01 Shell City
May 2018 Computers in Architecture
02 Re-Defining Museums November 2018 Architectural Design 3
03 Re-Designing Lost Spaces June 2018 Architectural Design 3
04 Ideal City
June 2018 Architectural Design 1
Shell City
Borrow, Copy and Steal Brief :
Create a custom family, with parameters and properties, and use this family extensively through replication in the creation of your own digital project. Then borrow a family and incorporate that family into your project.
Design Concept :
The conept “Shell City” was inspired by a gastropod shell. A number of readings state that the shells of some snails helps then survive extreme heat using light reflectance and architecturally-derived insulating layers. In this city, which has a very hot climate, the residents live in suspended snail shells. The snail shell is the custom famility modelled is the snail shell. Borrowed families where used to help create context for the city and these include ladders, plants and walking platforms
Smaller ‘Urban Armatures’ being used by a resident artists.
Re-Defining Museums The Urban Armature Brief :
Freespace Fluehof: Decolonising and transforming Johannesburg’s post-mining landscapes through new visions of mixed-use housing. The brief requires the design and development of new mixed housing typologies for the post mining landscape of Fluerhof Johannesburg.
Design Concept :
The concept of ‘re-designing’ museums comes from the idea of celebrating post mining landscapes. By definition a museum is a place where objects/ stories that are important to history are kept. After a few precedent studies I observed that most museums are removed from the residential buildings and they are often places we visit and leave. But if museums are meant to show culture, knowledge, the present and the past, why don’t people live in museums?
Continuation of urban armature showing museum café and smaller ‘Urban Armatures’ being used by a resident artist.
Continuation of urban armature showing the community library and surrounding public spaces
CONCEPT The architectural solution used to respond to the issues raised by the brief focuses on the following: 1.The assimilation of both migrants and refugees in their place of destination. Integration of refugees and migrants is a substantial tool to achieve social cohesion in plural societies. 2.Design a housing response which makes for efficient but also humane spaces of exchange, ideas, information, goods, services and energy between migrants, refugees and the residents in the places they settle. 3. Developing a strategy for economic empowerment of migrants and refugees. 4.Conserving natural landscapes by encouraging a positive dialogue between residents of the city and its post mining landscapes while empowering communities that have settled on and around these landscapes. Giving an example of Ranschhoek Valley, a small town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, Dany Bahar maintains that refugees and migrants are a driver of knowledge across borders. This knowledge translates into higher productivity for industries in their country of destination and even in their country of origin through return migration or even diaspora networks (Bahar 2018: [sa]). For refugees and internal migrants alike the ability to integrate goes hand in hand with the ability to imagine and build a brighter future. Johannesburg has experienced unprecedented growth since its humble beginnings as a gold-mining camp in the 1880s and part of this growth has been characterized by the coming in of both migrants and refugees seeking better socioeconomic opportunities. If museums are meant to give us insight into our past and present and inform our future self-development, why do we not live in museums? By definition a museum is “a depository for collecting and displaying objects having scientific, historical or artistic value”. While there are many reasons for museums to remain just as archives of important artefacts in history, I believe they could be presented differently in the current fast changing times of social, economic and technological change. Chantal Mouffe maintains that agonistic public space challenges the widespread conception that it is a place where a consensus between different hegemonic projects can emerge. For the agonistic model, the public place is a space where different issues are confronted without the possibility for final reconciliation (Mouffe 2007:10). After a series of interviews and observations on the site one can easily come to the conclusions that current residents on and around the site have no sense of community. Other issues raised through interviews included unemployment, pollution, safety and xenophobia. The design approach seeks to resolve to a certain extent all of the issues raised above. The main design component is the ‘Urban Armature’, a network of concrete beams and columns that run through the whole site. This structure acts as a water reticulation system providing water for the designed residential scheme.The ‘urban
armature’ starts at the museum reception up to the dam acting as a structure that directs and guides the visitor through the whole site, shading structure as well as being a water reticulation system as mentioned above. The design of the apartments also gives the residents an opportunity to rent out the second floor.The façade is covered by a series of movable perforated steel sheets supported by a steel columns. The façade is covered by a series of movable perforated steel sheets supported by a steel columns. These sheets allow for a flexible façade design. The façade can be left with just the steel sheets exposed or can be turned into a green wall though hanging planters on the supporting structure. The museum celebrates the post mining landscape and the different cultures that it holds, brought by refugees and migrants while giving them different socio-economic opportunities. Smaller ‘urban Armatures’ are placed at strategic points throughout site. These are specifically designed for residents to exhibit different artefacts from their culture or showcase their own talents. The open rooms at the entrances of some of the apartments can be used as studios for the artist, kiosk, small restaurants or shops by residents. They can also be rented out for this use. The museum allows for assimilation and integration of both migrants and refugees into the surrounding communities through celebrating the post mining landscape in which they have built their new homes. Most importantly this space allows for people of different backgrounds to showcase their cultures. This idea creates a museum that is an open to all, ever changing place, in the service of humanity, where refugees and migrants act as keepers and transmitters of their culture and values that can also be shared with surrounding communities in innovative and inspiring ways. This gives them insight into their past and present and informs their future self-development. As the visitor follows the ‘Urban Armature from the reception they pass by the displayed artefacts, shops, restaurants that are hubs of different cultures. The museum also has a community library, day-care centre, café, community centre, a small community hall and at the very end a water processing plant. When combined these spaces create a ‘living museum’ - A public space in which different social and economic issues are confronted. Refugees and migrants are often greeted with negative perceptions and different types of xenophobia. By challenging this specific articulation the designed space attempts to create a different form of articulation through the understanding that refugees and migrants can bring with them knowledge that can develop different industries in their places of destination. Bahar, D. 2018. Migrants and refugees: The unlikely key for economic development. [O]. Available: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/04/11/migrants-and-refugees-the-unlikely-key-foreconomicdevelopment/. Accessed 27 February 2019. Mouffe, C. 2007. Art and Democracy: Art as an Agnostic Intervention in Public Space. [O]. Available: https://readingpublicimage.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/mouffe_open14_p6-151.pdf Accessed 27 February 2019. Tragnos, G. 2018. Making the mining city. Investigating Johannesburg’s dual urban landscapes of production and pleasure in Mining Landscapes of the Gauteng City-Region, edited by K Bobbins and G Trangoš. Johannesburg: Gauteng City-Region Observatory Site Model
Site Plan
Housing Type A
Housing Type A Ground Floor
Housing Type B
Housing Type A First Floor
Housing Type A Second Floor
Housing Type B Ground Floor
Housing Type B First Floor
Housing Type B Second Floor
Re-Designing Lost Spaces Brief :
An Exporation Of Spatial Justice Thresholds in between territories
Design Concept :
The term anti-space refers to a space or region that violates the norms of spaces. Anti-spaces result from the process of urban development that treats buildings as isolated objects sited in the landscape rather than considering them as part of a larger fabric of streets, squares and viable open space (Trancik 1986: 2). After identifying lost spaces in Alive Lane, Sandton the objective was to choose a street facing entrance to one of the buildings and propose a new threshold between the interior of the building and the street public space. I chose the back entrance of Sandton Convention Center. A connection is created between the libraries, Games Park and Mandela Square through the convention center. A different threshold is encouraged by creating a ‘subway’ from Alice Lane to Maude Street. This is a public space that accommodates formal and informal shops, residential, performance spaces and wall climbing on the facade all together joined with the existing building. This changes the hard edge created by the back of the building towards Alice Lane into a celebrated, vibrant and accommodating space. The design focuses on creating an environment in which the building is intergrated with the exterior public space and is connected with other sorrounding buildings by connections between public spaces. It aims to create a joined city framework so that the physical form of the city does not fall victim to isolation of individual buildings and promote the creation of lost spaces.
Proposed Alice Lane Façade and Entrance
Lost spaces are underused and deteriorating but still they provide exceptional opportunities if they are designed properly.
Proposed: 1. Library 2. Games Park 3. Day care center 4. Mixed residential and commercial 5. Office Park 6. ‘Vertical’ park
Proposed Alice Lane Façade and Entrance
Ground Floor Plan
Ideal City Brief :
Computers in Architecture: Create your perception of an ideal world.
Design Concept : Happy Loner.
“What if I was lucky enough to live in the middle of the ocean? Were it’s always calm and everything is clear Living on an island and floating along Waiting to see what happens next What if I was stuck on this island with a few happy dancers? Each day we would be oddly compelled to dance around in empty rooms Rooms designed with the least thought but still hold the ultimate sophistication We would dance with our feet and dance with our hearts If we met with the waves we would make them a part of our dance What if i lived on a Ferris wheel? Slowly spinning around each day And at the very top, look out and constantly wonder What is beyond the horizon? Because no matter how much I float, it still way beyond me. ” Ruvimbo Nyamupanedengu