Johannesburg climate change observatory: scale of temporality: architecture as a mediator
Date
2015-04-30
Authors
Thomson, Alexander
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Abstract
The population of the city of Gauteng is expected to double by 2055 (Landau and Gindrey, 2008),
which in turn is expected to exacerbate the effects of climate change within the city of Johannesburg.
As pressure from the growing population and climate change mounts, existing open space will have to
be assessed and its value will determine its function on a natural, social and economic level.
This thesis explores the distinct spatial condition of the Johannesburg ridge as a contested landscape
of sensitive ecologies and cultures. These remaining fragments of ecological infrastructures within the
city can manifest spaces of encounters and introduce a discussion about climate change and the
future.
This dissertation investigates architecture’s mediating role in the contested landscapes, both physical
and psychological. In terms of the physical landscape, any architectural interventions erected on the
ridge would need to act as a mediator between the sensitive ridge ecology and the temporality of its
diverse multicultural user composition. Design spaces and their proposed uses would need to work
towards promoting a successful balance between different modes of knowledge.
I propose a research institute located on the Melville Koppies West (MKW) ridge that will provide an
interface between science and society that is accessible to the public. For the purpose of this
dissertation I will call the research institute the Johannesburg Climate Change Observatory (JCCO).
By creating a platform where different constituencies can overlap, new meanings can be negotiated
and a cross-pollination of knowledge can thrive. I have studied the contested landscape extensively
and have documented my observations through a series of interviews, photographs, mappings,
sketches and physical models.
The general consensus in the scientific community is that if we do not change the way we think about
climate change by the year 2045 we will reach a point of no return for our planet. The JCCO is
constructed to be dismantled because of the sensitive nature of the site and as a commentary on the
nature of climate change. The intervention then becomes an extension of the site, improving
ecological function and extending the existing sacred landscape. This in turn preserves the evolving
palimpsest that is the Melville Koppies.
As climate change affects communities all over the world the JCCO will become a critical intervention
against entrenched practices that are contributing to climate change. It is a building typology that has
been constructed through understanding the social dimensions of a physical phenomenon in a
particular place, and is one that should be considered everywhere as each intervention of this nature
needs to emerge from a similarly meaningful understanding relevant to the dynamics of different sites.
The MKW presents a unique opportunity to preserve an ancient ecological landscape, to maintain an
active cultural landscape, and at the same time, by respecting both, to create a new space that could
give rise to new ideas and paradigms that in turn will lead to the transformative change required to
address climate change.