School of Architecture and Planning

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A picture speaks a thousnd words: understanding women's migration in Johannesburg using visual diaries
(Routledge, 2010-09-23) Kihato, Caroline
Using the visual diaries of a group of African women migrants now living in Johannesburg, this article explores what is now termed "ferminization of migration". It does this less by drawing attention to the fact that women are moving than by using women's own images and narratives to reveal dimensions of that experience that have yet to be understood. Centralto the article's arguement is the assertion that images communicate to us in ways that can reveal not only the material conditions of groups that are often hidden from view, but also their own local political locations, and society's own assumptions about them. Women's visual diaries and their narrative reveal the ways in which they negotiate structural impendiments of asylum offialdom, police harassment, patriarchy, unemployment and poverty. The research argues that current understanding of the ferminization of migration fail to reveal the socio-cultural and political complexities of women's mobility on the African continent.
Abramowitch, Punshow & Schneider Architects. Juliana. Black & white photograph. 230X142.
(2012-02-10) Abramowitch, Punshow & Schneider Architects
Abramowitch, Punshow & Schneider Architects. Juliana. Black & white photograph. 230X142.
Abramowitch, S A.(Architect) Pocardi Restaurant. Black and white photograph.
(2012-02-10) Abramowitch, S A
Abramowitch, S A.(Architect) Pocardi Restaurant. Black and white photograph.
Abramowitch, S A.(Architect) Pocardi's Restaurant. Black and white photograph.
(2012-02-10) Abramowitch, S A
Abramowitch, S A.(Architect) Pocardi's Restaurant. Black and white photograph.
Abramowitch, S A.(Architect) Hatherley Hall. 1957. Black and white photograph. 245X192
(2012-02-10) Abramowitch, S A
Abramowitch, S A.(Architect) Hatherley Hall. 1957. Black and white photograph. 245X192
Abramowitch, S A.(Architect) House Abramowitch. 1957. Black and white photograph. 165X213
(2012-02-10) Abramowitch, S A
Abramowitch, S A.(Architect) House Abramowitch. 1957. Black and white photograph. 165X213
Accessing the State: Everyday Practices and Politics in the South
(Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2011) Benit Gbaffou, Claire
This special issue explores everyday practices and politics of accessing the state and state resources from a southern perspective. The collection of papers documents low-income residents’ everyday relationships with the state, through the study of actual practices of interaction with a range of state representatives at the local level (councilors and officials, at various levels of local government). Formal and informal, legal and illegal, confrontational and cooperative, we analyze the multiple tactics of engagement with the state by low-income residents to understand the extent to which they allow access to state resources and to degrees of state recognition, even in contexts of mass poverty, informality and scarce public resources. The modes of interaction with the state also embody and frame low-income residents’ representations of the state, of their expectations, and of their own citizenship. This special issue thus critically draws together a wide-ranging and important debate on governance, and the relationships it constructs between state and civil society. The main question we thus raise in this special issue is how the dynamics of governance reform, with attempted development or deepening of both decentralization and participation, affect everyday practices to access the state and the resulting politics that shape state-society relations in southern contexts. Collectively, the articles in the special issue reflect on the ways in which low-income citizens access to the state challenges existing theories of the state and democracy. Stemming from a research programme entitled ‘The Voices of the Poor in Urban Governance: Participation, Mobilisation and Politics in South African Cities’, this special issue focuses on South African cities primarily but not exclusively. Although the contexts examined have their own specificities, we argue that they provide an interesting and critical context in which to work through the debate from a Southern perspective. South African societies are specific in the huge expectations residents have in the post-apartheid state, and in the ways that ideals continue to be framed in modernist terms, as emblematized by policies of mass public housing delivery and effort towards mass access to urban services. The state, even if it is not so powerful, remains at the core of representations and expectations especially of lower income residents (Borges 2006) – mass urban protests which continue to rise in South African cities today show the disappointment of these expectations rather than a disregard, ignorance or avoidance of the State (Bénit-Gbaffou 2008, Alexander 2010). Attempts to address the gaps between expectation and public delivery have taken the form of major local government restructuring in a post-apartheid context, relying extensively on principles of good governance (decentralization, democratization as well as new public management principles). However, these expectations and experiences of confrontation of civil society with the state co-exist with everyday practices of negotiation, seeking of favours, and clientelism, which also shape residents’ access to resources, and more broadly their representations of the state and the construction of their urban citizenship (Oldfield and Stokke 2004). The South African case is thus particularly relevant to study the interaction between the modern state and good governance ideals, and practices of ‘political society’.
Acid mine drainage and its governance in the Gauteng City-Region
(2015-05) Bobbins, Kerry
Acid mine drainage (AMD) in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) has been described in the media as a ticking time bomb after it was officially reported to have begun surfacing from old mining works on the West Rand in 2002 (Masondo et al., 2011; TAU SA, 2011; Slack, 2013). Acid mine drainage occurs when ‘fool’s gold’ (FeS2) or iron pyrite found in mined rock oxidises. This occurs when either underground mine shafts, or crushed conglomerate in Mine Residue Areas (MRAs) on the surface, become exposed to oxygen and water creating run-off that is very high in sulphates – effectively sulphuric acid – and is hazardous to both humans and the environment (McCarthy 2010). Over the last decade, a flurry of news articles have highlighted the threat of acid water decant and its likely effects on human health, the environment, water quality, municipal infrastructure and building foundations in the Johannesburg Central Business District (CBD). These reports have fuelled anxieties around when and where decant will take place and who will be affected by AMD. In response to these concerns, government, through the National Department of Water Affairs (DWA), has introduced a set of immediate and short-term interventions to overcome decant in the West Rand. These have allowed AMD to be framed as an environmental emergency. DWA has also set in motion a process to develop a long-term solution that, through a broader and more inclusive approach, will solve various AMD issues over time including its impact on the Gauteng water supply. In relation to both these two government interventions – the immediate/short and long-term solutions – very few stakeholders or members of the public know enough about AMD and its governance to understand what the real challenges are and how they should respond. Even fewer are able to piece together the series of events that led up to the current and proposed set of actions taken by DWA to tackle AMD. This paper argues that the current trajectory of government-led responses has suspended meaningful public engagement and debate, and the result is a grey cloud of misinterpreted facts and presumed motives that has cast a shadow of misunderstanding, which in turn exacerbates the anxieties of affected communities and interested stakeholder groups
Adventures in City Data: An Ethnographic Story
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2022-12) Shirley Robinson
South Africa is urbanising rapidly, and its economic landscape is continuously changing as a consequence. In this context, city governments and urban scientists have long called for better access to city economic data. The National Treasury has reinforced this demand, insisting that intra-city economic data is critical in order to improve planning, performance and investment in South Africa’s cities. A wealth of data is collected by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) in the course of its routine operations assessing the tax obligations of companies and individual taxpayers. In addition to its bureaucratic purpose, this data represents an enormous potential resource for a detailed understanding of the urban economy. Until recently, this resource has been underutilised because it was not available in an anonymised and geocoded form. At a practical level, however, the significant amount of energy and time required to access, clean and align administrative datasets to make them usable is not generally understood. This GCRO Occasional Paper presents an ethnographic account of a decade-long journey in city economic data collation by the author who, as a long-term technical advisor to the National Treasury’s Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC), led the work on the city economic data programme in support of the first phase of the National Treasury’s Cities Support Programme (CSP). After observing the critical need for anonymised and geocoded economic administrative data in policy formulation and urban research, this paper examines the reasons for the limited availability of datasets able to show the location of economic activity and employment at a disaggregated local level. The paper details how the National Treasury’s collaboration with the World Bank in 2016 to produce the Urbanisation Review of South Africa stimulated and directed the efforts of GTAC and the Economies of Regions Learning Network (ERLN) to pursue official sources of city-level administrative data. The paper goes on to recount subsequent National Treasury/CSP collaborations with Statistics South Africa, SARS and the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) to collect and collate anonymised and geocoded city economic data from sources other than national general surveys. Despite progress, these efforts were ultimately stymied due to practical and governance constraints. Nevertheless, in a parallel process, these collaborations ultimately bore fruit in the establishment of a secure administrative data centre at the National Treasury that stores anonymised data, which can then be geocoded using postal codes. This secure data centre in turn, after the author had left the process, ultimately provided a foundation for the milestone publication of the 2021 City Spatial Economic Data Reports. The paper concludes by reflecting on the insights from this ethnographic account around possibilities for improving the integrity of the city spatial economic data resource, and enhancing its use in credible, evidence-based urban analysis. First, these conclusions highlight broader institutional and public management concerns in the current governance environment on which future steps to improve the city spatial economic data will depend. Second, the paper points out that, despite the long journey travelled, business classification uncertainty still remains. Solving these governance and data puzzles may further enhance the incredible potential that such a rich data resource holds for evidence-based policy aimed at creating a more just and equal society in South Africa.
African Architect; a Journal devoted to the interests of the Architectural Profession in South Africa
(Institutes of South African Architects and the Chapter of South African Quantity Surveyors, 1914)
African Architect; a Journal devoted to the interests of the Architectural Profession in South Africa
African Architect; the Journal of the Association of Transvaal Architects
(Institutes of South African Architects and the Chapter of South African Quantity Surveyors, 1911)
African Architect; the Journal of the Association of Transvaal Architects
African Architect; the Journal of the Association of Transvaal Architects
(Institutes of South African Architects and the Chapter of South African Quantity Surveyors, 1912)
African Architect; the Journal of the Association of Transvaal Architects
African Architect; the Journal of the Association of Transvaal Architects
(Institutes of South African Architects and the Chapter of South African Quantity Surveyors, 1913)
African Architect; the Journal of the Association of Transvaal Architects
Aiton Court: Relocating Conservation between Poverty and Modern Idealism
(International committee for documentation and conservation of buildings, sites and neighbourhoods of the modern movement, 2013-01) le Roux, Hannah; Hart, Brendan; Mayat, Yasmin
Aiton Court, in Johannesburg, is a case study in how heritage and economics clash in economically constrained cities. This iconic and formally innovative Modern apartment block from 1937 is located in an area where the income levels of tenants are now very low. Although the building is protected by legislation, the viability of its restoration is being further tested by a rent boycott. The article covers the building’s history, and questions how to approach its conservation differently, given the strong demand for housing at a cost level that would be excluded by purely market–led gentrification. We propose that locating conservation strategies in relation to the building’s history and to other subsidies aimed at the public good may provide other routes to preserving Aiton Court.
Alexandra
(Wits University Press, 2014) Harrison, Philip. Masson, Andrian. Sinwell, Luke.
A mix of respected academics, practising urban planners and experienced policymakers offer compelling overviews of the rapid and complex spatial developments that have taken place in Johannesburg since the end of apartheid, along with tantalising glimpses into life on the streets and behind the high walls of this diverse city. The book has three sections. Section A provides an overview of macro spatial trends and the policies that have influenced them. Section B explores the shaping of the city at district and suburban level, revealing the peculiarity of processes in different areas. This analysis elucidates the larger trends, while identifying shifts that are not easily detected at the macro level. Section C is an assembly of chapters and short vignettes that focus on the interweaving of place and identity at a micro level. With empirical data supported by new data sets including the 2011 Census, the city’s Development Planning and Urban Management Department’s information system, and Gauteng City-Region Observatory’s substantial archive, the book is an essential reference for planning practitioners, urban geographers, sociologists, and social anthropologists, among others.
Alterations to existing House
(ELLE, 2009) Le Roux, Hannah
This tiny project added a small, largely indeterminate space to my house. It faces the garden and resolves the difficulty of a house with an existing kitchen on the north. The L shaped sliding doors and windows can be opened in different configurations, and along with the mobile, folding table, allow for winter/summer, indoor/outdoor, public/private variations of eating or just working in this stoep.
An analysis of microscale segregation and socio-economic sorting in Gauteng
(Gauteng City Region Observatory, 2024-04-24) Hamann, Christian
The negative social and spatial effects of apartheid are prominent legacies that shape urban development. This Occasional Paper analyses racial segregation and socio-economic sorting in Gauteng. In this research, a specific microscale analysis is added to the existing knowledge of segregation and socio-economic sorting patterns in Gauteng. A microscale representation of segregation is an important lens through which to view progress toward spatial transformation; it reveals how factors, such as residential expansion, the property market, and the character of neighbourhoods, influence racial segregation and socio-economic sorting. The research includes three points of inquiry about racial-residential segregation and socio-economic sorting in Gauteng. The first considers the relationship between racial diversity and residential expansion. Between 1990 and 2020, the residential footprint of Gauteng increased by roughly 905 km2. The study investigated whether residential growth contributes to desegregation or perpetuates segregation. The analysis shows that areas of residential expansion tend to reproduce the racial composition of the areas from which they expanded. However, public housing programmes and inclusionary housing policies hold significant potential for desegregation at multiple scales. The second inquiry of this study analyses the extent to which racial mixing contributes to class mixing and income equality in desegregated neighbourhoods. In South African cities, middle-class neighbourhoods have been celebrated for becoming racially integrated. However, behind this undoubtedly important transformation, this study finds a largely unrecognised feature: in racially mixed wards, the mean household income of the white residents is significantly higher than the mean household income of black African residents. Racially-inflected income inequality in neighbourhoods therefore remains discernable even in the context of considerable racial desegregation. The third inquiry is concerned with patterns of microscale socio-economic sorting in desegregated neighbourhoods, and specifically how this is associated with the housing characteristics that shape neighbourhoods. The analysis can illustrate how the affordability of housing and the social character of neighbourhoods influences socio-economic sorting. Together, the three inquiries highlight continued segregation, but also nuances in the nature of desegregation in the Gauteng province at various macro- and microscales. Macroscale analysis in Gauteng shows that racial-residential segregation continues to happen in and around townships and is associated with low-cost housing developments. Desegregation is evident in the central suburban areas and is associated with mostly middle- to high-income housing. Although significant racial-residential desegregation has taken place in former whites-only neighbourhoods, the association between space and class in Gauteng has not changed significantly and spatial transformation is slow. The local-level, data-driven analysis reveals that desegregation is uneven in some neighbourhoods and the socio-economic sorting happens based on the characteristics (including quality, quantity and affordability) of the available housing stock. The research argues that a multiscalar view of segregation and socio-economic sorting is essential to understand urban form and function. Microscale analysis reveals both barriers and opportunities for future spatial transformation. Residential expansion, whether by the public or private sectors, should be strategically driven with diversified housing at different affordability levels, while neighbourhood-level developments should foster socio-economic inclusion. In this way, desegregation and socio-economic integration are facilitated at different geographic scales, and more equitable access to opportunities in the city is enabled.
An Analysis of Energy Efficient Building Principles
(2006-10-31T10:54:41Z) Blackstone, Craig Anthony
This research was conducted in order to highlight the misconception that there may be a single answer to the challenges of energy efficient design; a “single elixir that will be the answer to all problems” (Holm, 1996). Existing literature pertaining to energy efficient design principles was analysed and tested against a well known example of Southern African energy efficient building practice; the Botswana Technology Centre (BOTEC). BOTEC was selected as the case study for this investigation because it was designed to be a living exhibition of energy efficient design and as such a manual or ‘elixir’ for alternate design. BOTEC was analysed on site, personal interviews were held with the architect and a questionnaire was circulated to the users of the building in order to observe whether the principles used at the BOTEC building are appropriate and represent the “single elixir, the answer to all problems,” with regard to energy efficient design (Holm, 1996). Although BOTEC appears to perform well, interviews with the users of the BOTEC building suggest that the building does not perform well in winter at all. Interviews with the architectural consultant who worked on the BOTEC building expose a simple oversight in design which leads to ‘this building’s underperformance in winter’. In concurrence with Holm therefore, this report ultimately shows that there are no perfect solutions to energy efficient design and by applying a once successful solution without taking cognisance of specific climatic and geological differences, the building will not function correctly.
An analysis of well-being in Gauteng province using the capability approach
(Gauteng City-Region Observatory, 2020-12-08) Mushongera, Darlington; Kwenda, Prudence; Ntuli, Miracle
The purpose of this occasional paper is to analyse well-being in Gauteng province from a capability perspective. We adopt a standard ‘capability approach’ consistent with Amartya Sen’s concept of capabilities (1985; 1993; 1999). This study builds on earlier research on poverty and inequality in the Gauteng City-Region (GCR) focusing on income inequality (Tseng, 2018), labour market inequalities (Kwenda & Benhura, 2018) and multidimensional poverty (Mushongera et al., 2017; Mushongera et al., 2018). These analyses were based mainly on objective characteristics of well-being, such as income, employment, housing and schooling. However, adopting a capability approach provides us with a more holistic view of well-being in Gauteng by focusing simultaneously on both objective and subjective aspects. According to Robeyns (2016, p. 1), the capability approach is a theoretical framework that entails two core normative claims: first, the claim that the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance, and second, that freedom to achieve well-being is to be understood in terms of people’s capabilities, that is, their real opportunities to do and be what they have reason to value. Writing from a feminist and social justice perspective, Nussbaum (2003) generated a list of what she considered the most central capabilities. These capabilities are relevant to the analysis of well-being in general and generate useful insights that can potentially provide an additional lens within the policy realm. They can be combined into indices that capture ‘functionings’, or the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ indicators of well-being. Out of the ten capabilities suggested by Nussbaum (2003), our analysis is based on eight, namely ‘play’, ‘emotions’, ‘other species’, ‘affiliation’, ‘bodily health’, ‘bodily integrity’, ‘senses, imagination and thought’ and ‘control over one’s environment’. The analysis uses data from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory Quality of Life (GCRO QoL) Survey IV-2015/16 (GCRO, 2016), which asks a wide range of questions, and the response options vary significantly. For instance, some questions have binary responses while others have multiple possible responses, such as those captured by a Likert scale. To generate similar units of measurement, all indicators were normalised using a standard ordinal ranking procedure. Normalisation is a simple technique whereby all variables are scored consistently so that the lowest rank always indicates the worst outcomes and the highest means the best in relative terms; for example, for the Health Status Indicator, a rank of 1 is assigned to individuals with very poor health; 2 for poor health; 3 for good health; and 4 for excellent health (OECD, 2008). Each capability index in our analysis was computed as a weighted average of its related normalised indicator variables. The weights were generated using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), which is an objective statistical approach. The results of our analysis indicate that the capabilities with high scoring indices are ‘play’ and ‘senses, imagination and thought’, while ‘bodily integrity’ and ‘affiliation’ scored very low. Capability achievements vary across race, age, gender, income level and location. The results confirm the well-known heterogeneity in human conditions among South African demographic groups. However, we observe broader (in both subjective and objective dimensions) levels of deprivation that are otherwise masked in earlier studies. Policies that directly target indicators for capabilities where historically disadvantaged and vulnerable groups (such as youth, elderly and the physically challenged) are deprived are highly recommended. Given the spatial heterogeneities in capability achievements, we recommend localised interventions in capabilities that are lagging in certain areas of the province.
Architecture and Modern Life
(Transvaal, Natal and Orange Free State Provincial Institutes of South African Architects and the Chapter of South African Quantity Surveyors, 1929-12) Martienssen, Rex D
"My intention this evening, is to bring the art of architecture into relationship with the other arts, and with our every day activities, in order to show that the arts do not necessarily lose any of their aesthetic value by fulfilling a functional need."

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