3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The adaptive capacity of households in informal settlements in relation to climate change: two cases from Johannesburg(2016) Nenweli, Mpho Morgan RaymondClimate change poses serious challenges to households in informal settlements located in marginal areas such as flood plains that are sensitive to extreme weather events. This thesis explores the complex interrelationship between climate variability and informal settlements using two city-level case studies in Johannesburg, viz., Msawawa and Freedom Charter Square. The main objective of this study was to establish the nature of household adaptive capacity in informal settlements in relation to climate change. This entailed assessing household vulnerability to the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as strong winds, extreme cold, extreme heat, floods, drought and fire, as a basis from which to understand household adaptive capacity. Methodologically, the thesis applied a mixed method approach combining quantitative and qualitative instruments to explore household adaptive capacity in relation to climate change. This methodology was used to understand how households have coped and adapted to extreme weather events in the past. Secondary research involved analysing a range of published and unpublished documents, while the primary research component consisted of a survey of two hundred households across the two settlements as well as key-informant interviews with local leaders in the two informal settlements and relevant officials from the City of Johannesburg. The results of this study show that in Msawawa and Freedom Charter Square, households’ social and economic conditions such as those relating to employment, income, assets and health play a role in their vulnerability to climate change. The ability of households to improve their adaptive capacity is influenced by a range of factors that include access to physical capital, social capital, financial resources and governance. The research found that households in the two informal settlements rely mainly on coping mechanisms such as repairing their shacks after disasters related to extreme weather. They have very limited ability to address underlying causes of vulnerability such as weak dwellings. Social capital is one of the drivers, although not very significant, for coping and critical to efforts for improving household adaptive capacity. The study also found that governance is a contested terrain in which it is difficult to recognise a positive impact on household adaptation to climate change. The study highlights the importance for policy-makers to recognise the need to improve household socio-economic conditions as well as building relationships of trust as drivers that could help in improving adaptive capacity and addressing household vulnerability to climate change.Item Investigating opportunities for critical and integrated pedagogy and learning in visual arts :a case study of two Gauteng-based schools(2015-02) Sathekge, GaisangThis research project investigates secondary schooling Visual Arts programmes and the extent pedagogical approaches encourage critical and closely integrated learning. The research involves a case study between two secondary schools in Johannesburg - a comparison of two grade ten Visual Arts learning programmes - by investigating the content taught and the pedagogical approaches employed. By evaluating the content of the learning programmes and pedagogical approaches, I investigate whether, or to what extent, the learning programmes challenge hegemonic ideologies and encourage a learning approach that does not perpetuate biased and stereotyped views of culture but learning that critically integrates diversity and difference in the classroom in a manner that is relevant and meaningful to the learner.Item Trans - form - medium: the transformation of light, space and process through the medium of glass, a glass recycling hub for Waste Reclaimers in Newtown(2015-05-27) Hardman, Murray R.High levels of unemployment are a reality in many of the urban areas of South Africa. Poverty and hardship compel many of the unemployed to venture into the urban informal economy in order to survive. The South African government have found new ways of creating employment opportunities, one of which is within the recycling industry. There is an increased demand for minimizing mankind’s environmental footprint. Glass is a material that has been used for centuries and has the ability to be recycled infinitely without losing its quality (Marson, n.d). This together with the need for glass amongst consumers and the endlessly recycling nature of glass makes glass recycling a significant sustainable measure in considering environmental impacts (2011, 2012 Annual Review: Glass Recycling Company). Despite these properties, glass continues to be an undervalued material that can utilize low technology in its recycling process. This study aimed at investigating the formal and informal recycling economy within the city of Johannesburg by providing the opportunity for the Waste Reclaimers (Trolley Pushers) to be an integral part of the recycling process, specifically with glass. A further aim was to explore the tectonics of a factory to create a space where the Waste Reclaimers could gather, connect and engage with the product of glass. Lastly it aimed to provide a space where the general public could also engage in the product of glass recycling thereby creating awareness and promotion of recycling. The project proposed a glass recycling factory where the process of glass recycling culminates with the production of glass. The site selected for this research is located within the industrial part of the Newtown precinct. This has become a central recycling hub for the Waste Reclaimers of Johannesburg as it links private recycling centres within the city. Newtown is an area of flux, marked by a history of industrial and political disruption. This area represents change and opportunity for growth and life. A space recycled and regenerated throughout the history of Johannesburg. The reason for the choice of topic is that the evolution of recycling in Johannesburg has reached a point where municipalities need to acknowledge the informal sector as a valuable part of the recycling economy. The majority of the literature on recycling and the organization of the recycling process predominantly focuses on the collection of waste as means of job creation. An opportunity therefore presented itself to highlight the production, and craftsmanship of recyclable material. To clarify and further place the Waste Reclaimers within the existing waste management system, the theory of Phenomenology has been explored. It will focus on the phenomenological term of “Lifeworld” which describes a way of life where the individual’s aspiration, perceptions, experiences, beliefs and behaviour forms a holistic unity towards a fulfilling, meaningful, existence (Seamon, 2012). This exploration will give insight to how this building will provide the Waste Reclaimer a sense of identification and orientation within this system of the recycling industry. In order to better understand the complexity of the existing waste management system, the theory of Systems has been explored focusing on the principal of an open system as a way of broadening the lifeworld of the Waste Reclaimers Precedent studies of PFG Building Glass windscreen recovery facility; Zama City Waste; the comparison of factory tectonics between the Crystal Palace, Toledo Museum of Art Glass and the Crucible Glassblowing studio; the Glass Chapel and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art were used to inform the design. The network of the Waste Reclaimers was also documented in order to understand their routes and network across the city and the surrounding suburbs. The impact of the design found that the proposed space created opportunities for pause and transformation using light, space and process. The idea of transformation is process. Process is represented by a linear path with adjacent spaces of function and support. These spaces will transform according to their activities and associated light qualities. These spaces will thus become the medium through which people and activities change.Item Thresholds: activating the Braamfontein cemetery through an interpretation centre(2015-04-30) Mchunu, NokubekezelaA green palisade fence is not all that separates the urban, kinetic Braamfontein from it’s dormant cemetery. It’s a long-standing perception that the two spaces are not related despite their proximity. And for this reason, you too have likely driven past it’s sixty metre long edge without having given it too much acknowledgement. Granted, it’s easier to overlook a space supposedly devoid of rational markers from their neighbours because of rhythmic disturbance in function and social experience or even their inability to mirror their adjacent counterparts: a derelict building, a desolate parking lot in the evening, a twenty one hectare cemetery in a city. However, what makes the green, park-like Braamfontein Cemetery different from any other in Johannesburg is that it was the first cemetery in the city. As a result, is the final resting place of significant contributors of the country’s history. It is then, currently a commemorative landscape in which events, social and burial practices of Johannesburg and South Africa are recorded. For this reason, one could say that this cemetery is very much a part of urban Braamfontein in 2014. How then to negotiate the de-alienation of this remarkable space while preserving its beauty.Item Points of convergence: redefining the place of arrival in Johannesburg(2015-04-30) Mazzoni, Stefan AntonioThe ideology of hospitality, symbolic of travel in a world filled with experiences is sought by us all. The notion of exploration as a result of our curiosity is deeply embedded in our makeup. A profound understanding of the world is one of our greatest endeavours as it is routed in the conception of cognitive thought. We are wired to settle in the most habitable parts of the planet and even then we feel the urge for discovery, we do this in the form of travel. From my own encounters as a young boy, nothing expresses this narrative better than the exhilaration and excitement I felt then I arrived in a new city. My experiences by their very nature were formulated from a multitude of sensory indulgences which were unfamiliar but most intriguing. Drawing comparison came naturally as the mind’s way of evaluating the surroundings and juxtaposing them with those of my home. This analogy was the core principle to interpreting foreign spaces and devising conclusive outlooks. During the time that one absorbs any foreign way of life, the hotel takes care of the traveler's basic needs and contributes significantly to the overall experience, lending to the enjoyment and relaxation of travel both of which are key components. The city itself encapsulates the principals of hospitality as it fundamentally offers the traveler, visitor and the local inhabitant, sustenance, safety, and shelter, essentials that are expected and in place from our early social development. These elements are the most basic necessities to sustain survival and are readily available in any city. In the past, cities were fortified against aggressors by defensive walls which enclosed the city and which apart from their utilitarian function, symbolized the status and sovereignty of the citizens and the grandeur of the city. The entrance to the city was through a befitting imposing gate which demarcated the place of arrival and entry and added to the city's standing. With the progression of time and the advent of rail travel, the city's railway station defined a place of arrival and was often among the grandest structures, designed to impress and declaring lavish opulence and wealth. This thesis investigates the possibilities of creating a place of arrival in Johannesburg both symbolically and factually. Our metropolis, known as the provincial capital of the Gauteng Province, has, due to its rapid expansion in its relatively short life, no recognizable place of arrival. The introduction of the Gautrain Station in the immediate vicinity of Park Station presented an opportunity to link the station to a hotel and creating a pedestrian throughway from the station that passes through the hotel and into the city. The passage way traverses an impressive square with features designed to create an ennobling introduction to the city. The design realizes all the criteria of arrival into the city. It combines the railway station which is the mode of travel, the squares form the introduction to the city, the symbolic entrance is the opening through the hotel building, the hotel structure acts as the city wall and the hotel is the traveler's destination offering all the comforts and sustenance. All this serves to create the right ambiance to encourage tourists to remain in the city rather than proceed elsewhere in the area. Johannesburg is unique and is irreplaceable, it has suffered abandonment and neglect but was once much loved and cherished, it is part of our identity, ours to regain and treasure and deserves a noteworthy place of arrival.Item Johannesburg climate change observatory: scale of temporality: architecture as a mediator(2015-04-30) Thomson, AlexanderThe 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.Item Urban estuary: a commentary on diasporic Johannesburg defining an architecture of connection for the transient communities of Yeoville(2015-04-30) Valasis, PeterThis paper explores the contradictions and complexities of the themes Diaspora, Sanctuary and Estuary. Diaspora has historically referred to people and communities who have been displaced from their native, shared homeland through movement as a result of migration, immigration, or exile. African Diaspora tells the story of displacement throughout the continent and how Africans managed to retain their traditions and restructure their identities in a western dominated world and modern urban city. Through this paper I will explore how these diasporic communities maintained a sense of belonging through the notion of sanctuaries. Where these communities and sanctuaries overlap and, much like natural estuaries, how these interactions create uniquely dynamic systems. I will address themes within the urban context of Johannesburg and their influence on the nature space. It concludes by addressing the need for a new form of accommodation in response to the transient communities and fluid nature of the city. Key words: Diaspora, Sanctuary, Estuary, Transience, Accommodation.Item A cultural exchange hub: reviving the first Chinatown in Johannesburg(2015-04-30) Sun, SamanthaThe diasporic movement of Chinese people to South Africa, through time and space, unfolds the current discourse of cultural identity within the multicultural flows of our society. Diluting the Chinese culture into a hybrid of Chinese and South African identity, results in a disconnection to their homeland and their loss of “Chineseness.” However, the global realities of diaspora in the 21st century render this condition inevitable and so, consequently, this thesis aims to celebrate the Chinese culture as well as the fusion of Chinese culture, through the creation of culturally integrative spaces. Sited at Ferreirasdorp in Johannesburg’s city centre, this project involves the design of a Chinese Cultural Institute in conjunction with retail and informal trade. The broad intention is to provide a catalyst for the revival of the earliest Chinatown within this historical corner of the city. Chinese migratory movement to South Africa occurred at different times, for different reasons and from a number of places in China, and this variation has resulted in the dispersal of these migrants throughout Johannesburg. The earliest Chinatown is one of these dispersed spaces. In addition to this larger scale diaspora, there are subcultural conflicts that exist between these Chinese communities that have further increased their dispersal. However, in this present-day atmosphere of celebrating cultural difference in Johannesburg and in light of the business relationship formed between China and Africa, there is a need to bring these diverse yet segregated Chinese communities together. The principal research question is: Can architecture become a translator that can facilitate communication across cultures and subcultures?” The building therefore consists of flexible spaces that can easily adapt and transform to suit the users’ needs. This includes meeting spaces, whether it be a formal office space or under tree in the courtyard, so that Chinese businessmen can communicate with businessmen from local industries. The project also provides a variety of cultural activities. This includes Chinese cooking classes for anyone interested in learning about the richly diverse cuisines across China. Pan-Asian activities such as Karaoke Bars and Thai Massages are also provided in order to acknowledge the existing variety of Asian cultures in the city, and to accommodate for a larger scope of users. This thesis therefore explores how spaces can facilitate interaction between these cultures as well as distinguish and celebrate the various Chinese subcultures that exist in metropolitan Johannesburg. In accomplishing the goals of this design, the building becomes a place of exchange. Through connections of movement and visibility, it allows new spatial and social opportunities to develop in order to create a variety of identities in our contemporary African city. The building encourages the Chinese communities to claim it as their own while simultaneously providing accessibility to a variety of other users who can experience cultures reverberating off each other, through a mixture of activities, from moment to moment.Item Between hair and the Johannesburg art gallery: a hair museum mediating the disjointed context by inspiring public ownership through the celebration of an African Art Form(2015-04-30) Plaskocinska, PatrycjaIn the case of Johannesburg, unlike cities around the world that experienced inner city decline, its city centre was never entirely abandoned. It experienced rapid social change. As Johannesburg was beginning to change, the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) was experiencing a declining number of visitors. Unable to engage with the changing social structure, a fence was built around it and JAG turned itself inwards. This thesis explores the intention to take advantage of the rich and dynamic informal industry of hair that has emerged around JAG. Hair is loaded with social, sexual and political undercurrents. In an African city that has been colonized and becoming increasingly globalised, hair’s relevance in terms of politics must be brought to the forefront. By acknowledging the thriving inner workings and its contributors and by engaging in a critical discussion that people can relate to, JAG will be embraced by the community again. An intervention of mediation through architecture is proposed. A Hair Museum perched on the opposite side of the railway that weaves JAG closer into its current context by opening and improving dialogue between the disjointed surroundings. A new museum as a mediator explores the idea of museum-asurban system. The question is asked whether a public institution is capable of assisting a society through a museum by looking at the concept of the Greek ideal of kalokagathia, which means the perfection of the body and city based on balance, justice and proportion. This thesis essentially explores Julian Carman’s idea of a museum1; that the key to JAG’s survival and upliftment lies only if it inspires public ownership. This thesis will explore the significance of celebrating hair in an African city with visible impacts of an imperialist past. By celebrating hair, thereby beginning the discourse of it’s connotations, will allow for a transgression into where society and its’ perception of itself stands in a globalizating world. Museum’s play a key role in society to not only preserve memories but also re-ordering them and making sense of them for later generations (Watson, 2007: 4). The proposed Hair Museum as mediator is not so much about saving a contested and feared city- as much as it is about embracing the new spirit of the city and encouraging the potential held within. 1 Julian Carman, Author of ‘Uplifting The Colonial Philistine: Florence Phillips And The Making Of The Johannesburg Art Gallery’. See References.Item Understanding legitimation and the framing of claims: challenging housing demolitions, fighting for a home in Lenasia(2015-04-30) Molopi, Moloi EdwardIn November 2012, the Gauteng Provincial Government engaged on a programme to demolish houses that were illegally built on government land in Lenasia, a suburb located 30 kilometres south of Johannesburg. Over 50 homes were demolished with further demolitions being scheduled. The demolitions spurred various actors into action. Following a court interdict applied for by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on behalf of the residents, the government was then forced to cease with the demolitions. Within the dispute various claims have been advanced and legitimation processes entered into. This study uses the case of the demolitions in Lenasia to investigate the nature of legitimation and the framing of claims. This is done through a consideration of the different actors in the demolitions and each of the claims advanced. The central claims of this work are that legitimacy is context-specific and in a state of constant formation. Furthermore, claims are used to express worldviews and they serve as strategic standpoints for access to various goods.