Landscape Architects Journal City of Sweet Waters: Re-introducing the city of Cape Town’s ancient water system by Nabeelah Kader Hashim

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS JOURNAL:

City of Sweet Waters: Re-introducing the city of Cape Town’s ancient

water system by revealing spatial memory

Introduction

The City of Cape Town was once known as the Place of Sweet Waters, or ‘Camissa’ by the indigenous Khoena tribes. These ‘sweet waters’ refer to the 36 flourishing springs and four rivers that once ran unimpeded through pre-colonial Cape Town.

This thesis draws on the range of relationships that were established between people and Cape Towns’ freshwater systems at various points in its history. It was due to the openly accessible freshwater resources and fertile land that Cape Town was colonised by the Dutch East India Company in 1652. This permanent settlement developed a system of vegetable gardens and was also known for the trading of slaves. The Goringhaicona, an indigenous community that broke away from tribal life, established a trading bay at the port of Table Bay. The Goringhaicona would collect water from the upper reaches of the Camissa River (Platteklip River) and bring it to the shore or the Europeans and slaves who arrived at the port. This design project is inspired by these interactions with water that brought diverse people together.

Nabeelah Kader Hashim

This aims to reintegrate the hydrological system of indigenous streams by revealing them and the slave history that has been hidden with it. The re-imagining of this hydrological system ties into the need to memorialise untold history that is visually missing in the city we see today. This thesis explores ‘slowness’ as a design strategy and its link of memory and space. The site of intervention is Riebeeck Square at the intersection of Longmarket Street and Buitengracht Street, Cape Town – one connecting to the memory of slavery and the other revealing the hidden Camissa.

A buried history

The entry point into this thesis came from an interest in Cape Town’s ancient water system and how it evolved from the open water course that once ran freely from mountain to sea, to being channelled into canals and then into the underground tunnels as they exist today. Through the process of understanding the history of this water system another layer of history revealed itself – the history of slavery in Cape Town and its missing visual memorialisation in the public spaces of the city.

The implementation of slowness was the design strategy applied to reveal this history. This design strategy would engage the user by introducing a meaningful experience through visual interactions with slave history and the ancient water into the city’s public spaces.

Slowness, memory and space – A design approach

Slowness as a design strategy fosters spaces that evoke awareness, meaningful experiences, and a sense of accountability for daily actions. Implementing this design strategy required an understanding of the morphology of this water system and superimposing it with significant slave history sites. The locations where these

water tunnels would intersect with significant sites is where slowness is applied.

Applying slowness – A spatial translation

After undergoing the mapping process, it was concluded that one street not only fed into these sites but also intersected all four water tunnels – Longmarket Street, which is treated as the spine of the design. The point at which the Longmarket Street axis is obstructed was identified as the site of intervention for applying the design – Riebeeck Square. Riebeeck Square is a heritage site with St. Stephen’s Church, originally one of the first theatres in Africa and then changed to a school for freed slaves, located on its edge, and is the only public open space that this water tunnel runs adjacent to.

Longmarket Street forms a connection to the memory of slavery and Buitengracht Street to the revealing of the hidden Camissa underground. Applying slowness to the site meant peeling back the layers of Buitengracht street to reveal the water flowing through the tunnel below and allowing it to reticulate through the site. As the water levels fluctuate it would reveal the names of slaves etched into the surfaces of these water features creating a visual exchange and allowing the site to evolve. Rainwater would also allow the site to evolve as they would fill up the sunken lawn spaces which would otherwise be used as seating areas on dry days.

The design is aimed to disrupt the user’s movement as they move across the space by obstructing movement patterns, thus engaging the user and enhancing visual connections to the installations and memorial dedicated to slave history. Imagine taking the site and shattering it, allowing hidden layers to re-surface through the cracks. This was the approach taken in developing the design language, where indigenous plant species of that space re-emerge through ‘cracks’ in the ground surface, along the raised walls and in the sunken lawn areas. Hammered steel installations are orientated towards the sun, casting shadows of figures and slave names on the surface of the space, engaging user

awareness as they move through. A performance area is central to the space too, with an outdoor amphitheatre that pays homage to the former theatre. The water features here enable water to tie all these elements together.

Conclusion

Riebeeck Square holds great potential for performing its original function – a public space as designated in 1700s opposed to the parking lot that it is today. Its historical significance also enhances its ability to become one of the first public spaces in the city that acknowledges and raises the voice of this layer of history. Longmarket Street, running from Bo-Kaap to District Six, holds the potential for this type of development through integration with public spaces.

Developing this design further would start with extending a network of spaces onto Longmarket Street and visually sharing the story of buried history.