3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Urban ritual: a hydro-ritual space for the communities of the inner city(2016) Aserman, Samantha LeeThe heritage and history of a city is often based on urban legend. These stories pertain the cultural rooting of the society that had lived within the cities from their founding and until today. Johannesburg or Egoli appears to have skipped this cultural rooting and instead stems from the political and commercial soil of the gold mines. If we excavate into the gold mining history of the city – and even into the history preceding it - we can find the hidden sacred and cultural beginnings embedded in our society today. Our society has been formed on the continual evolution of the ideas of the sacred and profane through practices of incorporation, salvation and adaptation. As the gold mines in the city shut down, in 1940, the migrant labourers were left in hostels in an unfamiliar terrain and little means to make a living (Potenze, 2015). This means that today, we can still find evidence of the importance of sacred rituals similar to those in the mining compounds. Religions and cultures in Johannesburg, that have been gradually changed overtime, are a result of the incorporation of mining labour, urban customs and western ideas (including religion and technologies). Although the city has clearly harmed the rural traditions, we can still see glimpses of the endurance of the sacred within the profane landscape. The profane is adapted by the different communities in the inner city – as will be discussed with reference to the Mai Mai and Shembe (Nazareth Baptist Church) communities – to express their cultures of the sacred, traditional and religious and to accommodate for ritual practices associated with them. Today’s societies of the inner city are a mix of cultures, religions, God, the ancestors and ritual practices - both sacred and profane. By learning from the way in which these communities continually evolved to incorporate their environments into their traditions, the city too must now incorporate these communities and their beliefs into its structure. If this is achieved, it could ignite a healing process through integration as opposed to replacement or removal of elements of the city or of its society. This report explores ideas of the importance of religion and culture in Johannesburg’s context. As it is an architectural analysis, the response will be a proposal for religious infrastructure and space within the area of City and Suburban, alongside the Kwa Mai Mai market and the gathering spaces of the Shembe / Nazareth Baptist Church. This will promote and retain the cultures, traditions and religions that were brought to the city and used as a tool of survival.Item [Trophic Cascade]: an ecological research, education and information community centre in the Amazizi Tribal Authority of the Drakenburg(2016) Marchant, Craig GalenThe focus of architecture in South Africa is often centered on intense urban areas in the country. However, important though these areas are, they represent only one facet of the greater country. The rural areas around South Africa are repeatedly overlooked. Added to that, our rich heritage and increasingly unique and threatened relationship with the natural systems around us is often sidelined. Our relationship with the natural world is a complicated one. Humans, perhaps the only species on earth able to do so, have the opportunity to decide whether to live symbiotically with nature or parasitically. Unfortunately the choice is often the latter. One of the areas where our rather strained and openended relationship with the natural world is most apparent is in the impoverished rural Bonjaneni Community of the Amazizi Tribal Authority located in the Okhahlamba District of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Mankind’s negative impacts on this regions natural mechanisms are being felt locally and nationally in three particular areas that form the key points of focus for the thesis: grasslands, water systems and the decline of the Cape Vulture population. Grassland is of utmost importance ecologically, economically and socially for the region, without healthy grassland community livestock cannot survive, thatch cannot be gathered and the landscape will become prone to severe erosion during the rainy season. Erosion negatively affects the Tugela River water catchment basin too. Without healthy vegetation cover the landscape and community will become prone to flooding. Silt from the erosion will impact numerous dams further downstream that supply water to KwaZulu-Natal and the economic heartland of South Africa, Gauteng. The repercussions of a threatened population of Cape Vultures are also of concern. Without the specialised scavenger animal corpses will be left to fester in the sun, developing carrion borne diseases that can negatively affect the health of pets, people and livestock. These problems result in a considerable financial burden to the community and the government, yet these are all problems that can be addressed through responsible stewardship of the land and an awareness of our position in the natural world.