Mindful mediations at Three Anchor Bay

Gericke, Ludwig

Mindful mediations at Three Anchor Bay

Master Thesis

2011

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment

Abstract

This project is a synthesis of, on the one hand, the interventionist architect curiously and deliberately plotting form and visualising construction and, on the other hand, the human being often wilfully retreated and joyfully observing the uninterrupted and the conﬂicting. It is this dialectic - rather than immovable theoretical principles - that has informed not only my process, but also my design. In this sense this project represents what I believe to be the most important feature of my architectural education: the inexplicable joy in the constant re-evaluation of the imprecise nexus between the deliberately mediated and the uninterrupted. This impulse is also what (perhaps unknowingly at the time) attracted me to Three Anchor Bay - a site of untameable swells, impenetrable rhythms, ebb and ﬂow. It is a site that necessitates decisiveness in a counterintuitive form; boundaries. Any frontier, however versatile and accommodating, requires commitment (few are capable of conﬁdently kayaking beyond an otherwise parameter-defining promenade). Drawing a line is not only the problem of the architect, but the human being. Although this paper is largely a personal essay instead of a coherent treatise (I reserve the right to remain sceptical of every decision), it is important to make a few general observations. The ﬁrst is supremely personal: I am decidedly fallible. Although harsh introspection is generally more valuable and courageous than the resolute defence of personal conviction, I often found myself passionately defending lines I have drawn (especially ones that I have spent a lot of time re- drawing and erasing). Redrawing can be a counterintuitive struggle and it has often been difficult to regard it as a necessary and unpredictable process rather than as emblematic of some sort of failure. Although common sense urges us to "learn from our mistakes", it is never quite that simple. This project has, in short, caused me to constantly mediate between conviction and perpetual self-criticism. Secondly, these ideas are by no means new and have been repeated (and often ignored) in various contexts. Karl Popper, for instance, believed that "any idea of Utopia is necessarily closed owing to the fact that it chokes on its own refutations. The simple notion of a good model for society that cannot be left open for falsiﬁcation is totalitarian” (Taleb, 2004, p.128-129). The same is true of architecture - particularly those projects that are resolutely planted in a pre-determined style, ideology or “balance”.

Description

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Keywords

Architecture, Planning and Geomatics

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