Reflections on COVID-19

Reflections on

COVID-19 Campus Innovation Laboratory

Reflections on COVID-19: Social Distancing and Self-Isolation is an initiative of the Campus Innovation Laboratory (CIL) Project Directors: Professor Nnamdi Elleh and Ludwig Hansen Project Coordinator: Patricia Theron This Monograph contains student and staff reflections on the 2020 academic year at the Wits School of Architecture and Planning, during the COVID-19 pandemic. This collection of essays includes a selection of the contributions received as part of a School-wide Call For Papers.

Booklet compiled in November 2020 Edited by Patricia Theron Booklet Design by Hashim Tarmahomed and Nicola de Canha 2

Table of Contents Acknowledgements..................................................................................................5 Professor Nnamdi Elleh (Head of School)................................................................6 Reflections on COVID-19: Social Distancing and Self-Isolation (Call For Papers) Alison Todes, Philip Harrison, and Margot Rubin (SA Research Chair on Spatial Analysis and City Planning and School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand).........................................................................................................9 Rethinking Density at a Time of COVID-19 Sally Gaule (Lecturer and Curator).........................................................................17 Lockdown Diary Sandra Felix (Lecturer in the Third Year Architectural Design Studio)....................25 COVID-19 and Temporary/Permanent Online Studio Learning/Teaching Kady Burkimsher (Postgraduate Student)...............................................................33 The Lockdown Breakdown - The Art of Unraveling Samson Faboye (Postgraduate Student)................................................................39 Reflections on COVID- 19 Sarita Pillay Gonzalez & Miriam Maina (Postgraduate Students)...........................45 Research “On the Fly” : The City Lockdown Diaries Project in Gauteng Nomonde Gwebu (Postgraduate Student)..............................................................55 Beneath the Surface of COVID-19 Arabella Ingham (Undergraduate Student).............................................................61 The Enemy We Can’t See Alexander Maré (Undergraduate Student).............................................................67 The Need for Transformable Geometries and Responsive Disaster Architecture: A Mathematical Design Response to COVID-19 and Related Crises Chido Muzanenhamo (Postgraduate Student)........................................................81 Re-imagination of the Home, Work and Time: Reflections on COVID-19 Joshil Naran (Postgraduate Student)......................................................................87 Me as Mirror: Dissociation with the Self through the Other Noel Odhiambo (Undergraduate Student)...............................................................95 COVID-19 Reflections Sihle Pasurayi (Undergraduate Student)...............................................................101 Tribulations of the Broken Yehuda Segal (Postgraduate Student)..................................................................107 Reflections on COVID-19: Social Distancing and Self Isolation List of Contributors................................................................................................116

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Acknowledgements With heartfelt thanks to all those who have contributed and assisted in producing this publication.

With gratitude for your contributions: Professor Alison Todes Professor Philip Harrison Associate Professor Margot Rubin Sally Gaule Sandra Felix And Students at SoAP With gratitude for reading, logistical contributions and making this process possible: Professor Nnamdi Elleh Associate Professor Sarah Charlton Adjunct Professor Hilton Judin Garret Gantner Ludwig Hansen Dirk Bahmann Kirsten Doermann Nkosilenhle Mavuso Mawabo Msingaphantsi Taki Sithagu Brigitta Stone-Johnson Anita Szentesi Patricia Theron Hashim Tarmahomed Nicola de Canha

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Reflections on COVID-19: Social Distancing and Self-Isolation Professor Nnamdi Elleh

Head of School School of Architecture and Planning University of the Witwatersrand

This call for papers is about documenting our immediate experiences, feelings, memories and thoughts about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic as it has been experienced in the SoAP and WITS’ community. It is understood that experts from various fields will continue to study COVID-19 for years to come. Nevertheless, tapping into immediate memories and ongoing everyday experiences can register primary resources that might never be recouped if the current understandings are allowed to fade away, only to be recollected later.

On the 20th of February 2020, we opened the SoAP’s Theory & Practice Annual Exhibition Series with the work of Boogertman & Partners. All the seats in the main lecture hall (A1) in the John Moffat Building were taken, and patrons were sitting on the floor at close proximities. By then, 6

we had all heard about the COVID-19 virus in China. The last thing on anybody’s mind during the large gathering was the anticipation of a national “lockdown” and presidential proclamations about national health concerns persuading South Africans to “self-isolate” if they had recently returned from certain countries, or if they suspected that they had contracted the virus.

University-wide, the academic year began on 3rd February 2020, and both students and staff were still settling into the routines of postinductions and campus culture, involving lectures, studying, assignments, exams, and extra-curricular activities. The announcement that was issued

by WIT’s Senior Executive Team (SET) on Monday the 16th of March 2020, is analogous to how weather forecaster’s issued warnings to residents of North American Atlantic coastal lands that a hurricane is coming, and at some point, it finally arrives with a deluge that blows everything away.

SET’s announcement brought the mid-term break forward for recess starting on Tuesday, 17 March 2020. All “academic activities,” and prior to that, previously scheduled graduation ceremonies were postponed. The anticipated reopening date on 30th March

2020 was extended to 20th of April following presidential announcements.

Students were ordered “…to vacate their residences within the next 72 hours.” From 17th March 2020, things began to move so fast that it felt and still feels like we are all riding at top-speed in one pandemic prevention vehicle called COVID-19.

This essay call asked students and staff of SoAP to tell us about the impact of this pandemic: how it had disrupted or encouraged teaching and learning and overall plans for the year? As lecturers and students in the fields of planning and architectural education, and whose interests lie in making spaces and places for people, be it social or physical, how should we understand “social distancing” and “self-isolation?” We invited original thoughts and essays from any perspective on the impacts of COVID-19 on students and staff, their family and friends, and on society at large. We asked what we, as Wits’ authorities, and the national government, might have overlooked that should be addressed during this crisis?

The contributed essays challenge everything we have learned about space from diverse perspectives, but together they pose one crucial question: we may have found ‘the vaccine’ or vaccines for

the Coronavirus, but what might we invent that could stop human beings from causing harm to their environment and to one another? Todes, Harrison, and Rubin’s piece interrogates urban density and shows that there is no readymade answer. The model of urban density that was presented in the mid-twentieth century is now contradicted by emerging global experiences and nation building projects in South Africa. Gaule’s essay and soul-penetrating photographs remind us about the ephemerality of everyday life, while Felix’s piece is about teaching, learning, and finding solutions for the ‘unknowns’, regardless of how imperfect the answers may be.

Alexander Maré’s essay proposes design solutions among the experimental presentations by several students. Sihle Pasurayi’s essay brings all the propositions together: it exposes human beings as violent, prone to alcoholism, and the most dangerous species on earth.

Sihle’s piece reminds us that there is no ‘vaccine’ that could cure humanity of its failings. In this sense, while the attention to containing COVID-19 is real and necessary, scientists, political and social leaders are yet to address the threat that humankind represents to itself, and to the environment.

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Rethinking Density at a time of COVID-19 ALISON TODES, PHILIP HARRISON AND MARGOT RUBIN SA Research Chair on Spatial Analysis and City Planning and School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand

Along came the virus‌ The Covid-19 epidemic came to us as a rude surprise, just as it did to everyone else. We watched with a sense of dread as the crisis enfolded in Wuhan, a middle-ranking Chinese city, and then as it spread globally, including to South Africa. Again, like everyone else, our home and working lives changed and we had to adapt to our lockeddown reality in the world that had suddenly become surreal.

Covid-19 has marked almost every aspect of our lives, including, it turns out, our research. Before the arrival of the pandemic, we were busily engaged with the finishing touches to an edited book on urban densification. The book spotlights density policy and processes in Johannesburg but locates them within policy and scholarly debates globally, and in relation to the experience of a select number of other cities.

We had persuaded individuals locally and internationally to contribute to the book and were trying to synthesise the key ideas into introductory chapters as the pandemic broke.

Density was of course an important topic in urban studies and planning long before Covid-19. Modern town planning (in Europe, at least) had emerged in response to the perceived overcrowding of late nineteenth century 10

industrial cities, and for many decades planning was marked by an antipathy towards high densities, with density associated with overcrowding, disease, and various social pathologies. In the 1960s, however, Jane Jacobs famously argued that it is density which produces the vibrancy, excitement and sociality that draws people to cities. The rise of environmentalism spurred on the change in attitude, with arguments that dense and compact cities are more sustainable than others, as they use fewer resources, and produce less greenhouse gas emissions, per capita.

Finally, economists pointed to the wealth-creating benefits of agglomeration, showing how the concentration of markets, skills and business relationships supports innovation and growth.

Urban policy embraced density, with international agencies such as the World Bank, the OECD and UNHabitat encouraging national and city governments to adopt densification policies. The landmark New Urban Agenda adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2017 affirmed a broad support for densification.

However, the policy debate was never entirely closed with some governments, for example, supporting new city developments to de-densify historical core cities. Critics of compaction policies include

Solly Angel of New York University (NYU) who argued that metropolitan cities are dedensifying and that the most sensible approach is to plan proactively for expansion.

While the policy debate polarized into strong positions for and against densification, a more nuanced scholarly literature evolved which explores density in relation

densification and expansion.

We had written up our chapters, reflecting these debates and insights, when Covid-19 came along. The disease spread initially along global mobility networks, connecting first to places that were strongly linked by air travel, tourism and international connections, and these were mainly large global cities. Also, as an airborne

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... degrees of social distance are an important factor in the relative rate of transmission, and the popular association between density and contagion was quickly revived to: the multiple other factors shaping cities; the diverse meanings of density; the way design affects the experience of density; the complex mix of positive and negative effects of density in everyday life; cultural preferences in relation to density; and, the politics of density including the way economic interests are hidden behind the rhetoric on density. It is a literature which challenges simple policy mantras for or against density and requires us to pay careful attention to the management of both

disease, degrees of social distance are an important factor in the relative rate of transmission, and the popular association between density and contagion was quickly revived. A policy and scholarly debate also resurfaced. It began in the USA where New York, the city Jane Jacobs had used to argue for the virtues of density, but which was now the national epicenter of the disease. A study of cities in the USA by Angel and his NYU colleagues claimed a statistical correlation between 11

city density and Covid-19 infections. However, other studies soon countered with arguments that density was one of multiple interacting factors that explained vulnerability to infection, and that it was form that density took, rather than density per se, which mattered.

International studies, such as the World Bank on East Asian cities, pointed to very dense cities that had low or managed rates of infections, while others

showed that in the spread of infection low density suburbs are not spared.

Even as we were about to submit the book to the publishers we had to step back and take account of these debates. Fortunately, though, our engagement with the earlier scholarly literature meant that we were not thrown off course by the claims and counterclaims. Instead,

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In the post-apartheid era in South Africa, compaction, integration and densification have been core to urban policies, which attempt to redress the sprawling, divided apartheid city. the complex patterning of Covid-19 infections across places with very different degrees of density related well to our understanding of how contextually situated density outcomes are. We did however have to engage directly with a rising fear that in the global South, dense informal settlements and slums, where services are deficient and social distancing 12

is not possible, will be overrun by the disease, recalling older public health concerns about density. This was, of course, a fear resonant in South Africa, the context to which we now turn.

Density in South Africa In the post-apartheid era in South Africa, compaction, integration and densification have been core to urban

policies, which attempt to redress the sprawling, divided apartheid city. The City of Johannesburg has been a leader in this regard, with its Growth and Development Strategies and Spatial Development Frameworks which express these intentions.

Policies have been continually updated to refine and further develop these strategies, including the recent Corridors of Freedom (since 2013), densifying and encouraging affordable housing along Transit Oriented Development routes integrating the city, the Nodal Density Review (2019), the Inclusionary Housing Policy (2019), and the new Land Use Management Scheme (2018) which adopts a more flexible approach to land use management, and enables densification.

The book shows that densification is occurring in this city, although the promotion of compaction-integration has faced challenges. Although development has largely occurred within the confines of Johannesburg’s urban growth boundary, there has been significant urban growth close to the city’s edge, where large parcels of cheaper land are available. This takes the form of both publicly provided low-cost housing schemes (offering mainly detached housing) generally close to existing townships once reserved for black people, and

gated estates developed by the private sector, largely for those who can afford to purchase housing, from lower-middle to upper income. While these developments are generally more dense than older suburbs, the main forms of densification have occurred through informal processes, and/or have been enabled through a loosening of planning controls. Some densification has occurred through the development of townhouse complexes and apartment blocks in existing suburbs in/close to economic nodes, including developer built ‘affordable’ rental housing along the Corridors, but this does not reach the urban poor, who constitute 50% of the city’s population. New inclusionary housing policy is also unlikely to reach this grouping.

The book notes the significance of forms of ‘informal densification’ in Johannesburg, including informal settlements, backyard housing in former townships, increasing occupancy in rental housing in the inner city – in both apartment blocks and houses.

These are ways in which some groups of the urban poor/lower income groups are accessing the city, and especially better located areas. The chapters in the book show that the nature of ‘informal densification’ and people’s experiences of it can vary substantially – depending, for example, on its history, physical form, 13

design, management, levels of infrastructure and services available. While it is a major way in which densification is occurring in Johannesburg, municipal policy to address/ support/manage it is weakly developed. Some chapters look at how this could change.

It is particularly important to do so in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic, where the fear is that it will run rife in such dense, often poorly serviced, low-income areas.

It was this fear that in part drove the Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation (DHSWS) to start a discussion on “dedensification� or thinning of informal settlements. A day after the announced State of National Disaster, Minister Sisulu provided her own strategy to curb infection in highly vulnerable sites. The DHSWS identified 29 what it called priority areas for de-densification.

Initial proposals argued for relocating households into new settlements not far from their homes, which were touted as being safer and healthier for informal dwellers.

Plans were made to fasttrack the development and construction of units, either in existing projects or on new land parcels. The number of units across the country but especially in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape ran into the 14

thousands, with an implied completion date of just a few months. Provincial officials in Gauteng were also asked to allow 14 000 people to move into units that had been completed but lacked services - with the DHSWS stating that these too could be fast-tracked.

The announcement was unsurprisingly met with concern from numerous quarters: civil society organisations, academics, informal dwellers and practitioners expressed anxieties over the proposed plans. Not least of which were concerns around how people would be moved and what the procedure would be to select those who would be relocated.

Further concerns circled on issues of the breakdown of social networks and the unintended destruction of social capital that would be absolutely imperative for poorer households in times of crisis. Given the Department’s record of a slowdown in housing delivery over the last few years, there was also some pessimism about their ability to delivery on these units and particularly within the very short time frames that would be needed. The state has also been criticised for a number of years for the provision of poor quality accommodation in Temporary Relocation Areas (TRAs) which are, notoriously constructed from material similar to those found in informal settlements but often with fewer

amenities and worse locations.

Many housing commentators feared that the sites COVID refugees would be settled in would closely resemble these units, and so would hardly be an improvement on the original spaces that informal dwellers were inhabiting and would have less well-entrenched social networks and income generating opportunities. More skeptical voices also raised the view that Minister Sisulu was using the COVID crisis as “cover” to camouflage her long-standing intention to “eradicate” inform settlements and the pandemic was merely an excuse to unlawfully evict informal dwellers.

The Ministry has engaged with at least some of the criticisms and there has been a slight pulling back from the grand plans for mass relocations. A more nuanced model has emerged of some reblocking in line with the existing Informal Settlement Upgrading Programme, and more extensive engagement with residents concerning their potential relocation. Greater emphasis has also been placed on the provision of services, sanitation and facilities for handwashing as there has been a shift in understanding how best densities can be managed. The newer approach (albeit not adhered to in all contexts) recognizes both the social importance of density for poorer people in handling

crises and the benefits of agglomeration that accrue through social ties but also notes the impossibility of social distancing and how these dangers need to be mitigated by better access to water and sanitation.

When the Covid-19 pandemic came along, it not only stripped away and laid bare the areas of our cities to which more attention should have been paid but also complexifies the position on density.

The contributors have edited the book Densifying the City: Global Cases and Johannesburg, which was published in 2020 and edited by Margot Rubin, Alison Todes, Philip Harrison, and Allie Appelbaum. This work provides an indepth exploration of the complexities of densification policy and processes, bringing the important experiences of densification in Johannesburg into conversation with a range of cities in Africa, the BRICS countries and the Global North.

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Lockdown Diary SALLY GAULE Lecturer and Curator

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Much has been written about every day normative life and how it passes below the threshold of the noticed. But little has been written about its cessation- when it is taken away. Overnight our everyday lives have become abruptly and cataclysmically distorted: we long for the ordinary things we took for granted; a walk in the park, dinner with a friend, the freedoms that we were blind to, and which we thought were fixed.

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The Gingko tree has persisted over a 2 million year history. After the Chernobyl disaster, they were the first trees to appear on the landscape.

There are some at the edge of the library lawns at Wits. Every autumn their leaves turn bright yellow- and then suddenly and unexpectedly, they all drop off overnight – unlike the gradual falling that occurs of nearby Plain trees that rain down for weeks. ‘Fall becomes winter’, Oliver Sacks, the celebrated neurologist once wrote of this phenomenon.

Figure 2 (Photograph by Sally Gaule)

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Before lockdown I was organizing and curating an exhibition about a corner café at 166 Caroline Street in Brixton with my friend Tamzyn Botha. Caroline Supply Store was the home of the Hong family for fifty six years.

They lived there and raised their children there, and sent them to university. As soon as they could count, the kids helped out in the shop too, which was closed only 2 days a year – New Year’s Day and Kruger Day. The stories of their lives and their day to day experiences growing up there are rich, and were shared with us via a WhatsApp group that started on 17th September, 2019.

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Much of this narrative of daily life and family photographs is the driver of the exhibition. But, as lockdown occurred, some ironies of their former lives were given greater resonance: As Yvonne D’Aberton, (neé Hong) tells, ‘there were actually two shops at 166 Caroline Street.

From 7.00am to 6.00pm the corner shop was open. Then at 5.55 all of us had to drop whatever we were doing to take bread and milk next door, close up the corner shop and the next door shop would be open from 6.00 to 9.00’.

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This was necessary because during apartheid no one was allowed to buy soap, hardware, embroidery thread, washing powder etc after 6.00pm on weekdays and after 1.00pm on Saturdays and all day on Sundays. Reflecting on this, Bruce Hong was reminded of these constraints during the first weeks of lockdown, writing, ‘this limit on what one may purchase takes me back to the time when we had two separate shops right next to each other. It was illegal to sell candles, soap, and other nonfood essentials after 6.00pm on a weekday.

Strangely, we could sell cigarettes though.

How the times have changed and now it is the other way around’.

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Figure 3 (Photograph by Sally Gaule)

For two months in 2019, I walked the streets of Johannesburg encountering strangers: informal traders, car guards, men in suits, school kids and hair dressers plying their trade on the pavements of the city. It was everyday life for us: we lived separate lives, but coincided as we came together in chance meetings. We have interacted in this way for centuries. But when everything stopped, I became aware of the starkly narrow profit margins that we live by, and how continuing one day after the next is a fragile survival strategy that was rarely acknowledged.

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When this work was exhibited in John Moffat foyer, Nisha van der Hoven placed statements about this research onto the windows of our building - ‘Where is the new public platform?’

‘Where do you draw the line?’ ’What is the new narrative?’ How could we ever have predicted that these questions would be curiously prescient in the calamitous world we inhabit today.

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It started as a health emergency which has elided into a social and economic disaster.

Now, it is a humanitarian tragedy.

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Our worldview shifts daily and a dozen new terms have come into play: flattening the

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curve, herd immunity, contact tracing , social distancing, lockdown, zooming, Zoonotic disease, webinars etc. We inhabit a two dimensional virtual world, wholly separate from the physical world. We fear the invisible trace on a bag, a box, a surface, a hand. Life feels incomplete; inauthentic.

President Ramaphosa says hugging and kissing are a thing of the past.

New ways of living and being have emerged: we teach online, I have a cup of tea with a group of friends on Zoom; walking in the morning I finally meet my neighbours in the street after living here for 26 years; we send dinner via uber eats to my nephew in Barcelona; a beautiful book with a heartening message is shared daily

by Heather Dodd on WhatsApp; I do yoga on Skype; I see an exhibition of Gerhard Richter’s paintings at the Metropolitan Museum; I attend seminars at The Photographers’ Gallery in London; life sustaining poems are shared with friends in Dublin, and London and South Africa.

Messages come from afar when my mother died.

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But we couldn’t buy flowers for her funeral, so I ended up taking some hydrangeas from Wits.

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Figure 4 (Photograph by Sally Gaule)

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The man with the striking face stands at the crossing: he has fashioned a begging bowl from wire and a stick to reach out at a distance to the drivers who bypass him. His name is Jacob. I’ve seen him along Solomon Street over the years. We live in the city where the epicentres of this disease concentrate; I don’t know how he has survived over this period – yet his goodwill strikes me-even behind the mask- and the good cheer with which he greets me. It is touching and devastating. Sometimes it seems too overwhelming.

Figure 5 (Photograph by Sally Gaule)

Today is day 49 of lockdown – the house is quiet, and so is the suburb – it is as if the world outside is asleep, hibernating. Autumn has given way, suddenly, to winter. The sounds of the city have been absorbed into the deadening sound of silence – the early evening feels like the middle of the night.

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Figure 6 (Photograph by Sally Gaule)

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COVID-19 and Temporary/ Permanent Online Studio Learning/Teaching SANDRA FELIX

Lecturer in the Third Year Architectural Design Studio

The initial 21-day lockdown period announced by the South African government felt like a temporary measure, but as the lockdown period was extended the permanence of the situation started to sink in. Initially, the move to online learning was a temporary measure to continue and complete a current curriculum project which was nearing completion. Following advice to “please do a bad job of putting your courses online…” (Barrett-Fox 2020), we as a cohort of third year Design lecturers and tutors in the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits University, started to experiment with the available online tools and released ourselves and our students from any high expectations.

The university closed on the 17th of March 2020 whilst teaching final year undergraduate students nearing the completion of their Design Project 2. This project would form the basis of the core third year outcome, namely the ability to complete holistically, an architectural project through the integration of cohesive conceptual, technical, aesthetic and sustainability objectives.

The final year undergraduate curriculum is conceptualised as an integration of the various courses including Design, History, Office Practice and Construction through a principal project, and thereby 26

mirrors the integrated practice students encounter once they graduate. It was therefore imperative that we continue the working pace of the project even during the move to online learning so as not to impede other courses’ curriculum progress.

Instead of spending, and possibly wasting much needed time conceptualising and planning online learning in a crisis period, our staff cohort stepped into experimental action akin to action research albeit with faster iterative cycles of action and inquiry. We tested and learnt about the various online tools available to us and our students in real time and adjusted accordingly. We very quickly learnt that there was no one solution for all students and all tutors. A psychologist on a local radio station further confirmed our approach by noting that people who thrive under crisis situations are those that experiment and learn.

Online Design crits reminded us that the crit is a unique exploratory conversation between student and tutor. This uniqueness applied both to the interactions between student and tutor as well as to the myriad of tools experimented with to conduct crits, from sophisticated online interactive whiteboards on various online meeting apps with real time screen sharing of the students

Figure 1: Project 2 Sections, Priyan Moodley

digital drawings, to sending data vouchers to students in order to be able to share photos of hand drawn sketches via messaging apps, and broken telephonic conversations.

The initial experimental approach continued but was gradually standardised in response to reducing data costs, connectivity issues and university sanctioned zero data sites.

Collaboration and input from experienced online architectural lecturers such as

Lone Poulsen, founder of Open Architecture, further assisted the move from a temporary experimental approach to a more permanent standardised online learning pedagogy which however retains the initial experimental impetus.

Many students, so reliant on the various digital drawing and sketching programs, have felt significant anxiety due to the loss of these tools. The realisation that well resolved and carefully thought through design solutions are not dependant on software, is a 27

very positive consequence within the Covid19 design studio, as some students are still controlled by the digital tools available and their competency or lack thereof.

This realisation echoes a long-forgotten refrain from a graphics and drawing lecturer from FAUP1, a practicing sculptor who noted that a student’s use of digital drawing software was akin to a sculptor using electrical cutting tools versus hand chiselling tools, and that until the sculptor is able to cut his/her own toenails with the electrical cutting tools, the tool was controlling him/her and not the other way around.

The student’s proficiency in the various digital drawing software is the deciding factor on whether the tool controls the student and their design output or vice versa.

The current constraints experienced by the students of a lack of access to computers or software could be an opportunity to refine a design project unencumbered by the potential digital proficiency problems. This was borne out by amazing hand drawn submissions by students without access to their usual software on campus. As the core project approached completion, the design staff 1 Faculty of Architecture Porto University, Portugal 28

team began conceptualising how the planned curriculum could adjust to the new paradigm. In commencing a new project that would potentially need to be completed wholly online, we adjusted our planned brief in response to the real time issues we were observing. The question of how to balance online teaching/learning, research, practice, and personal and family well-being had come to the fore during this time of Covid19 pandemic, isolation and lockdown. This was true for both students and staff. The constraints inhibiting our students from productively continuing their design studies through online and distance learning during Covid19 are myriad and reflect the national statistics. As per StatsSA 49% of the South African Adult population live under the Upper Band Poverty Line (UBPL) which is defined as living on R1183 or less per month.

Furthermore, 24.8% of the 2018/2019 registered students at Wits university were funded

by NSFAS (National Student Financial Aid Scheme) and whose family income is less than R350 000 annually.

An initial analysis of our thirdyear class indicates that between 35% and 40% are struggling during this period of lockdown and online learning.

Approximately 10% of our students are unable to work

productively due to resource and physical environment constraints. These include a lack of access to a computer and drawing software, very limited access to data or consistent connectivity and thereby limited access to online university resources and communication with their design tutors.

The physical environment constraints ranged from no space to work, a lack of paper to draw on, needing to assist younger siblings with home schooling, or the household with chores. We have anecdotally found that both female staff and students face the additional burden of taking on more family and home responsibilities. This has been documented by the poor statistics of publication submissions by female academics during this time in comparison to their male counterparts (Flaherty 2020).

Another 10% of our students are experiencing mental health and anxiety that is impeding their progress, which is understandable given the heightened levels of anxiety in the general population due to Covid19. Our final graduating year students are adapting to online learning and are concerned about their employment prospects once they graduate.

Interestingly, in any design

studio, there will always be students that work well independently and students that require additional support for a myriad of different reasons, or students for whom the communal energy of the studio is integral to their success. If we compare the 2019 cohort of students’ results with the 2020 cohort, we can see the impact of Covid19 on the current progress of the academic year. In 2019, for their Sketch Design/ Plan submission for the same project (albeit with a different site and slightly adjusted program) 24% of the students achieved a mark below 60%. In contrast the 2020 cohort had commenced the project in studio but were forced half-way into the project into lockdown and online learning before their online Sketch Design submission.

The results are compelling, 39% of the 2020 class did not achieve a grade above 60%.

This very narrow comparison suggests that the negative impact of Covid19 on students translates into a 15% increase of the students who need critical additional support from 2019 statistics.

In response to the above constraints the next project “New Spatialities in a time of Plague� envisages several tasks which we feel would be beneficial to students on a personal, inter-personal and community level.

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As per Prof. Laurie Santos of Yale, the mental health challenges of Covid19 can be overcome by focussing on three lessons: socialize, help others and be present (Santos cited by Kretchmer 2020). The tasks included reflection on their personal Covid19 and lockdown experiences, as well as those of others, and conceptualising how architects could intervene in any number of solution scales from body armature to city wide urban interventions in order to encourage students to be present and focus on helping others.

Furthermore, as many students were verbalising the incredible isolation of online learning in comparison to the studio environment, we divided the class into thematic investigation groups, and smaller working groups based on their initial personal reflections in order to foster increasing peer to peer learning and discussion across the class, as well as increase socialization.

This approach initially conceptualised as an intuitive response to the real time Covid19 experiences of staff and students, is also in sync with the Stanford Life Model approach encountered in a recent webinar with the focus on a balance between academic, community and wellness, and that all layers of a participant’s 30

life from inner to relational, communal, academic and the life of others need to be present in the classroom. (Krafcik and Larimer 2020) The emergency move to Online Learning/Teaching has had well documented negative consequences. However as per Desmond Tutu we are all prisoners of hope (Tutu as cited

by Pimenides 2020), and there have been positive outcomes to this ongoing experiment, one of which is the much closer collaboration between academic and teaching staff both in our faculty, across the university and even across the world.

We are all facing much the same issues, and through online meetings and numerous live or downloadable webinars we are all learning from each other, much in the same manner that we would like our students to experience peer to peer learning in a studio environment.

References:

Barrett-Fox, Rebecca. 2020.

Rebecca Barrett-Fox. 12 March.

Accessed March 2020. https:// anygoodthing.com/2020/03/12/ please-do-a-bad-job-of-puttingyour-courses-online/.

Flaherty, Colleen. 2020. “No Room of One’s Own.” Inside Higher Education, 21 April. https://www.insidehighered.com/ news/2020/04/21/early-journalsubmission-data-suggest-covid19-tanking-womens-researchproductivity.

Krafcik, Drew, and Amy Larimer.

2020. “An Integrative Vision for Authentic Agency, Belonging + Wellbring in the (online) classroom.” Studio-Based Online Learning: Building Community and Engaging Design at a Distance.

ACSA. 27 March. https://www. acsa-arch.org/webinars/studiobased-online-learning-webinar/.

Kretchmer, Harry. 2020. “A professor of happiness explains how to deal with COVID-19.”

World Economic Forum. 21 April. Accessed May 16, 2020. h t t p s : / / w w w. w e f o r u m . o r g / agenda/2020/04/coronaviruscovid19-science-of-wellbeingyale-advice/.

Pimenides, Frosso. 2020. “The WHY, the WHAT, and the HOW : Before, During online teaching ,and Beyond.” Association of Architecture Schools Australasia Online Learning Webinar#3.

Prod. Association of Architecture Schools Australasia. 15 May. https://aasa.org.au/onlinelearning/195/webinar-3maintaining-studio-culture-inonline-learning 31

32

The Lockdown Breakdown The Art of Unraveling KADY BURKIMSHER Postgraduate Student

21 days of lockdown. Isolation. Coronavirus. Wuhan. Where is that?

What is a pangolin? Military deployed. #stayathome. Home?

Johannesburg. South Africa. Day 1. 26 March. 2020. 60-something cases. 3 weeks of isolation ahead. Sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep. Leave me alone. Is it Monday or Tuesday? I should be more productive.

Write a list. Draw up a calendar. Write more lists on the calendar.

Watch Tiger King on Netflix instead. Sleep. Eat. Shower. Shower everyday but only ever wear pyjamas. I’m hungry. No wait. Am I bored? Drive outside. Ban on walking. Ghost town. Not one car drove past my house today. Blow dust off Ukulele. “Ting tang”. This is hard.

Mom is baking. Faster than we can consume. Rain? It’s already April though. Those hadedas keep waking me up. The rubbish truck came.

Does that mean it is Monday then? Stop telling me about coronavirus.

Google. “when will COVID-19 end?”. Play same 4 chords on Ukulele 500 times. Sort of sounds like Billie Eilish song. Take video of ukulele progress. Is it real if it wasn’t on Instagram? How many “likes” did it get? Sunshine. Sunburn. These 4 walls. How bouncy is my wall? My first architectural plans. Floating restaurant. 10 years old. Google. “coronavirus cases in SA”. Instagram. “challenges”. No. No to shots of raw eggs and whiskey. No to handstands. Drake. “Toosie Slide”. I will watch. Dance? No. YouTube. Daily Show with Trevor Noah. He’s changed. Trump. Upside-down. Trump. President? Comedian.

Friday. Broadcast. National Anthem. Grapefruit. Gross. Google. “can coronavirus get into an orange?”. Thoughts. This is not the first pandemic. This is not the end of the world. Thankful for medical advancements. Thankful for technology. What did people who lived through other pandemics do without the Internet?! Paint. Photograph.

White paint finished. Defy law by running to neighbour. ADD. Paint for 10 hours straight. Forget to eat. Paint. On dining room table.

Sleep. Can’t sleep. Modern Family. Sleep. At a strange time. 8 days until lockdown is over! House Party App. Friends. Games. Strangers.

Help. Love. Sleep. Don’t touch me. I need a hug. Sticker. On mirror.

“Drink more water!”. Sketch. Nothing. Corn. Cotton wool. Water.

Sprout. Dance. Coffee. Reflection. Time with myself. Radio. 94.7.

Dominic Fike. Inspiration. Ukulele. Mac Miller. RIP. South Africa.

Lockdown extension. 2 more weeks. Cry. “I’m not crying, you’re crying”. Rewire brain. Shower. Sleep. Sneeze. Sneeze more. Oh no I’ve got it. Doctor. Allergies. LOL. Mask. Sanitizer. Scared. Google.

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“how much is it to rent a 1 bed apartment in los angeles”. “how much are architects paid in los angeles vs. new york”. Grapefruit. Daily (with sugar now). WhatsApp. Videocall. TikTok. Justin Bieber.

Yummy. No. R18.81 = $1. Mom. Groceries. Oranges. Boiling water.

Trump. “It’s like a miracle – it will disappear”. Not “fake news”. Not a doctor. Biden. Democratic candidate. Said he visited Nelson Mandela in prison. In Soweto. Gosh. Easter is cancelled this year. No family.

No feast. Just photos on the family WhatsApp group of my nephew with chocolate on his face. #quarantine. Misused word for “isolation”.

Social distancing. Protect each other. Common goal. United country.

United global action. Beautiful. Terrifying. Unprecedented. Instagram. @thehumannarative. Cape Town. Tent village. Starvation. Refugees.

Cry. University of the Witwatersrand. Online classes. 20 April. Stress.

Architecture School. Honours. Important year. Which year isn’t?

Desk. Shower. Shoes. Not just socks. Read lists. Scratch out lists.

Write new lists. Design. Crit. Design. Crit. Design. Design. Redesign.

Un-design. Up-design. Purple. Restart. Rethink. Get up. Brownies.

Global Citizens Concert. One World at Home. Ellie Goulding. Niall Horan. Google. “One Direction”. Watch until 3am. Google. “Jack Dorsey”. Carte Blanche. Lonely. Fat. “Lus” for wine. Alcohol restrictions. Leave house. Pick ‘n Pay. Mall. Naked mannequins.

Eerie. Avoid humans. Run. Don’t forget the milk. Home. Sanitize.

Wash. Panic. Interrogation by household. Replay trip in mind to scan for possible threats of infection. Forgot the milk. Dinner. Spaghetti.

Again. Sleep. Shower. Sneeze. Nose spray. Battery. 3%. Google.

“What is a void?”. “What is the significance of a void”. ‘Voicenotes’ friend. 9 min 53 sec. Instagram. Stories. ‘Screenshot’ song title.

YouTube. Search song title. Screenshot related song titles for future downloads. Netflix. Movie with mom. A mom kind of movie. Bored.

Sing. Dance. Jog in one spot. Go away! Stop making a noise. . Go breathe somewhere else. Who ate the last biscuit?! Birds. Lots.

Beautiful. Noise. Must end. Throw stone. Sunshine. Roll up pants.

Hairy legs. Roll down pants. Sunset. Orange. Purple. Mosquitoes.

Last of the gin. News. Thembekile Mrototo. Testing. Numbers.

Looting. Turn off. Think. Netflix. Abstract. Olufar Eliasson. Colour.

Light. Perspective. Illusion. Escape. Break law. Go for run. Gate to postbox. Gate to postbox. 12 times. Shower. Blast radio. Friday.

National Anthem. Class. Microsoft Teams. Can you hear me? Can 35

you see my screen? Where is the “end call” button? Linear. Flat humans. Assignments. Cross out days on calendar. Count days on calendar. Talk to self. Be strict on self. Set rules for self. Sit at desk.

Wear a bra. Work. Sketch. Play. Jump. Walk to fridge. Look at lettuce.

Open window. Storm. Hail. Unplug the Wi-Fi. Realization. No load shedding during lockdown? What a nice surprise. Dad. The US are printing money. The economy is going to crash. Google. “where is US stimulus package coming from?”. Cyril Ramaphosa. Patriarch.

Trust. Bold. Protective. National Address. Stage 5 Lockdown. 30 April will shift to Stage 4 Lockdown. No end in sight. Isolation.

Acceptance. Sleep. Leave house. Checkers. Masks on. Used to be embarrassing. Now social suicide to be seen without one. Stickers on the floor. Social distancing. Feels cold. Impersonal. Surreal. Man in queue behind me dressed in worker’s overalls. Just enough coins for bread rolls and a Coke. I pay for his groceries. Think about him and others like him all day. It’s going to get so much tougher in the months to come. Desk. No shoes. Design. Happy. Crit. Sad. Frustrated. Confused. Start again. Sketch. Nothing. Again. LinkedIn. Need a profile pic. Professional. Not boring. Pinterest. “unusual professional photograph”. Mistake. Google. “how much does is cost to build a ‘tiny house’?”. Green. Trump. Republicans protesting. They want haircuts. They say no to masks. “Haha”. Oops. Baking.

Cupcakes. Fatter. Eat gemsquash to compensate. Giggle fit out of nowhere. Warm up ‘wheaty’ (wheat bag). Sleep. Wake up at 2am standing in kitchen. Go back to sleep. Sleep through alarm. Wake up. Run. Call into History lecture. “camera off” button. Pajamas.

South African. Nationalist. Union. White. Black. Grey. Churches.

Spires. Bullies. Or heroes. Perspective. Brick. Bleh. Assignment.

“Perspective of home”. Tape measure. House. Awkward. Noisy. Plan.

Cold. Socks. Week 5 of Lockdown. News. SA pandemic projection.

Worst case. Peak. September. Predict. 1.5 Million cases in Gauteng.

Google. “am I allergic to grass?”. “how long does a cat live?”. I am kind of enjoying being at home. Kind of scared to leave home someday. I don’t remember if I have already showered today or not.

A braai? Okay. Rain. Boerewors. Oven. Why is it still raining at the end of April?! Google. “Greta Thunberg”. 7pm. Vuvuzelas. Thank you healthcare workers! Silence phone. “Fake news”. Conspiracies.

Coronavirus designed in a lab. China. Must backup hard drive incase 36

my laptop gives up. Google Drive full. Reduction in air pollution.

Dolphins in Venice. Animals in the streets. Zoo reversal. No work.

Retrenchment. No money. But nothing to spend it on. No entertainment. Miss friends. Miss family. Miss human interaction.

Sleep. Breathe. Deeply. Sigh. Art. Build models. Cereal boxes.

Stress. Can you feel it too? YouTube. Daily Show. Trump. “Inject disinfectant”. Bonus episode of Tiger King. Did Carole Baskin do it?

That guy got new teeth. Earth day. She is probably happy we are all imprisoned. Turn off lights. Netflix. The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes. Tiny House Nation. Still need to backup work. Nephew number two on the way. Will we be allowed to meet him? Maybe in 6 months’ time. What else will we miss this year? 2020 is cancelled.

Rain. End of April. Climate Change. #Icannothandleanothercrisis.

Google. “if it rains in winter, will it snow instead?”. Day 33 of lockdown.

Tuesday. 28 April. Worldwide. 3,080,101 cases. 929, 077 recovered.

212,265 death toll. Epicentre. New York. USA. Google. “Coronavirus SA”. 4,793 cases. 1,473 recovered. 90 deaths. The action of typing seems so irrelevant in the face of this crisis. Sanity? Coffee. A new lockdown habit. Tomorrow? I don’t know.

The significance of this moment in time is one that will shape generations to come. The way in which the world shares space, ideas and products will shift with the lessons learnt. With all respect to the academic research to follow about the effects of the pandemic on the world we know today, the place we take up in time in this very moment does not feel calculated. It is not well-formulated in a neat written article with a beginning, middle and end. This is a moment of shock and fear. Perhaps we have never been offered such an opportunity before. To feel this undeniably, emotionally human. As our thoughts and actions revert to primal instinct, the significance of “now” is absolute.

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38

Reflections on COVID- 19 SAMSON FABOYE Postgraduate Student

In heaves and sighs to rally inner strength, my lips occasionally mutter “This too shall pass!”. Such comforting words attributed to medieval Persian poet Rumi have been a bulwark of mental sanity in these days of ‘self-isolation’ characterised by the Covid-19 induced national lockdown.

In a twist of fate, the week starting 15th March ushered cancellation of academic schedules and ultimately the closedown of the University of the Witwatersrand. If 15th March called to mind the soothsayer’s warning to Caeser, “Beware the Ides of March”, maybe Friday 13th march foretold in omens. How triskaidekaphobic!

I had barely settled to life in Johannesburg upon my arrival on 3rd February and was immediately treated to a baptism of fire in flurries of Orientations, Lectures and Seminars. It was all fast paced and every bit yearned for, as I have always aspired to study for an international degree at one of the top two hundred Universities in the Global QS ranking. Through the Wits-TUB Urban Lab, I ‘caught the fancy’ of studying at Wits, a quest which was actualised after many hurdles. Now at Wits, I looked forward to an extensive personal academic reframing, as such, I had bookmarked the schedule of events at the School of Architecture and Planning, deciding which would 40

be a must-attend for me.

Some of the events I had looked forward to attending were the ‘Faces of the City Weekly Seminar’, Italian Design Day, Wits-TUB Summer School.

And then, the disruptions started when I got Professor Marie Huchzermeyer’s mail on the 13th March notifying of the cancellation of the WitsTUB Summer School that was to be held on from the 23rd to 27th March. Inevitably, ‘it never rains, but it pours’ as the subsequent week brought tidings of school closure, and then before the end of March, the entire nation was on lockdown.

My plans came crashing as I began to adjust to the reality of being confined at home for a duration that would be realistically indefinite. As I had made my preparations to resume School over Christmas and new year, I had noted a certain epidemic in Wuhan, China, which had caused a lockdown of that city. I felt the epidemic was distant and would fade in no time, just like SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola and Swine Flu. However, as the news of the mass infections outside China drowned media headlines in February, I had initial cause for concern.

First, it was South Korea, Iran and then Italy. When some UEFA Champions League Matches were postponed and the subsequent suspension

of League Matches across Europe, I sensed the world would be in for some traumatic moments.

living conditions, which had often been undermined by outbreaks of plague.

Our interconnected world no thanks to “globalisation, potentially influenced a broad range of biological, environmental and social factors that affect the burden of many important human infections” (Saker, 2004: 17).

As an infectious disease, the phenomenon of globalisation is a carrier of COVID 19 – a fact which calls for global concern and collaboration.

Lee and Smith (2011) underpin a necessity for Global Health Diplomacy which would leverage on existing international diplomatic frameworks to deepen negotiations and establish governance modalities to tackle global health issues.

Though globalisation could be a vector for spreading localised epidemics, “the processes of globalisation can influence the chances of successfully implementing measures to prevent, control and treat infections” (Saker, 2004: 12).

While the Black Death and bubonic plague seemed distant, the 1918 Spanish Influenza was too close to call in my opinion. The remnants of that pandemic still reside within the legal framework of my home country, Nigeria, and in the 1926 Quarantine Law which was again cited when Nigeria’s President had to declare a lockdown affecting Lagos, my home and place of birth. The Spanish Influenza disease “swept through North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Brazil and the South Pacific. It was exceptionally severe: an estimated onethird of the world’s population was infected. Case fatality rates were calculated at 2.5%” (Tognotti, 2009: 331).

Of curious attention in the Spanish Influenza disease was its symptom as a form of “pneumonia with extensive haemorrhaging and oedema in the lung that could kill within few days” (Tognotti, 2009: 332).

As the realities of the lockdown dawned on me, being a firsttime experience, I began to read about past global pandemics.

As an Architect, I had taken courses in Urban Planning during my undergraduate years and I remember that the Planning profession had been established to improve societal

As a student of Urban Politics and Governance, I observed closely the impacts on human rights generated by the lockdown disruption in activities. In my home country, Nigeria, there were arguments within legal circles as to whether the President had the constitutional powers 41

to shut down a state without invoking emergency powers.

Invoking emergency powers as set within Nigeria’s operational constitution would mean the suspension of state and local governments, abrogating their powers to the President.

Since the Nigerian President stopped short of invoking such, overriding domestic initiatives to curtailing the spread of Covid-19 in Lagos, nevertheless, the arguments as to the legality of the President’s action were drowned in the rounds of desperate times.

In South Africa, the President called for the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to assist the police in enforcing the lockdown rules. I observed the disapproving reactions of some sections of the South African citizenry to the deployment of the army to manage civilians.

Coming from an environment where army presence is a common sight on the highways in Nigeria, I was puzzled by the disapproving reactions. The deployment of online tracking measures to trail the movement of persons requested to selfisolate in Israel, highlighted privacy issues and that raised questions on the modalities of global health governance. I pondered the subject of a “new political space to reconcile the values of equity, social justice and human rights underpinning Health for All, with the highprofile disease-focused 42

initiatives, evidence-based approaches and economic pragmatism demanded by political exigency?” (Lee, 2004: 12).

As I look forward to the normalisation of daily living, the deeper meaning of the World Health organisation’s definition of health “as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” (Lee, 2004: 12).

The essence of the year 2020 has been called to question in the light of the significant disruptions it has entailed.

Aside from the unfortunate mortalities, the economic disruptions would be deeply felt when the chickens come to roost. The safety measures employed to curtail Covid -19 have taught me an essential thing that my survival depends on the compliance of others.

Going forward post Covid-19 I would endeavour to live for others because my well-being depends on the well-being of others around me.

“And when your body has become still, reach out with your heart.

Know that we are connected in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

(You could hardly deny it now.)

Know that our lives are in one another’s hands.

(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.

Reach out your heart.

Reach out your words.

Reach out all the tendrils of compassion that move, invisibly, where we cannot touch.”

(Lynn Ungar, 2020)

References:

Barro, R.J., Ursúa, J.F. and Weng, J., (2020). The coronavirus and the great influenza pandemic: Lessons from the “spanish flu” for the coronavirus’s potential effects on mortality and economic activity (No. w26866). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Berridge, V., Loughlin, K. and Herring, R., 2009. Historical dimensions of global health governance.

Lee, K., 2004. The Pit and the Pendulum: Can globalisation take health governance forward?. Development, 47(2), pp.11-17.

Lee, K. and Smith, R., 2011. What is ‘global health diplomacy'?

A conceptual review.

Saker, L., Lee, K., Cannito, B., Gilmore, A. and Campbell-Lendrum, D.H., 2004.

Globalisation and infectious diseases: a review of the linkages (No. TDR/STR/ SEB/ST/04.2).

World Health Organization.

Tognotti, E., 2009. Influenza pandemics: a historical retrospect. The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries, 3(05), pp.331-334.

Lynn, U, 2020. “Pandemic: A poem applying a Sabbath perspective to the coronavirus crisis”. In Spirituality and Practice.

[Online] Available at: https:// www.spiritualityandpractice.com/ quotes/features/view/28852/ pandemic. Accessed on the 28/4/2020.

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44

Research “On the Fly” : The City Lockdown Diaries Project in Gauteng SARITA PILLAY GONZALEZ AND MIRIAM MAINA Postgraduate Student

A Research Moment in a Moment of Uncertainty The days and hours preceding the national lockdown in South Africa were characterised by uncertainty.

Many breadwinners ended the working day on 26 March not knowing what the impending three-week lockdown would mean for their jobs and income.

We, like many other students and young academics, were uncertain as to how the lockdown would affect our

where they lived. What was about to unfold was historically unprecedented, and occurring globally, presenting a unique research moment.

As urban planning scholars with some backgroundknowledge about the built environment and civil society – we saw an opportunity to document and analyse the socio-spatial differentiation of a lockdown in urban, postapartheid South Africa. How would people living in different

What are our responsibilities, strategies, and capacities in moments of uncertainty, crises, or upheaval? fieldwork, funding, and work submissions.

As South Africa neared midnight of the 27th March, images of army trucks rolling into some areas, and rows of empty supermarket shelves in others, circulated on social media platforms – presenting early signs that people in different spaces and socioeconomic circumstances would be experiencing the lockdown very differently. Mobility was to be limited to travel for essentials, and people were to “stay home” in the spaces 46

”

spaces and places of Gauteng experience the lockdown? Two days prior to the lockdown, we drafted a concept note for City Lockdown Diaries – a project that would monitor and analyse the experience of the lockdown of people living in different parts of Gauteng. Our intention was to share these experiences and narratives through social media and undertake deeper analysis for academic purposes.

Academic projects usually require months of planning and preparation, but here we were presented with a

moment that required research “on the fly�. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown raised important questions: what are our responsibilities, strategies, and capacities in moments of uncertainty, crises, or upheaval? Does the academy today enable or encourage us to respond to such moments through ethical, adaptive, and immediate research?

Unusual Times call for Unusual Methods The initiation of the project was unconventional. It required responding rapidly to a moment: mobilising existing resources, networks and connections; and the adoption of nimble and versatile methods of data collection. The premise of the concept was to monitor the lockdown experience of people living in different parts of Gauteng. Our primary criterion was spatial heterogeneity, as we sought to ensure broad representation from suburbia, gated communities, innercities, and townships, from different parts of the Province.

In the days prior to the lockdown, we reached out to individuals we knew who lived in different parts of Gauteng in varied housing types. This required mobilising personal, professional, and activist networks of the small group of us in the South African Research Chair in Spatial

Analysis and City Planning.

By the end of the first week we had confirmed 25 participants and were receiving regular diary entries daily.

Participants were asked to send regular diary entries via voice note or text message, narrating their lockdown experience for the initial twenty-one-day period. They also had the option of sending photos or videos. Diary entries could be as broad, or specific, as participants wished, but they were asked to answer two primary questions: 1.

2.

What did I do?

What did I observe?

Although rapid and remote research, clarity and consent with participants was prioritised. Participants were offered the opportunity to stay anonymous, asked whether they consented to excerpts of their diaries being shared occasionally on social media, and were told that the findings of the research would be used for academic purposes.

Participants provided consent to their participation via WhatsApp. The option was also given to provide airtime assistance, where this was required.

The primary medium for communication and data collection for this project was the social messaging app, WhatsApp. Through 47

Figure 7: Sample of a diary entry sent by Nan (not their real name), a nurse from Diepkloof, Soweto

text messages, voice notes, and images, this allowed for relatively affordable remote communication and datacollection in a time of social distancing. In the immediate lockdown window from 27 March to 17 April, we received regular diary entries from most of the participating respondents. However, as the lockdown period was extended by an additional two weeks, diary entries waned, although many participants chose to continue with the project. By the end of the five-week Level 5 lockdown, we had received 334 entries, of which 127 were voice notes 1.

In addition to the diary entries, participants were also asked 48

to participate in two online surveys between March 27th and April 30th. These surveys were intended to provide quantitative and qualitative data on their households, living conditions, neighbourhood characteristics, policing and access to goods.

The two surveys were refined and restructured into a larger, longer survey titled: “Experience of the Lockdown in Gauteng�2 which was subsequently circulated to the public through Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp. This survey served as an additional data collection tool, to corroborate or challenge our findings from the diaries and participant surveys and

provide a wider sample to track specific spatial metrics.

To date, 124 respondents have taken this general survey.

Figure 8 indicates responses to a question we used for participating respondents, which was later adapted and refined for a general public survey.

The Tweeting Researcher: Balancing real-time engagement with long-term academic outputs From the outset, this project was intended to share and engage with real-time conversations about the lockdown, while also undertaking a deeper analysis for long-term academic outputs. Emerging findings were posted on a Wordpress

Figure 8: Sample data assembled from surveys

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blog3, and shared on social media platforms such as Twitter4 and Facebook5 . This short-term data dissemination allowed for online sharing and interaction on lockdown themes. Alongside this, we have been collating and coding data for more conventional academic outputs.

This method would blur the traditional ‘line’ between data collection and publication.

It required the immediate processing of data, and selected data-sharing – prior to thorough data analysis and publication, as in the conventional academic

research practice. Emerging themes from diary entries were published on a weblog6 and quantitative and spatial data shared through a dynamic data analytics page7. Through tweets with hashtags such as #covid19, #lockdownSA or #lockdownextension, emerging observations and narratives from the project could be linked to a broader conversation that was occurring nationally on social media.

Our initial aspirations were to consistently analyse the data in real time, to disseminate excerpts on a regular basis via social media, as well as

Figure 9: Collage compilation of Twitter posts from the City Lockdown Project8

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Figure 10 (above): Interactive project dashboard, showing the location of respondents with dynamic diary entries9 Figure 11 (left): Thematic presentation of ‘the everyday’ from the City Locked Down weblog10

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to write analysis pieces. We had, however, underestimated the administrative tasks required to maintain the social media and web platforms for the project alongside the day-to-day communication with participants, as well as collection, curation, and analysis of diary entries.

This limited our ability to undertake analysis of the incoming entries, and to write even short pieces about what we were finding.

Furthermore, we had to still contend with our regular research and PhD work. The next few months give us the time to engage deeply with the diary entries and surveys for the purposes of academic outputs Conclusion The City Lockdown Diaries project was initiated “on the fly� to understand and analyse a moment created by a nationwide lockdown in South Africa to curb the spread of COVID-19. As built environment professionals, we intended to track, document, and understand how the lockdown was experienced in different spatial environments within the province.

The project drew on adaptive and nimble data collection methods. The project also 52

adopted a dynamic system of real-time information sharing, to complement longterm conventional academic publication. In this way, the project blurred the line between data collection and curation, and processing and dissemination.

In the implementation of the project, our roles as academic researchers were extended and the usual timelines for research sped-up, from conceptualizing and designing the research to networking, mobilization, and management of 25 contributors, alongside traditional research tasks of analysis, processing, and disseminating findings.

The daily diaries provided by individuals over the 35-day lockdown period have provided a rich tapestry of narratives, providing evidence of sociospatial differentiation in the experience of the COVID-19 lockdown in Gauteng Province.

Analysis of narratives and survey data is beginning to present insights on how mobility, neighbourhoods, policing and household characteristics, shaded experiences of the lockdown.

Endnotes:

1 Thank you to Kagiso Diale, architecture graduate from the School of Architecture and Planning at WITS, for his assitance in transcribing the project.

2 The general survey can be found on https://docs.google.com/forms/ d/e/1FAIpQLSem3pfzaks9Aj94qC a1VerWDLECtZv5QK-AphOIIpW6Z5ewQ/viewform?usp=sf_link.

3 https://citylockdowndiaries. wordpress.com/ 4 www.twitter.com/CityLockedDown 5 www.facebook.com/pg/SAandCP 6 The City Lockdown Diaries weblog page can be accessed at https:// citylockdowndiaries.wordpress. com/ 7 The City Lockdown research analytics gallery can be accessed at https://public.tableau.com/ profile/city.lockdown.research. johannesburg#!/ 8 The project handle is @ citylockeddown, and can be accessed at https://twitter.com/ CityLockedDown 9 https://citylockdowndiaries. wordpress.com/the-everyday/ 10 https://citylockdowndiaries. wordpress.com/the-everyday/ 53

54

Beneath the Surface of COVID-19 NOMONDE GWEBU Postgraduate Student

The Afternoon Before the Shutdown There is a nervous energy in the local shopping mall. Surgical masks, bandanas and makeshift strips of cloth fastened around faces with suspicious eyes darting to-and-fro.

Lengthy queues of shoppers, waiting in panic to purchase the ingredients of their “last supper” (Bible, 1987) The local liquor store, at the news it will be closed for twenty-one days is teeming with people. There is loud house music and belching laughter, now subdued to a few strained chuckles, dampened by the emotions: Am I doing the right thing?

What is happening?

As a world, as a nation and as a higher learning community, we have been confronted with the fragility and mystery of what is holding our current existence together. Everything can change suddenly with the invasion and rapid replication of microscopic cells.

These cells do not spread in and of themselves, but are transported and transmitted within us, mapping our movements, tracking our actions and depositing their substance onto everything we touch.

As a world, as a nation and as a higher learning community, we have been confronted with the fragility and mystery of what is holding our current existence together.

This question, illustrated by the patrons of the liquor store, is one that whispers gently to many of us. It lies beneath our scheduled appointments; beneath all the things we have vaguely or firmly decided to do.

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”

The COVID-19 cells are most commonly transmitted by droplet infection. Within the droplet, the individual COVID-19 cell attaches to the healthy person’s host cell and moves undetected to the intestine, spleen and lungs where it may have the most

dramatic effect. The parasitic cells flourish by injecting their genetic material into healthy cells. This genetic material is experienced by the host cells a an “instruction” to replicate.

This instruction is carried out, unquestioningly, unremittingly, until a breaking or “critical point” is reached. At this maximum capacity, the host can no longer carry out any of its normal functions and receives the final instruction: “self-destruct” (Our World in Data, 2020).

What is our world made of?

At root, this is the process mapping of all erring, vices and character defects. They do not multiply in and of themselves, but are transported within us, and from person to person, mapping our movements, tracking our actions and depositing their substance into everything we do and come into contact with. This layer, or realm of what is real, beneath the surface, normally imperceptible to the physical eye, has been thrust, violently into the realm of matter.

This intangible level of human existence is often evaded because of difficulties in quantification, problems with subjective realities (ThiisEvensen, 1987) and parts of human life that can be deduced and debated but for which there seems to be no attainable consensus, even about whether or not a

consensus should be sought.

Because of these seemingly unsurmountable challenges, we could be tempted to overlook the pull that this intangible world exerts on the tangible world. This essay proposes that adopting this stance would be a grave error.

Who makes our world?

As architects, and the broader community of individuals who shape the built environment, we cannot produce anything greater, or of a higher moral code than the sum total balance of “healthy” and “sickly” cells we possess. When we find ourselves infected with greed, oppressions, prejudice and lust for material success this corruption, nurtured and replicating in the unseen realm of the soul, is the very soil in which all ideas, creativity and design will germinate. “To design is to prefer” (Louisiana Channel, 2018) the manifesting preference is quantifiable to the extent of its materiality. But where does the preference or “design” originate? From the unseen, soul of the designer.

A man cannot design the world without first designing himself (Schulz, 1971).

The unexamined life is not worth living -Socrates The problem is that the healthy cells are both “unquestioning” and “unremitting” in their 57

replication of corrupt instructions. As those in the front lines have striven for, and attained success by proactively confronting cases of infection; so must we confront our own character defects and our own parasitic tendencies in our professional and personal lives. Like those who have achieved success, we must question corrupt “instructions” and resist defaulting to, what on the surface seems like the status quo.

It takes courage to know and confront oneself. It takes courage to face all the areas that one knows can and should be better. Courage is the cure.

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at its testing point (Lewis, 1943). Patience that seizes to be patient when tested never was; humility which whithers in the glare of success… never was.

A key; the healthy cells have not been able to protect themselves from COVID-19 from within, they have needed help. How have the cells been saved? By external intervention. Where their own courage failed; they have been saved by the courage of others.

The question that underlies our personal equation of healthy and sickly cells is: Am I useful to myself? What is the nature of the cells that make up the realm of my soul; the seat from 58

which everything I produce materially and creatively will emerge. What am I producing?

Solitude, at regular intervals of a person’s life, is necessary As medical and other professionals are dispatched to address the virus from the outside; we are offered – we are implored - to take up the most powerful weapon we have to combat sickness of the soul: introspection. Social distancing is forced introspection. The frenetic activities of modern life naturally preclude the solitude necessary for introspection; only those who know its true value create it, and protect it.

Having failed to have the courage to withdraw periodically from noise and movement; to stay home and have difficult conversations, to make tough calls in our businesses and confront systemic problems in our nations; globally, we have been plunged into a forced introspective, “essentials-only” environment. In this immersion, we have the opportunity to escape the cycle of mindless unquestioning, unremitting repetition, through which we have been enslaved. As nations and individuals, we have an opportunity to re-invent, reimagine and re-programme who we want to be, and what we want to produce.

When we introspect, we identify

inner diseases that we have been allowed to develop. As we trace back their origins and spreading patterns, it becomes possible to identify and address corrupt instructions infiltrating our lives, our families, our careers and our nations from their sources. A wise man remarked “If the medicine you are taking is sweet, it probably will not cure your disease�.

COVID-19 has that bitter sting that the unfiltered, undiluted truth often does; but perhaps its effects, the ones we cannot see or quantify, are healing a deeper condition

References:

Thiis-Evensen, T., 1987.

Archetype in Arhitecture. 1st Edition ed. Oslo: Norwegian University Press.

Bible, T. H., 1987. The Amplified Translation. 6th Aedition ed. New York: FaithWords.

Our World in Data, 2020.

Statistics and Research: Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19). [Online] Available at: https://ourworldindata.org/ coronavirus [Accessed 28 April 2020].

Louisiana Channel, 2018.

Alejandro Aravena: To Design is to Prefer. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=trylBuckSCA [Accessed 23 April 2020].

Schulz, C. N., 1971. Existence, Space and Architecture. 1st Edition ed. London: Studio Vista Limited.

Lewis, C., 1943. The Screwtape Letters. 18th Edition ed. Boston: Harvard.

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The Enemy We Can’t See ARABELLA INGHAM Undergraduate Student

The virus was interesting but forgettable. That is, when I first heard about it. Coronavirus seemingly was just another flulike bug starting in China. You and I are extremely familiar with these little fiends. Every inch of our body is covered in bacteria and living organisms; we are just a mothership of pathogens. Why should we worry about it if our mighty immune systems keep us safe at all times? I found that the saga became more thrilling and entertaining as titters of the virus from Wuhan rose; we all love a little drama. So far away and foreign, in a city most of us had not formerly heard of, it was hardly something to worry about. The buzz quickly lost its lustre, as in a matter of days the world locked itself indoors.

I imagine the virus as a green nasty noo-noo gnashing its little choppers as it plots to destroy the world — much like those in the Domestos ad. We like to envisage our enemies as the big baddie, but a virus doesn’t plot or prey on people. It has no strategy. It lives in the grey matter between being alive or dead. It cannot live in isolation but proliferates in an organism.

The virus grows exponentially, which is fairly simple maths, but understanding it in reality is very different. I remember doing exponential graphs in 62

high school maths, but all I can really remember of it is: ‘that graph that looks like a hockey stick’ – but to comprehend it in reality is very different.

Imagine a drop of water that doubles in size every minute.

In twenty minutes it would only as big as a couple jugs of water. But fifteen minutes later it would be the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Still, this doesn’t sound too serious, and the world didn’t take the Coronavirus that seriously. But only one hour later, the body of water is larger than all the lakes on earth. Eighteen minutes after that, it’s the same amount of water as in the ocean. In this scenario, one infected person would have to infect one person for the number to double. Studies show that Covid-19 infection rates are an average of one to two and a quarter, so global infection would be instant if we were all crammed into an enormous petri dish. Luckily, we are more spread out than this.

Whether you are an extrovert or an introvert, we are all dependent on one another.

In almost every single activity in my life, hundreds if not thousands of people have contributed to it. I may be writing this essay alone on my computer, but I was taught how

to write by a dozen teachers, and the computer on which I am typing has a myriad of individual parts that could have been produced by hundreds of employees. The room in which I am sitting was designed by an architect. And yet for the past twenty-one years I have

best thing for our physical wellbeing, but it’s like trying to untie a knot of seven billion strings.

I stay indoors and only go out for food, but I cannot help but wonder how many people my cornflakes have come into contact with before I buy them.

to force people apart is undoubtedly the best thing for our physical well- being, but it’s like trying to untie a knot of seven billion strings lived in the house that this firm of architects designed but I know nothing about them. An owner of the property planted a very tall tree and it casts a particular shadow on the room in which I write. In our concrete jungles, everything we touch and see around us is a mark an individual has left on the world. Modern life connects people who don’t know they’re connected. If we are each a string, humanity is not an interwoven cloth – it is more closely linked than that. We are a gargantuan tangled mess of thread.

In a pandemic like this, to force people apart is undoubtedly the

”

As the lockdown drew nearer I imagined that the quarantine would be something like Tom Hanks in ‘Cast Away’. I’d find my own cantaloupe and paint a face onto it, befriend it and treat him as my own friend.

Leave the shelter to gather resources, and return to the safety of my den. I’d bake my own bread, wash my own sheets and let my instinctual uncoordinated desires roam free. In reality screens kept me more than busy. Modern inner-city isolation is hardly isolated at all it seems, as the internet opens up a plethora of new ways to spend one’s time. Initially I felt restless, with so much time on my hands 63

and so little to do. Every day it gets easier to remain in a foetal position for three hours scrolling online before getting up. Throughout the academic term I’ve always tried to remain as productive as possible – I keep feeling that I must use this time productively because I’ll never have this much free time again. On the other hand, I should relax - because I’ll

retrenchments and a global economy in freefall. We’ve all waited desperately for a date for when our lives will return to normal. That day keeps on shifting. Unsatisfied with our inability to control what is happening; no way to mend or improve what we do. The most frustrating thing is there is no one to hold culpable, no scapegoat. It’s far more fun to

”

below the calm of quiet suburban streets, harmonious chirping birds, and falling autumn leaves, households were erupting in chaos.

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never have this much free time again. Somehow I’ve convinced myself that the latter is better for my well-being.

blame some scientists singing: “double, double toil and trouble” as they mix up the Coronavirus in a cauldron.

After the second National Address we all started to feel more anxious. We learned that below the calm of quiet suburban streets, harmonious chirping birds, and falling autumn leaves, households were erupting in chaos.

Families’ tempers became as short as their income. Mental health issues have proliferated across the globe as people have confronted terrible fears,

Acquaintances spread conspiracies on Facebook saying it can be treated with alcohol, but the government doesn’t want us to treat it successfully, which is why the liquor stores are shut. It’s both disappointing and morbidly amusing to see people latch onto outlandish explanations.

I don’t know much about medical graded equipment, but I don’t think that the bra

sewn up as a mask will satisfy filtration standards. I doubt that the homemade homeopathic treatment will outshine all medical research being done on the virus. Misinformation is as dangerous as hosting a huge house party. It creates more fear about the disease, and worldwide, the fear and uncertainty is Covid-19’s evil twin. Being certain of the facts is one way to keep fear in check, as is keeping in touch with those you care about.

other rooms in the house to isolate in and if we do have an argument, to have other rooms to sulk in. We are entangled.

This pandemic is being compared to a war, but this is a strange war. The heroes are the medical staff who tend to the sick. They are protecting us the most from this war, but are falling victim to it. The lesser heroes wear blanket-capes and save the world by staying indoors and watching Netflix.

The tanks we drive are sedans as we face the battlegrounds of Pick ‘n Pay and Checkers.

That is, for us civilians. No one signed up, but we have been conscripted.

Unfortunately, it only works if we all abide by our orders. This is the first time all of humanity has been on one side of the battle, it is our time to stand together.

This is easy to say. It is easier to do this with the luxury of having 65

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The Need for Transformable Geometries and Responsive Disaster Architecture A mathematical design response to COVID-19 and related crises ALEXANDER MARÉ

Undergraduate Student

Transformable and mobile structures are well-suited to responding to sudden crises such as pandemics – often in remote or adverse conditions – where simple, temporary, and adaptable infrastructure is sorely needed.

The transformation of purely flat two-dimensional planes into complex three-dimensional structures using constraints (such as using only folds or a limited number of cuts) is a mathematical problem that has only recently received proper attention in formal topology, geometry, and practical engineering, but already has a long and productive artistic history in Japanese origami.

Figure 12: Conceptual Sketch

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Yet despite its obvious value for emergency infrastructure, not much mainstream attention has been paid in the field of design to using such transformable geometries to create new and comprehensive forms of what may be called disaster architecture. However, the recent COVID-19 pandemic provides both an academic opportunity and a moral imperative for architecture to engage with transformable typologies and so respond to the crisis at hand. Such crises always thrust the role of architecture into the spotlight.

The built environment is not only responsible for the pathways of social interaction,

but also by the same token for the pathways of disease, and therefore it has a duty to respond. Architecture after all is about problem solving – not merely structurally or spatially, but also socially.

In light of the above, this paper will explore some very basic transformable designs for further development and possible practical application in the field as a means of pandemic intervention, in the form of mobile testing sites, pavilions, and field clinics.

Transformable geometries, folds, and architecture for disasters Transformable geometries refer to structures that are responsive to changes in force or energy (for instance pressure or heat) and adapt their shape accordingly in a controlled manner, shifting from one form to another both in terms of surface area and volume, without the addition or removal of material. Simple examples would include concertinas, pleated skirts, and tents, and more complicated examples would include the expandable sails and panels under consideration for future spacecraft. The advantage of such geometries is that they allow for controlled adaptability with comparatively little effort or change in material, because the material of transformable structures can be mechanically

programmed to respond in certain ways, for instance along fold- or cut-lines Indeed, even rigid materials such as wood can be rendered bendable with patterns of surrogate folds in the form of cuts or filigree patterns, although for the purposes of this paper materials traditionally associated with folding shapes, such as tent canvas, will be used.

In short then, the potential advantages of transformable geometry for the architectural typologies required in disaster, postdisaster, and relief scenarios can be summarised as follows: little assembly required; fewer parts required; increased speed of assembly; adaptability; ease of transport owing to foldable nature; lower cost due to ease of transport and assembly.

It will be noted that these properties are ideal for an architecture needed to respond quickly and variably to a sudden crisis. An adaptable architecture of this kind is especially necessary for the South African context, where the majority of citizens do not have easy access, either in terms of finance or proximity, to the more permanent medical facilities represented by building typologies such as large hospitals and clinics in urban centres. Instead testing facilities and fieldwork need to be mobilised and brought into rural areas.

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Figure 13: Paper Model Explorations

In light of this, a very general idea emerges: using tent-like structures made largely from a single material with pre-set folds. Such structures would differ from most current tents and temporary architecture by being assembled almost entirely from a single piece using folds, and differ further in the potential for adaptability and variability if those folds could accommodate more than one final configuration. In other words, differentiable and non-self-identical structures.

If made from tent canvas, these structures would need lightweight support in the form of both internal poles and external guy ropes. The manufacturing advantage is that such tents could each be 70

fabricated almost entirely from a large single sheet of material and folded into shape on site.

The presence of marked foldand cut-lines would facilitate assembly by reducing the number of loose parts that have to be combined.

While we are still considering general solutions there are of course more complex possibilities within the domain of expandable geometries and tents, such as the geodesics of Buckminster Fuller or the tensile structures of Frei Otto.

These, however, require either complex mathematics (to calculate the forces on curved surfaces) or complicated assembly (triangulated geodesic structures), neither

of which are desirable for responsive architecture during emergencies. Curves are also resistant to simple methods of folding since by definition they curve their folds along more than one axis at once, increasing the possibility of confusion as far as both packaging and assembly are concerned.

The solution then is a series of largely rectilinear foldable geometries in the form of adaptable and collapsible tents. Four simple designs for such modules will be discussed in this paper.

The first is a miscellaneous adaptable module based on a simple square template that can differentiate by folding into several small configurations.

It can be used for a number of purposes. The second is a small field hospital based on a radial design with triangular rooms, requiring the assembly of separate folding parts.

The third is an extendable tunnel utilising pleats and an X-like fold. The fourth and last is a larger rectangular structure with an articulated front to break up the distance between individuals, and it can serve as a testing station, warehouse, or administrative point. These three-dimensional structures can easily be derived by observation from two-dimensional geometric nets, articulated with intuitively accessible folds.

As is to be expected of disaster architecture, the main focus of these structures is not spatiality, aesthetics, or phenomenology, but instead functionality and ergonomics.

These are structures that must be adaptable enough to respond to as many site contexts as possible (ruling out site-based aesthetics) and serve first and foremost medical and practical needs (ruling out long-term occupancy or time for an appreciable phenomenological experience). Basic elements such as lighting, sufficient space, and stability therefore come to the fore, and others such as texture and materiality necessarily recede.

In Vitruvius’s terms, firmitas and utilitas predominate over venustas here. Below is a brief discussion of each module.

A rough non-scalable sketch of each template is given with approximate dimensions and folding lines indicated with red dashes. All dimensions are given in millimetres.

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Suggested transformable typologies The H-Module The H-Module, named after the plan profile of its most useful configuration, is the most adaptable of the designs presented here, able to transform into at least seven or eight different configurations by folding the same square template.

Figure 14: The H-Module Configurations 72

The module can be used as a general purpose two-room tent with a flap between the rooms, or it can be fattened and folded to provide screens and partitions with a height lower than 2500mm. In its tent form it could be used as a small testing and treatment unit, or it could contain a desk and supplies as a first-contact reception area.

The V-Module The peaked and pointed form of the V-Module serves several purposes. The first – slanting both the roof ridge and the vertical front wall away from the sun – serves to potentially reduce the amount of direct perpendicular sunlight falling upon the surface area of the structure, if it is correctly positioned. The second – tapering the volume of the interior towards an upwards peak with a ventilation panel – serves to encourage the upward and outward flow of warm air from within the structure. Lastly, if for no other reason, the unusual peaked appearance of the structure adds some visual

and experiential interest for its users, which remains a phenomenologically valuable aspect in the context of a disaster.

The V-Module forms an array of four linked rooms in a roughly semi-circular plan. Each is isolated from the other and can accommodate at least one bed comfortably, or potentially two if positioned correctly.

The module is open at both ends. The larger triangular opening, shown in the sketch, is sunfacing and should ideally be closed with a ventilation panel at the peak. Physical access can be gained through the smaller triangular opening at the opposite end of each room.

Figure 15: The V-Module 73

The X-Module The X-Module combines the folds of both the concertina and the scissor-lift in order to create a horizontal collapsible cuboid or tunnel that can be made arbitrarily long.

This module could be used either as a connecting passage between other buildings, or as a unit on its own. As with the H-Module, the X-Module can be utilised for a variety of different purposes and was not designed with a single function in mind. It could be partitioned and contain beds, or it could be used as an expandable cover for supplies

Figure 16: The X-Module 74

The E-Module The E-Module possesses an articulated or stepped front to break up the distance between individuals, giving it its name.

Each of these faces can be provisioned with a window or opening, and the interior could serve as a storage facility, pharmaceutical dispensary, or administrative hub with access points through the openings on the stepped front. When in

its compressed usable state, the collapsed extra material forms partial triangular barriers or walls inside the structure, providing vertical surface area for temporary shelves made of fabric. This collapsed vertical material can also be unfolded and stretched horizontally to expand the floor area of the E-Module. In such a case, additional roof and external wall material will have to be provided to fill the gaps.

Figure 17: The E-Module 75

Further considerations and applications Further design iterations and developments could of course be applied to each of the above modules. Several V-Modules, for instance, could be joined together in an array to form a circular structure with a central courtyard (resemblance to the notorious Panopticon notwithstanding). Each module

flooring suitable to the context.

Other applications outside pandemic intervention can be imagined as well, for instance at smaller or even nano scales. If the patterns of transformable geometry were applied to stress-sensitive materials, then the resulting structures could potentially self-assemble, an idea that

�

A virus, like a hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake, recognises no borders, political differences, economies, classes, or races; and suddenly the justification behind trade and border disputes seems lacking as we all find ourselves on the same side. could also be further developed with careful placement of window openings, ventilation panels, and a combination of translucent and opaque material to allow natural lighting; and each must also be provisioned with temporary 76

has recently started to receive attention in engineering and medicine. At a macro scale one could imagine such structures being transported somewhere in one configuration, before transforming into useful new

configurations upon arrival at their destination in response to the different conditions there (such as wind, heat, or pressure). Thus at larger scales a nomadic, adaptable architecture could emerge, allowing for a literal reshaping of society.

A more philosophical note: the future of society and architecture To return to the pandemic on a more broadly philosophical note before concluding: the reduction in pollution, return of wildlife to the streets, and shrinking global economies have all reminded us, not for the first time though perhaps most strongly, of the essential arbitrariness of human political and economic systems. A virus, like a hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake, recognises no borders, political differences, economies, classes, or races; and suddenly the justification behind trade and border disputes seems lacking as we all find ourselves on the same side. The current pandemic, like all crises past and future, serves to redirect our attention and values, call into question our basic assumptions, remind us what we take for granted, and return us to a more fundamental set of questions: what should we value, and how should we live? It has been said that the pandemic and subsequent lockdown

are not ‘business as usual’.

But that is a form of denialism spoken from within the old blindspot of anthropocentrism.

That fantasy has been swept away by the most usual form of business imaginable, a force of nature. The harsh truth is that life as we knew it before the pandemic was never really ‘business as usual’, and that a radically new reimagining of society is needed instead.

What would the role of architecture be in reimagining such a society? This is of course difficult to answer, and any attempts must remain speculative. Most likely no answers will be viable until the full effects of COVID-19 on the global population and economy become clear in the years to come. One thing is however obvious: the fact that the pandemic required worldwide self-isolation and physical distancing shows that most of our current architecture – and more importantly the daily activities, ideologies, and economic requirements that utilise and underlie that architecture – is somewhat unsuited to promoting distance or space.

Cities everywhere would not have stalled to the extent they have if our various forms of public architecture and spaces were not, by design, mainly extroverted and crowded, and if they could instead already have accommodated a greater form of space. We have seen 77

now that urbanism relies on an architecture of concentration rather than diffusion.

Of course such concentration is not necessarily always a bad thing, and using COVID-19 as an argument against everything from economic systems to workplace layouts might appear too radical for some. But the fact remains that most of the world’s architecture and infrastructure is currently standing empty, as it was designed for daily patterns and rhythms that cannot currently be sustained. COVID-19 has acted like a much-needed dye, seeping into the various cracks within society and revealing its fault-lines: whether the shortcomings of architecture or the class divides that still deprive some areas of medical facilities. An architecture of the future would have to take all of this into consideration. For example, it might be a more ‘dispersed’ architecture and urbanism, friendlier to a slower pace, with adaptable buildings that can radically alter their internal layouts as needed, perhaps in some cases akin to the ‘nomadic architecture’ mentioned earlier. It would raise important questions about work and access to spaces we have hitherto taken for granted – the pandemic has recontextualised our relationship with both the built environment and natural environment, since many of us have now spent months confined within the 78

same space (often our homes) without the opportunity for a literal and metaphorical change of scenery.

How then do we incorporate nature, often sought as an escape outside the normal built environment, into everyday life and into ordinary homes?

How do we allow homes to diversify their functions so that one can work without leaving? Or does working from home really constitute a covert invasion of the private sphere by the public and corporate?

These are architectural problems with broader ideological underpinnings, and architecture in turn is well positioned to provide solutions that reimagine those ideologies.

Whatever the answers it is likely that architecture, and the society it shapes, will not be able to remain exactly the same as it was before. In this sense, architecture has an emancipatory role to play in shaping future possibilities.

As far as responsive disaster architecture goes, the designs put forward in this paper are simply suggestions and starting points for the present crisis, and more input from the perspectives of epidemiology, ergonomics, movement circulation, and social behaviour is required.

Nonetheless, the designs represent a platform from which to potentially explore further typologies of adaptable

disaster architecture, and hopefully they demonstrate the usefulness of transformable geometries within crisis scenarios in the form of practical easily-deployable solutions.

After all, during an emergency our responsibility must always go beyond simply recording our experiences for posterity; we must also respond for the sake of the present.

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Re-imagination of the home, work and time Reflections on COVID-19 CHIDO MUZANENHAMO Postgraduate Student

STAY AT HOME! STAY AT HOME TO SAVE LIVES. I mean, how difficult could that be? Don’t people want to live?

‘Ndoregedza kubata maoko here?’ (Should I not go and pass my condolences?). On the 26th of March, the first day of the lockdown, I received word from my mother that my aunt at our family homestead in the rural areas had finally succumbed to an illness from which she had suffered for decades. Kubata Maoko is a Shona term which literally means ‘the act of holding hands’. The term is also used to describe the practice of expressing one’s condolences to the recently bereaved, and it involves the act of physically shaking hand. On that day my sister and I would taking turns to phone my mother to discourage her from attending the funeral and commiserating with the rest of the family as our culture requires. The situation seemed paradoxical. While social distancing by staying at home is the best way to avoid a risk of contracting Covid-19, it does not automatically make ‘home’ a safe place. Lefebvre has already argued that understanding the significance of lived experiences and symbolic meanings of space is very important.1 We humans are social beings and because of this, we have the ability to transform different environments for whatever the social occasion demands.

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Covid-19 has invaded our lives to an extent that it is all that we talk and think about.

Everything relates to it. We muse about how we had taken for granted the times when we could be outside and go wherever we wanted. There is constant talk about all of the plans we have when ‘all this is over’. However, what we failed to consider is that there is still something else happening, besides the pandemic. There is life! As the death of my aunt has shown, the cycles of life: birth, schooling, work, other illnesses and eventually, death, – continues unaltered. We experience life by partaking in these and other social activities in different spaces which then have specific symbolic meanings for each one of us.

Likewise, prior to Covid-19, the home was a space where, after the death of a beloved person, people would gather to commiserate. I can imagine that for my uncle and cousins, at present it symbolizes grief accompanied by solitude, and even feelings of abandonment because at a time when love and support are needed, the comfort and company of family is needed, most of us could not be there due to the proviso: STAY AT HOME TO SAVE NOT ONLY YOUR LIFE, BUT ALSO THAT OF OTHERS. Although I clearly empathize with my late aunt’s closest family members, I honestly do not regret that my mother and

relatives did not put themselves at risk by attending the funeral.

I am a huge advocate of the STAY HOME campaign, as I believe that it is safer at home.

Well, these were my thoughts until a week into the lockdown, the following message appeared on my Facebook feed:

STAY HOME TO BE SAFE! Another ‘AHA!’ moment. Until then, my thoughts on Covid-19 really had been focused on my safety and that of my loved ones. Frankly, I was not the only one thinking this way. For instance, in an effort to avoid crowds, I decided to engage in my bulk grocery shopping a week before the lockdown was announced. I now realize what a privileged position I was in to be able to even do this and yet, I was still annoyed to find so many empty shelves in the stores. It was not only the ‘in demand commodities’ of this pandemic that were sold out – the hand wash and sanitizers – also included was meat, eggs and tinned food! The

irritation really came from an instinct for self-preservation; if I had everything I required I wouldn’t have to leave the place I currently call home because if you STAY HOME YOU SAVE LIVES. At that point for me, home equated a safe haven where I could cut off the rest of the world and reconnect with my spouse, who before Covid-19 I had been unable to spend a lot of time with, due to work and school commitments. Home was safe, until I read that message and another reality check hit. Police Minister Bheki Cele reported at a ministerial briefing that the police had received more than 87 000 gender-based violence complaints during the first week of the lockdown2. Suddenly, Covid-19 became less about coughs and sneezes and more about how so many of us were not only feeling trapped but were actually prisoners in our own homes. Most of my university friends, graduates in the School of Human and Community Development, began sending messages with contact details of social workers and psychologists to pass on for both victims of abuse but those whose mental health has been affected by social distancing.

As videos began to be circulated in social media, showing those living in townships and in Hillbrow being chased by the Army and the Police, endless debates 83

were to consider whether the STAY HOME campaign and social distancing in general was an ‘elitist response’ to the COVID-19 pandemic. I found myself defending the State’s response to my cousins who live in Europe, who think the South African government is being excessive in its control of human movement. ‘What about the legacy of Apartheid spatial planning? What about the neoliberal economic policies that have made the SA government embrace the informal economy as a form of job creation, whereas now the very same members of the informal sector are being chased off the streets and cannot make a living?’ It is so frustrating because, yes – by telling people to stock up on food and supplies so that they can stay home and be safe, one is making an assumption that they can afford to store food, or that they have a home to go to, and no – the government is preventing the vulnerable and marginalized from continuing to engage in economic activities, because such overt efforts will save more people from the contracting this disease. It is really a catch twenty-two situation.

And not only for those involved in the informal economy but those formally employed are frequently reminded by their employers that if the lockdown were to continue it may impact on job security. We are living in a climate of fear. We are 84

afraid of contracting Covid-19 but also of losing our source of income. STAY HOME TO STAY SAFE. And yet the home is no longer a place of relaxation but an extension of capital – a production plant for those who engage in immaterial labour.

Thompson argued on how the internalization of time was significant in the shifts from preindustrial task-orientated work to the work routines required by industrial capital.3 And now because we are always at home, for those of us who can work from where we live, our understanding of time is suddenly convoluted.

Some employers are taking advantage of the situation.

My spouse, who is employed as a software developer, is now expected to work up to twelve hours on weekdays and this has not stopped his manager from contacting him on weekends and public holidays to ask for more work.

One of his managers went as far as suggesting that because “none of us is really allowed to go anywhere” due to the lockdown, “we might as well work”. For my spouse, an end to quarantine cannot come any sooner so that he can redefine home to be what it was before; a safe haven, a place of relaxation and rest.

Yet, despite being overworked during this time there is no resistance from him because of the fear of losing an income that is essential to our survival.

Figure 18: Queue outside a Ecocash Outlet in Harare, Zimbabwe, a mobile money transfer platform

When I received the photograph above of a queue one of my relatives was standing in just to receive money, it now made me think, how are we supposed to STAY AT HOME in Africa? A country like Zimbabwe depends so much on remittances from those working in the diaspora just for their extended families to survive. And what if our relatives overseas can’t work from home? Even worse how are we supposed to kubata maoko if they contract Covid-19 away from home in a world that currently has global travel restrictions? Well one of my childhood friends unfortunately had to experience that this weekend when her sibling passed away in the UK from the virus. The family has been told the body will be cremated and the ashes will be sent to Zimbabwe at a later date. Her sibling’s death was announced

on social media and a lot of people found out that way.

So what does this mean?

That Covid-19 has now made virtual space more important than physical space? That we should not only reimagine how we work and live but how we grieve as well, because HOME IS NOT ALWAYS SAFE.

Endnotes

1 Lefebvre H. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford. Basil Blackwell 2 Tshalenga L. 03 April 2020. ‘More than 87 000 GBV complaints received during lockdown’. SABC NEWS. https://www.sabcnews. com/sabcnews/more-than-87-000gbv-complaints-received-duringlockdown/ [Accessed 16 April 2020] 3 Thompson. E.P. 1967. Time Work Discipline. Oxford University Press

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Me as Mirror Dissociation with the Self through the Other JOSHIL NARAN

Postgraduate Student

Heterotopias of Deviation by Foucault 1 are spaces in which people whose behaviors are outside of the normal are placed within. I can’t help but consider that we have added to Heterotopias of Deviation through time from prisons, asylums and cemeteries to the domestic scale of a house - or in some cases a room.

Behavior that is out of the normal seems to be something that we have taken on as a result of this pandemic. This change in behavior is associated to the constant hand washing, social distancing, isolation and lock-downs implemented by the state, making it illegal to leave your home for a nonessential reason. This begins to morph our places of comfort and contentment to spaces of holding. At a time like this one begins to translate spaces of domesticity to spaces of heterotopias through our exchange within them and our surrender to them.

The fabric that maintains our day to day reality when we aren’t bound by lock-down laws seems to be made of a material that is inherently fragile.

Systems of capitalism and rules of professional protocol and procedure begin to melt away through the powerless hands of employers. Working from home is a duality of blessing for some and curse for others. But it does remove the need to travel for non-essential 88

workers. Those displaced by South Africa’s tragic past seem now to receive more time in a day than before. This ‘time’ appears to be an income that one can’t truly earn but is given circumstantially another unfair result of past systems of separation.

Reflecting on these past systems now leaves us introspecting. Capital no longer serves as immunity though it creates much more pleasant circumstances for isolation.

Privilege becomes a term coined with paranoia. Online learning begins to disconnect and social distancing is moved from a measurable separateness to a deeper score on togetherness. In a way, this digital dependency is a realization within itself that we are not as yet a technological species. The threshold from accessing the ‘online’ to connecting to others is still too far apart and noticeably intangible. This is before we begin to talk about being online and networking ‘there’ absolutely.

I wonder what does this mean; our behaviors are different as a result of the time: meaning we have changed now. Not only inwardly-out but outwardly-in.

Not only from self-to-other or other-to-self but also from the self-to-self and other-to-other.

There are overlapping realities for different individuals in

times of crises. I say crises not because of the spread of the virus only, but because of the lack of escapism we are confronted by. The system of capitalism that is the driving force for our realities now fails to exist (non-essentially).

In some ways we are now confronted with an inescapable

the ability to bounce to affirm ones identity (from the other) becomes ineffective.

This futility, I believe, is the beginning of the dissociation of the self through other.

Our changed behavior (and as a result changed spaces) begins to draw abstracted

�

A dissociation as a result of the inability to trust oneself in an inescapable reality poses a much bigger problem that is existential. version of reality with the self and the other.

This idea of the self and other is a curious one. In times when other is lost we tend to lose the self as well. As social beings our make-up of the self can be challenged as the resultant of the other. What is the self without the other? If all our realities are a composite of our individual experiences with the outside - we can also question then, what is the other, without the self?

There is a cause and effect relationship that bounces between these ideas that begin to create identities for us. But when one is removed,

thresholds of in and out. The cause and effect result of this means that the heterotopically deviated space now shows us our dissociation of self through space. A space familiar to us has now become other-space.

We have begun to change our interpretation of that otherspace. Since the closure of public spaces we begin to close the circle of accessibility that stems centre from our home.

For some, that circle is the boundary wall and for others it remains the boundary of the room. But this is pragmatically speaking; the true anxiety of space begins at the boundary of our skin.

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Our lack of ability to trust ourselves not to touch our faces creates a paranoia from the self and within the self. A dissociation as a result of the inability to trust oneself in an inescapable reality poses a much bigger problem that is existential.

directives for isolation and lockdown. The home still remains a centre through which we can access other spaces, but the home itself has become an ‘other-space’ within itself.

The change of place-centrality, direction and path results in a flux of the genius loci. Due

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”

-Arundhati Roy

This leads me to discuss existential space.

Schulz’s work comes to mind when discussing this idea. To look at centre and place2 Schulz mentions that: “man’s space is subjectively centered”. I think that although this idea remains for the majority a subjective perception of centrality, a layer of objective centre is now applied. One’s centre and place stems from either one’s body or one’s home. This centrality now is a part of a reality that we all share - which is following the state’s laws and 90

to the loss of our ability to orientate ourselves not only physically but in the realms of professionalism, academia and even perhaps our sociocultural relations, we remain dissociated. We are caught in a world where we either comply and manage our dissociation through a non-escapist method, or we break the law.

For some it may simply be that their lack of understanding the severity of the virus makes them complacent and they decide to break the law. For

the majority, it is probably the need to deal with ‘less existential’ issues - like hunger.

I do think that this idea of being unsure of the future or an acute unawareness of a new-normal is daunting and anxiety inducing. It affects all consciously, subconsciously or both.

Schulz discusses the idea of being-in-the-world3.

Beingin-the-world means being a part of it. Being a part of the world means interaction with its other parts, including other people. The disconnection of that interaction takes us away from that idea. Are we in the world and if so, what is this world that we are in? And if we can’t define the world we are in, when did this world begin, and when will this version end (if it does)?

This in-the-world vs with-theworld is an interesting idea.

Paulo Fiere in ‘The Pedagogy of the Opressed’ suggests that the world and man are not exclusive entities. The former or latter never precedes or follows the other.

La conscience et le monde sont donnés d’un même coup: extérieur par essence à la conscience, le monde est, par essence, relatif à elle. - JeanPaul Sartre4 Our conscious attention is directed in some ways to the external as something

inaccessible. I believe to some extent that within its inaccessibility our position on its existence is questioned on some subconscious level.

Being unsure of where you are orientated in a space is not exclusive from the time in which there is an unsureness.

Dissociation of the self through other is a space-time heterotopia.

Time as a direct relation to space has interesting notions of causes and effects spatially, for example; the changing of domestic spaces to other-spaces is ephemeral (relatively). To categorize time along with space is important, because time has a spatial response. The world pre-Covid 19 is an old world and the world post-Covid 19 (or more likely a contained Covid 19) is a new one.

“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”

-Arundhati Roy5 Perhaps the anxiety of this space-time heterotopia is simply the realization that we cannot continue as we did in the past. That we are between one world and another, as Roy suggests.

Our changed behavior is noticeable to ourselves.

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This self-awareness is our relationship to the spaces we surrender to - like our homes.

Our homes now contain the potential of unknown and could become tools for generating a new outside-in or rather an inside-in experience or process.

As inside-in is an experience all those isolating are maintaining, it is also an unprecedented experience that we will take with us into the new world. We now have, or will have, access to new spaces in the world.

Spaces that are unchanged by physical architectural elements but rather our perceptions of those spaces. A new-normal that offers new potentials for our humanity in all disciplines and within ourselves.

Simultaneously though, this new-normal is still anthropocentric and perhaps still considers that we ourselves are first in nature’s hierarchy, but that’s an entirely new discussion of space and orientation that is and should be eco-centric (especially considering the viruses speculated origins).

Humans have an inherent need for community and social relations in a physical realm. This means that new considerations of space and new archetypes of togetherspaces will require design.

Architects will inevitably need to hold in one hand the idea of 92

community and social-relation and in the other, ideas of social distancing and quarantine.

Spaces that glue us on a social level are now detrimental and architectural language globally will have to undergo a transformation in which either a new glue is found that is equally accessible and maintainable, or the redesign/ reconsideration of existing archetypes of together-space.

This may be the time to question past notions of social spatial design and reinterpret them in ways that serve us even in times of National States of Disaster. I remain hopeful that the portal serves as an experience that pushes for a resurgence of these new archetypes, in some ways a modern decolonised architectural renaissance.

There is a duality in the way the new world might exist. This portal between worlds will either serve to support the separation between those disadvantaged and those privileged or it might be the call to recognize that humanity is only as strong as the person it supports least.

The new world is an uncertain one, and I think that might be for the best. It is only when we are unsure that the potential to be and do the best we can, might exist.

Endnotes

1 Foucault, (1967), Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias 2 Schulz, (1971), p. 18, Existence, Space and Architecture 3 Schulz, (1971), p. 15, Existence, Space and Architecture 4 “Consciousness and the world are given in one blow (at the same time): Reality is external to consciousness by its very nature, and subject to it, at the same time.” (Fiere, (1970), p. 81, Pedagogy of the Oppressed) 5 ROY, Arundhati. (2020). Arundhati Roy: ‘The pandemic is a portal’.

INTERNET. https://www.ft.com/ content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fefcd274e920ca Cited 12 April 2020.

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COVID-19 Reflections NOEL ODHIAMBO

Undergraduate Student

This essay is derived from a series of observations and thoughts made since the lockdown in South Africa took full effect. It is a simple account of personal experience during this time.

What has happened?

The speed with which COVID-19 spread was not fully appreciated until the lockdown was announced. Before then the coronavirus was, like so many other things, news about some other place and some other people. One of the many troubles broadcasted on the news; reported, observed, partially absorbed and then swiftly pushed to the side by the next story. When the first imported cases were announced, however, one took a moment to pause and allow the information to sink in.

The virus which was afflicting China, Europe and the USA had somehow meandered its way half way across the world to the southern tip of the African continent. It was a shock. But, not a sustained disruption. Life continued and jokes were nonchalantly made surrounding the seriousness of the virus.

However, in what seemed like a flash, the numbers of infected people soared! The foreign epidemic had just turned pandemic. In a rapid flurry of action classes were postponed, students were 96

ordered to evacuate university campuses and what was once a topic of small talk turned into the headline of every news-post around the world. Suddenly the countless cases of conflict, corruption and debate were silenced by a single story: ‘the COVID-19 global pandemic’.

One was left startled and stunned by the speed with which the disease spread.

From regularly attending public gatherings like school and social events, to murmurings of a possible threat, to the introduction of social distancing (a phrase which now seems like it will forever be a part of the global lexicon) and finally a full lockdown. It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Confusion and concern followed. The concern for self, loved ones and classmates forced to travel, so abruptly, home. As the days went by the reality of the situation sank in. It was an odd feeling, as if one were living in limbo between a before-and-after moment in history separated

by COVID-19. As if the history books were being written in real time. With each passing day, the reality of the situation sank in. It was strange to think that such a sudden occurrence threatened to change the way the entire world functions. The medical industry would need to develop protocols to cope with the current crisis. Businesses would close or downsize.

Countless people would lose

their jobs. And most sadly, many would lose their lives.

The fast pace of ‘ordinary’ life had been disrupted; the reset button had been hit. It felt like things had come to a sudden halt. As if we were watching the world floundering and trying to stay afloat.

What observations been made?

have

So evident now, is the socioeconomic power of privilege reflected in the choice of how to use space. The fortunate amongst us are able to choose, not only, whether or not to occupy space, but also, what spaces to occupy, and to what degree the spaces we occupy are public or private.

A fortunate member of society can go from the public arena,

homeless/displaced peoples) or live in a private home which is shared so densely that the danger of cross contamination is in fact higher than that of a vagabond roaming the streets.

The migration from the physical to the virtual realm has also been more apparent than ever.

The pandemic has resulted in an astronomical jump in the usage of video calling services like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, showing how, despite the inability to meet in person, companies and individuals have simply migrated their place of meeting to the virtual realm. No longer is physicality necessary for collaboration and communication. The bricks and mortar of the age have been replaced by the computer and the internet connection.

So evident now, is the socioeconomic power of privilege reflected in the choice of how to use space. to their home, and then to a specific room within that home- with a threshold of privacy present at each link of the chain. Conversely, the underprivileged are forced to either occupy the public arena and try to carve out their own sanctuary within the formidable urban landscape (in the case of

�

However, even online the inequality of the haves and have nots is blatantly obvious: those who cannot afford the data premiums do not have access to the online world.

Therefore, it is evident during this time how much the vulnerable and underprivileged are disadvantaged. Not only in 97

the physical spaces of the city but in the digital space of the world.

What do these observations mean to a student of the built environment?

There are still huge disparities between the haves and the have nots which is evident in the use of space by different groups of people. However, despite this, the gap we see in the digital realm is far narrower than that of the physical, and so this presents the most efficient, most widely accessible ‘space’ for design.

The digital realm presents us with a world in which trial and error can be quick and nondestructive, the barriers of space are virtually non-existent and the formats of accessibility are abundant. The issues that affect the built environment are deep-seated and require years of development and buy-in from a variety of parties. This does not negate the need for spatial practitioners to design in physical space, but presents a need for a more rapid rate of development to meet the societal demand.

Perhaps then the new technological frontier is where design thinking needs to be adopted more than ever.

The designer cannot solve a lot of societal issues in the physical world, but the digital realm presents a possible democratization and levelling 98

of access to information.

Perhaps then, the focus should be to give as many people as possible the tools needed to uplift themselves, to improve their situation, through their access to the Internet.

Architecture relies on investment and time to bring change. Online, however, one can create the tools needed for individuals to: educate themselves, find employment, conduct capital transactions.

Can architectural thinking help in this medium? The same principles of: context, purpose, place, site analysis, could potentially be used to begin to build the intangible architectures which will enable people to empower themselves in order to have access to physical spaces.

This is not a pessimistic approach, nor is it some sort of magic solution to complex societal issues, it is a simple asking of a question. A shifting of focus. To design and build in both stone and software.

To use technology to benefit as many people as possible, more efficiently. The building will always be essential to civilization but increasingly the limits of physical space, and the associated bureaucracies and inequalities, are being subverted online.

Design is about people.

Making life better for all people. The medium is subject

to change but the thinking can be mobilized indefinitely.

At the present time it is evident that many established systems rely on collaboration and communication between people, but also that this interaction need not, necessarily, be in the physical realm. Therefore, architects and designers may need to expand our focus to solve problems outside of physicality.

I am aware that the IT professional already occupies the digital realm, but what I suggest is an interdisciplinary approach to design. An awareness of thinking in both realms (physical and digital) and an exploration of what is possible as a result of a ‘cross-pollination’. We have seen form follow function, but perhaps it is time for function to transcend form.

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Tribulations of the Broken SIHLE PASURAYI

Undergraduate Student

“As a consequence, the National Corona Virus Command Council has decided to enforce a nationwide lockdown for twenty-one days with effect from midnight on Thursday, 26 March”: President Cyril Ramaphosa’s voice filled the room. I was sitting in front of my uncle’s rather expensive television set as the president’s daunting words struck a dull fear in my heart. I felt overwhelmed by the news and thoughts began churning in my head. What would be the implications for my education?

For my family? For me?

“Shit”: a loud expletive from my uncle, whose hoarse voice filled the room, bringing me back to the unpleasant reality. He is not one to mince his words. I lifted my head and looked in his direction. My uncle’s face revealed a total disbelief. My aunt, who hates foul language looked at him with shock.

A smile crept onto my face.

Uncle Sam and aunt Zoliswa are both beautiful people, and they represent everything that I admire - everything I would have wanted my parents to be.

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My attention turned back to the television, where a female reporter was now giving us more information about the virus. “COVID-19, that is the name given to the virus that is currently turning the world upside down she said. The respiratory virus has demanded attention, and it is getting the attention it wants. According to the National Institute for Communicable diseases the Corona virus can be found in both humans and animals. In humans, it is known to infect the nose, sinus or upper throat.

The outbreak of the virus has quickly spread throughout the world, changing life as we know it; changes that would have seemed unimaginable.

No one is safe, no amount of money, power, or respect could protect one from the virus”. I felt a wave of strong emotion and of panic. My uncle stood up and switched off the television.

“All right”: he said: “Bed time!”

I made my way slowly and reluctantly to my own room, which is ‘my safe place’. My room has been a sanctuary and I have called my uncle and aunt’s house a home for the

past twelve months. I threw myself onto the bed, hoping that I would be able to sleep.

I was just dropping off when the cell-phone rang. It has a harsh and unpleasant ringtone and I had been meaning to change it. “Hello”, I said. “You need to come home today. You cannot be a burden on your aunt and uncle at a time like this. I want you back in my house by 5pm today”. When I heard my father’s voice shouting on the other end of the phone, I felt both anger and disgust. “All right”, I mumbled and ended the call. I sat up in my bed and looked about the room. I would have to return to my parents’ house, which is a ‘hell-hole’.

The Lord knows how much I hate going home. I only ever go there when I begin missing my mother.

I made my way back to the small RDP house my father calls ‘home’. It is not a home!

I was welcomed by my mother, who looked beautiful and delicate. She had lost some weight since the last time I had seen her, about two

weeks earlier. I looked into her beautiful eyes. I could see the misery. She smiled at me, and I noticed a new bruise on the right side of her face. Nothing had changed. My father would not ever change. I loathed him with my every fibre of my body.

“Mom, why did I have to come back?” I whispered to her. “I’m sorry” she answered, “There was nothing I could do. Your father resents the fact that you have to stay with my sister and brother-in-law. It makes him feel inferior, and damages his ego”. My mother’s voice was soothing and gentle. “Why do you not want to leave Mom? Uncle Sam and Aunt Zoliswa have offered to take you in too. I begged her, with tears filling my eyes: “Please leave this man before he really hurts you”. “Shh!” she said, afraid he might hear: “He really loves me, Nomsa. I cannot leave him. I am his lifeline. I am the reason he breathes. You are still too young to understand these things. He is ashamed of our poverty and only allows you to stay with my sister because he cannot afford to give you transport money to go to school

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on a daily basis�. I went through to the small living-room, a place which held memories of horror.

The room held memories that would remain embedded in my soul, of my father beating my mother.

My father is the kind of man who lives and breathes for alcohol, it consumes his entire being.

According to my mother, he started drinking alcohol when he was thirteen-years-old. She says it never really bothered her until he lost his job at the mines and could not afford to buy alcohol anymore. That is when the violence started.

He took out his frustration by beating my mother. It became a routine. He would thrash her until she was badly hurt. I cannot find words to describe how I felt when I saw my mother lying on the floor, motionless, after having been beaten.

At present he takes on parttime jobs here and there. He doesn’t do anything productive with the money he makes. As soon as he is paid, he makes his way to the local tavern.

With this new virus affecting our lives, I am not sure how things will pan out. I wonder how he is going to get money 104

to buy alcohol, now that he is not allowed to go out and do odd jobs, and there is a new restriction against the buying and selling of alcohol that has been put in place by Minister Bheki Cele. My father is moody and irritable whenever he does not consume alcohol. It is very frightening living in a house with him.

The first few days of the lockdown have been dreadful.

The atmosphere in the house is appalling. I hardly ever leave my room. My room is a bolthole, the only place where I can escape from my father; it is my safe space. The situation in the house has been very uncomfortable and volatile.

My mother brings hot bowls of soup to my bedroom. She is a wonderful person! She is the reason I am working hard at school, so that I can earn a salary and get her out of this predicament. She is a good mother who prepares meals for me, sees that I have some pretty clothes and cares for me in every way. When I have had my supper and am ready to sleep she sings a lullaby which is my favourite hymn:

MWARI muri zura redu Rinopenya pauzuru Asi mweya ungaone Paunozofamba napo Mwari muri nhowo yedu Hatidzityi hondo dzedu Dzose dzinokundwa nemi Tigouya nokufara Munotipa ngoni dzenyu Munotipa noutsvene Munopa vanonamata Munopa makomborero Makomborero makuru Makomborero ewedenga Aripo avanofunga Kuti anodiswa nemi.

I awake to the sound of someone screaming in agony.

The sounds of screaming is filling the house. It is coming from my parents’ bedroom.

I think to myself: “Here we go again”. Suddenly the noise stops. I am so afraid I cannot move. I think that she may have passed out. I get slowly out of bed and make my way to my parents’ bedroom. I stop when I hear my father’s cries on the other side of the wall. I stand in front of the closed door for about two minutes, then

I gather the courage to reach for the old rusty door handle. I twist the handle ever so slowly, then begin to push the door open. When the door is fully ajar, I make my way across the threshold. My father is sitting on the edge of the bed with a knife in his hands, covered in blood. My father looks up at me with tear-filled eyes. “What have you done?” I whisper.

He looks away to avoid eye contact. I move across the room to where my father is seated. On the floor lies the lifeless corpse of my mother…

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Reflections on COVID-19: Social Distancing and Self Isolation YEHUDA SEGAL

Postgraduate Student

“In the realm of infectious diseases, a pandemic is the worst case scenario. When an epidemic spreads beyond a country’s borders, that’s when the disease officially becomes a pandemic.1” Through the COVID-19 virus we are seeing new divisions and conversely new partnerships, at both the level of the local and the global. The pandemic is interrupting the ease of trade and connectivity and the reciprocity between countries, which is of such benefit to trade and economic growth. It is also a phenomenon, that in reverse, nations are cooperating: - to some extent pooling their medical knowledge, with collective effort to find a vaccine, rather than competitive secrecy in medical research. The real effects and outcomes that the novel coronavirus will have on the world will only be understood in time. This essay will explore the changes we are seeing now; the new norms of society and societal behaviour, as well the impact it is having across the world. It will also discuss the actions and responses to the pandemic, and comment on the way it has affected the use of spaces from an architectural 108

and urban viewpoint. The use of references will be made clear where necessary, however new information is available almost daily, and this represents a challenge for academic writing in a context where source material is quickly made obsolete. For the most part, the writing will describe the pandemic’s effect on my own experience, both directly and indirectly.

History of pandemics From the onset, the images seen in many people’s minds were most likely those of former pandemics and epidemics – Ebola2, Spanish Flu3, MERS4, SARS5, and even the Black Death – more commonly referred to as The Plague or simply Plague6.

During the Middle Ages, this bacterial disease killed millions of people in Europe and Asia, devastating both people and animals, destroying entire towns and villages. Europeans

were not equipped for the terrible reality of the Black Death. The Black Death was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious and pernicious.

People who were perfectly healthy when they went to bed at night could be dead by morning.

Doctors refused to see patients; priests refused to administer the last rites; and shopkeepers closed their stores. Many people fled the cities for the countryside, but the plague struck down livestock as well as people. One of the consequences of the Black Death was a European wool shortage. Desperate to save themselves, many people even abandoned sick and dying loved ones.

In the Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa officials were able to slow its spread by keeping arriving sailors in isolation until it was clear they were not carrying the disease —creating social distancing that relied on isolation to slow the spread of the disease.

Sailors were at first held on their ships for 30 days (a trentino), a period that was later increased to 40 days, or (a quarantino) —the origin of the term. The advent of modern sanitation and public-health practices has greatly mitigated the impact of the disease.

Past pandemics spread due to the extensive trade

routes stretching between Europe and Asia, and today, the global trade and tourism industry sees the transport of millions of people and goods across the world. This makes containing a pandemic that much more difficult – even with the advancement of medical and scientific knowledge; especially when the virus has not been identified before.

Plague during the Middle Ages influenced the design of cities and the management of spaces. Walled cities or citadels had gates that could be shut, allowing for the isolation of citizens.

Currently diseases spread across the globe with facility due to the speed and frequency of travel. The Media have kept us informed with a medical jargon, reassuringly academic in tone, and somewhat removed from our own dayto-day experience. I live with an elderly grandmother and a mother both of whom suffer from comorbidities. Every time I go out to do the shopping for the house, I am putting myself, and by extension, both of them at risk of being infected by the virus. The stress and anxiety as a result of this is overwhelming.

Finding the motivation to be productive during times such as these, is extremely difficult.

Reaction to the Pandemic The facts of the virus are provided via media outlets, 109

influencing public perceptions.

Akin to a ‘father figure’, the President addresses us– speaking to the Nation and often releasing the latest figures in weekly broadcasts.

Reaction has ranged from panic buying of toilet paper to the stock-piling of soap and sanitisers.

The public has reacted with alarm.

Prior to the outbreak, people enjoyed leisure- shopping which was both light-hearted and acquisitive. With many shops closed for the time being, recreational spending is not an option and society has developed a greater awareness of hygiene. The virus is reshaping attitudes towards our needs in addition to our spending behaviour, resulting in the realisation that the living of a more simple life has its own rewards.

Conspiracy theories have multiplied. Theories on the possible origin of the virus, questioning its zoonotic source or positting its creation in a Chinese laboratory; questioning the mode of transmission, postulating that a radio wave- particularly 5Gis responsible for the spread of infection. Obviously, the thought that a virus or bacteria created in a lab is possible, particularly with modern-day knowledge and understanding of diseases, has been a longtime concern and fear with visions of catastrophic bio110

warfare.

South Africa acted promptly and sternly to institute a lockdown.

We have been forced to consider the difference between important activities and those unnecessary to our daily survival. The hard crackdown on the sale of substances during the lockdown- alcohol and cigarettes - has been met with illegal activities and bootlegging, but also with opposition from numerous local bodies and organisations.

The consequence of the pandemic counters current trends of globalization; the advent of travel has transformed our experiences of proximity, reducing the globe in size. But now, planes have been grounded and world events canceled.

The result of the current crisis – much like the experiences of war and disaster is that everything is altered. As human beings we tend to establish comfort zones, daily habits and rituals. We are now forced to revisit many of our favourite assumptions. There is uncertainty, a fear of the unknown.

These changing circumstances are testing the relationships of individuals, family, friends, and the larger community, altering different societal experiences.

The psychological, emotional or physical effects on people

will have taken its toll. Couples will possibly find living together, or being apart, a challenge, while parents will struggle to deal with their children – who require attention – while trying to balance work and household chores. People who live alone may find it difficult.

The lockdown also regulates that any exercise outside one’s home, is severely restricted.

The constraints on physical activity, which is shown in many studies to be a great way to cope with stress, will ultimately affect people’s sense of wellbeing.

Healthcare workers are overburdened and run a greater risk of being infected with the virus. They are afraid, and there is an added stain for their own mental health. A healthcare worker abroad took her own life so as not to infect others after discovering she was herself infected7.

Public spaces are now often deserted and sightings of animal and wildlife movements have delighted people as well as the improved air quality and beautiful skies.

As human beings we have an innate need for social connection and interaction: to form relationships with others.

Most religions see gatherings as an important aspect of the practice and observances, whether during prayer, festivals or holy days, or on

occasions such as weddings or funerals. I am Jewish, and I have observed holidays and Shabbat throughout my life.

In Judaism, a pivotal aspect involved in observance, is synagogue attendance on Shabbat and Festivals. This is temporarily not possible, and people are required to pray and observe in their homes. in weekly broadcasts.

On many festivals and Shabbats, people host guests, yet now, even family is required to self-isolate.

During this pandemic, the Jewish holiday of Pesach8 was observed. Usually, it is observed by attending services at synagogues, hosting family and friends at the Seder9 and other meals. This year however we were all in isolation, and especially for Orthodox Jews, we were unable to speak with or see family even virtually.

On a Jewish holy day such as Shabbat or a festival, part of the observance includes refraining from doing prohibited acts: switching on electrical appliances or cooking. Any form of virtual communication falls into this category. The holiday commemorates the biblical exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. It is a time when freedom to practice our faith is celebrated, yet this year, isolation was imposed.

Funerals are held with precautions such as a limiting of numbers. I attended a funeral 111

for a great-aunt who passed away and the difficulty in being unable to be there for my grandmother during this time has been hard on the entire family. In Judaism, mourners sit Shiva10 for a week following a funeral and prayers are held at the mourner’s residence where the Kaddish11 is recited.

However, self-isolation and social distancing has put a halt to this practice, and on top of the psychological and emotional strain of the crises, grief is the only companion for the mourners.

To contend with the varying psychological and emotional stresses and anxieties relating to the pandemic and its resultant effects on social life, has been difficult for myself.

Added to this, the death of my aunt and the inability to be there physically for the family has been an added strain on my mental wellbeing. Dealing with my own mind has been a challenge, particularly in connection to experiencing loneliness while in self-isolation. Obviously we are all facing some of the same problems, but our own minds are sometimes our own worst enemies.

I am naturally an introvert, so being comfortable in social contexts is something I have had to work on, primarily over the last two years. With the lockdown I have not been able to improve my confidence or 112

my social skills.

The Response of the Architectural Profession As architects and space planners, the world relies on our services to design many various building typologies.

Currently, once fully occupied commercial buildings were packed with office workers and today, many of these are standing almost empty as a result of social distancing and self-isolation. In contrast, hospitals and healthcare service providers are struggling to meet the demand for their spaces, and, the shortage of beds per infected patient is a problem the world over. This is of particular concern with intensive care units, which is where many patients requiring hospitalisation – due to the severity of the virus – need to be hospitalised, many with ventilators to assist in their breathing.

Locally this is a big issue, and the disproportionate number of beds in relation to expected patient numbers is frightening.

Also, the imbalance in the public healthcare system in comparison to the private system is another concern.

Hospitals are the ultimate breeding ground for any disease, no matter the extents of sanitary precautions taken, as the close proximity of medical workers to patients increases the likelihood of

further transmission.

How can architects inform and change the way healthcare spaces are used and made adaptable? What can be done to ensure the better use of spaces and the more welcoming environment of hospitals and clinics, so as to

stopped for a while as a result of the drastic measures put in place to halt the spread of disease. New reports indicate that New Zealand has just about ‘eliminated’ Covid-19 as the result of strict lockdown measures taken over the last few weeks12.

”

What can be done to ensure spaces are able to promote social distancing and selfisolation without causing mental issues in countless individuals and almost halting the economic growth of a country entirely? promote the healing process of patients, but also the happiness of healthcare workers? What can be done to ensure spaces are able to promote social distancing and self-isolation without causing mental issues in countless individuals and almost halting the economic growth of a country entirely?

It was reported a few weeks back that in China- albeit for a limited time – the rate of transmission slowed and locally-transmitted cases had

Currently, various designers and architects have proposed a number of interesting solutions to combating this pandemic.

Such ideas as designer masks and the increase in available space for intensive care units have been widely reported.

Italian architects Carlo Ratti and Italo Rota have designed an intensive-care pod within a shipping container that could be added to hospitals fighting the coronavirus pandemic13.

One start-up known as Jupe, 113

has designed an easilytransported pop-up hospital.14 Initially intended for use as shelters in times of disaster, the designers say that these pods can be reconfigured for various uses. China was also praised for its 10-day construction of a new hospital to provide an additional 1000 beds at an earlier stage of the pandemic.15 In a variety of other situations, public buildings and spaces have been converted into makeshift ‘hospitals’, and the institution of drive-through testing stations has made the process of carrying out large scale testing easier on healthcare systems.

Volkswagen has made its Port Elizabeth plant available as a temporary medical facility during this crisis16.

Homes are likely to be viewed differently, especially due to the new reality of the manner in which we now use our spaces. Elements such as natural ventilation and sunlight penetration into spaces are important. The use of mechanically recirculated air is one way of ensuring the continuity of a disease.

Consideration of material use is also important in future, as the current virus has the ability to remain on different surfaces for varying lengths of time.

Economic Repercussions Apocalyptic images come to mind when one thinks 114

of the outcome once the coronavirus comes under control. According to reports in South Africa, there is a strong possibility of anywhere from 370 00017 to 1 000 00018 job losses, thus having a devastating effect on the economy- but mainly on those who will be left unemployed at the end of the day. The way in which economies will recover remains to be seen.

Conclusion Historical pandemic outbreaks help in the understanding of and the way prevention measures are put in place during times of crisis. The fear associated with the unknown is naturally a result of the uncertainty and panic which prevails in society at such a time. All people are affected by the outbreak, be it directly or indirectly, and the loss of life due to the disease is thought provoking.

This pandemic will change the world physically, psychologically and economically in ways we cannot foretell. If anything is to be determined from this and considered, it is how we can ensure that the “new normal” will enable a return to a reality where we are more “human” – more grateful for the lives we have and the people who surround us, because no one is guaranteed to live a lengthy life, especially not during such uncertain times.

Endnotes:

1 https://www.history.com/topics/ middle-ages/pandemics-timeline 2 Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is a rare and deadly disease in people and nonhuman primates. https:// www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/index.html 3 The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. https://www.cdc.gov/ flu/pandemic-resources/1918pandemic-h1n1.html 4 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome; an illness caused by a virus (more specifically, a coronavirus) called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). https:// www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/ 5 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome; Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus called SARSassociated coronavirus (SARSCoV). https://www.cdc.gov/sars/ 6 The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the mid-1300s. https:// www.history.com/topics/middleages/black-death 7 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ news/2020/03/25/italian-nursecommits-suicide-another-683people-die-coronavirus/ 8 Jewish term for the Passover festival. http://english. oxforddictionaries.com/Pesach 9 a Jewish ritual service and ceremonial dinner for the first night or first two nights of Passover. http://english.oxforddictionaries. com/Seder 10 a period of seven days’ formal

mourning for the dead, beginning immediately after the funeral. http://english.oxforddictionaries. com/shiva 11 An ancient Jewish prayer sequence regularly recited in the synagogue service, including thanksgiving and praise and concluding with a prayer for universal peace; a form of the Kaddish recited for the dead. http://english.oxforddictionaries. com/Kaddish 12 https://edition.cnn. com/2020/04/28/asia/newzealand-coronavirus-outbreakelimination-intl-hnk/index.html 13 https://www.dezeen. com/2020/03/24/shippingcontainer-intensive-care-unitscoronavirus-covid-19-carlo-ratti/ 14 https://www.fastcompany. com/90486733/these-pop-uphospital-rooms-are-designed-tohelp-increase-the-capacity-totreat-coronavirus-patients 15 https://www.archdaily. com/933080/china-completeshospital-in-10-days-to-fightwuhans-coronavirus 16 https://www.timeslive.co.za/ motoring/news/2020-05-05volkswagen-to-convert-pe-plantinto-temporary-covid-19-medicalfacility/ 17 https://businesstech.co.za/news/ business/387987/coronavirusshock-could-lead-to-over-370000job-losses-in-south-africa-reservebank/ 18 https://www.fin24.com/Economy/ South-Africa/coronavirus-sabusiness-alliance-expects-1-millionjob-losses-economy-to-contractby-10-20200414

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We would like to extend our appreciation to all staff and students that submitted essays for the “Reflections on COVID-19: Social Distancing and Self-Isolation� call for papers. While some entries may not have been included in this collection, we thank all the contributors and acknowledge them below: Ally Kotty, Sumaiyah Boshoff, Natasha Burkimsher, Kady Croker, Justine Durman, Jonathan Faboye, Samson Felix, Sandra Gaule, Sally Gibbon, Declan Gwebu, Nomonde Harris, Charna Harvey, Liam Ingham, Arabella Koti, Buhlebenkosi Maake, Mosima Mabhachi, Britney Mare, Alexander Master, Milan Mathane, Tlou Phillemon Mathibela, Nonhlanhla Modiba, Jeffrey Msipha, Langelihle Muzanenhamo, Chido Naran, Joshil Ndovela, Mfundo Ngidi, Smangaliso Norton-esau, Roxanne Ntsoane, Kopano Odhiambo, Noel Ohlson De Fine, Tammy-lee Pasurayi, Sihle Pieterse, Sinead Pillay, Sarita and Maina, Miriam Ravele, Mutondi Segal, Amy Segal, Yehuda Shange, Thabiso Todes, A., Harrison, P. and Rubin, M

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