. The design is a public transport interchange and mixed-use - retail, residential and commercial - hub, which adopts transit-oriented development principles. The design proposal suggests an urban design framework that responds to the existing context, and a predicted idea of what the neighbourhood could become. lt aims to link the existing civic node to the new shopping mall development in a series of streets and active building edges. It responds to the life of the taxi by providing loading, holding, parking, servicing and washing areas. The taxi world evolves around the existing Caltex petrol station and Delft Main Road. The architecture responds to the current socio-economic context of Delft and how people currently inhabit space. The live-work unit provides flexibility for tenant and occupation mix, whilst contributing to the necessary density of the project. The dissertation explores how transportation can contribute to city building, economic activity and resi dential densification in an existing underserviced low-income suburb.
- ItemOpen AccessTranslations of the Mountain: exploring natural phenomona through ephemeral drawings and intransigent matter in design(2016) Allderman, Sarah; Coetzer, NicMy interest this year was an architecture based on experience and how the architect rationalizes the complexities of the ineffable. With experience being such an intangible phenomena, whilst architecture is such an intransigent material, the process became about how to translate the one to the other through the process of drawing. By using Table Mountain as a site for exploration, the intangible experience of dwelling on the mountain was studied as an experience to be translated into architecture. This was explored through a process of cognitive and architectural drawings; ephemeral to tectonic details. The disser tation follows the process of landing on site, experiencing the space subconsciously through the intelligence of the body, and reflecting thereupon through cognitive drawing. The exploration follows the translation of these cognitive drawings into architectural drawings, in a way that returns to the experiential quality that which they originally depicted. Translating two-dimensional paper into three-dimensional imagined experience, which is embodied all the way through to the tectonic details. The process informs an architecture which allows the user 's mind to drift to the memory of the mountain, re-orientating themselves to their natural surroundings and enhancing their dwelling experience.
- 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 AccessWater - Gravity - Gradient: A gathering in the floodplain of the Hout Bay valley(2016) Seymour, Nicole; Coetzer, Nic; Fellingham, KevinThis dissertation departs with an enduring interest in matter. The research, in turn, becomes focused primarily on physicality and its implications for people. An empathetic attitude towards considering material developed as a founding precept for the design endeavour. The project can be described as a process which began by following water; the river, the land and the mediating edge. Water, viewed through the particular lens of this document, has an intelligence, an embedded and personified logic. This material logic is inescapably evident in the landscape with which I am most familiar, my home, the Hout Bay valley. This dissertation seeks to create an intervention which should encourage a new relationship with water in Hout Bay. It is through a gathering of found program; wood cutters, Zionist Christians, horse riders, joggers, walkers, bird watchers, gardeners and swimmers, that the community is brought together in the floodplain.