3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item DHYAAN: reimagining Tolstoy Farm through a spiritual identity(2020) Ganda, RachnaMore than 100 years ago, Mohandas K. Gandhi, an Indian lawyer, politician, social activist, and writer and his friend Hermann Kallenbach, a German born architect shaped the idea of an utopian environment separated from the city. Tolstoy Farm, was founded and located just outside of Lenasia, Johannesburg, which is now owned by Corobrik, where they have declared a portion of the land a heritage site. This thesis explores opportunities for connecting architectural design to the principles and concepts, which emerged out of the narrative and events that took place on Tolstoy farm. South Africans experienced segregation through religion and race. Architecture can be seen as a medium to establish a dialogue among these groups. This design aims to allow its users to experience a new “sense of place” that arouses curiosity, creativity, spirituality and comfort, starting to delve deeper and find the balance between architecture and the human body. This proposal will also explore different methodologies around spirituality to assist the reader in understanding the relationship around principles in Indian culture such as meditation, ayurvedic practices (the human body) and Vaastu Shastra (architecture). It is believed that not only do these elements give us the ability to heal but also boosts the energy around us and uplifts our spirits. This intervention aims to merge seemingly unrelated ideas in an unconventional and unprecedented way, ultimately resulting in a fusion of concepts, highlighting the past and bringing it out into the present. This ‘hybrid’ architectural piece draws on a program, from a healing center, combining a general clinic and an ayurvedic treatment center, which allows harmonious living in an urban landscape. Not only am I looking at the well-being of the users but also architecture that encompasses the teachings around Gandhi on site and the “Satyagraha” movement for non-violent protest. Each part of the program is seemingly different, yet each of them feed off of the other. This enables a multi-sensory ambience, a spatial experience and embodied spirit that resonate within the human soulItem Conflicting conventions: space as a medium in the works of Gerhard Richter and Serge Nitegeka(2017) Wepener, DaneilleThis dissertation aims to examine Gerhard Richter and Serge Nitegeka’s artistic practices, in order to understand and identify how artists can potentially use space as a medium and contextualise my own practice within this realm. I position the conventions and principles of space through reference to French theorists’ Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault. The thesis begins with a brief overview of the window as a painterly motif and spatially familiar everyday device in the introduction. In the first chapter, I explore the surface and reflection of the medium of glass, the colour gray, the monochrome, as well as the pictorial, in Gerhard Richter’s Eight Gray (2002). The second chapter examines the role of the frame or line in Serge Nitegeka’s Black Lines (2012), as an environment of experience that relies on painted diagrams and the illusion of perspectival space. The third chapter observes a shift in the manner in which Richter and Nitegeka experiment and extend their practices through an engagement with the mirror and the door, respectively, as ways of exploring the threshold. Finally, I discuss my own practice and reflect on the exhibition Through the Extent (2015), which was submitted as the practical component of this research.Item Zimbabweans in Johannesburg, South Africa: space, movement and spatial identity(2017) Moyo, KhangelaniFocusing on Zimbabwean migrants in Johannesburg, this thesis engages the ways in which diverse groups and individuals construct and negotiate spaces in the city. I have looked at how Zimbabwean migrants spatially respond to the regulatory and socio-economic environments within which they lead their everyday lives in Johannesburg. I emphasize the theme of heterogeneity, specifically highlighting the differentiated nature of Zimbabwean immigrants living in South Africa and discuss their movements and spatial identities. Theoretically, I have combined de Certeau's conception of space as represented by the schema of “strategies” of the powerful and the “tactics” of the subordinate with Bourdieu's concept of “habitus”, which operates within a field of social forces that are responsible for, and the result of, its emergence. Following my empirical engagements within the context of Johannesburg, I observe that, the initial decision by Zimbabwean migrants to move to South Africa, be it in search of work opportunities or forced by political circumstances, enable a structure that predisposes them (migrants) to continued mobility. Firstly, as transnational migrants who engage in frequent short term and long term movements between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Secondly, as transient residents of Johannesburg who frequently change residential addresses yet remain largely within the same spaces where they first arrive. Thirdly, as de Certeau's ordinary man who walks the city while engaged in everyday activities such as, shopping, going to places of employment, to places of education, etc. I theorise mobility as a way of making do and an inhabited space that migrants mobilise in contestation with the broader strategic entities such as the City of Johannesburg's regulatory platforms, South African citizens and other migrants. I also argue that, for migrants to engage in different mobility cycles and deploy mobility as a tactical resource, particular dispositions are necessary. I refer to these dispositions as the transnational migrant habitus, which operates within a transnational social field constituted by socio-cultural factors in both South Africa and Zimbabwe. Both, the transnational habitus and the transnational social field are hybrid social formations that are not reducible to either the Zimbabwean or the South African contexts that are responsible for their genesis and ongoing reconstitution. Methodologically, I employed a mixed methods research design, which refers to a procedure by which the researcher mixes two or more methods with different meta-theoretical assumptions in a single study in order to understand a research problem. I used mixed methods because I needed sufficient breadth to explore the diversity of Zimbabwean migrant experiences and spatial decision-making, but also sufficient depth to uncover the reasons for behaviours and decisions.Item Profit for change: catalysing architecture through commerce and identity(2017) Leshaba, TebogoInformal communities seem to thrive due to their ability to invent and adapt resilient organic systems. Although programmes are often conceptualized to intervene in social, economic or institutional settings, very few are able to address what I believe to be the problem underlying in many instances; money. The ability to attract, develop and maintain commerce in a closed system will determine the efficiency and dependency a community will have on external forces. The quest for a self-sustaining economic system suggests a move towards creating complex commercial urban centres which can operate outside the parameters of a formal economy. History has provided such models, where out of necessity, informal industries have taken structure and found ways to attach to the mainstream economy. My line of questioning stems from these principles and seeks to explore modes of community empowerment initiatives. The goal is to identify the necessary framework that will allow capitalist constructs to prevail within informal systems. At the crux of economic emancipation for informal communities in South Africa must exist an environment that compels a shift in attitude for the mobilisation change. The state in its incumbency to deliver radical social transformation is in the best position to act, but history has shown that movements which were born from the society, despite financial, political & social hardships, have the propensity to dramatically advance and flourish along a greater trajectory.Item The great space between: a service station nexus in the Soutpansberg(2016-07-13) James, AlistairThis thesis aims to study the idea of non-place; a point on the line between a beginning and an end. My site is in the Soutpansberg mountain range in the Limpopo province. There is a rich history of movement in the area, from ancient trade routes, to central African migration, the Voortrekkers, the British ideal of a Great North Road, apartheid homelands and currently, the Zimbabwean diaspora. All of these stages are examples of flux, movement, non-place… I have aimed to take a history of the area and apply its relevance to a scarred landscape that is bisected by the N1 highway. Perhaps turning a non-place into a place; perhaps just giving a non-place some relevance. By placing a large service station, a market and a place to sleep onto this site, I wish to revive what it has always been: a movement route, a point on the line; and once again bring to the Great North Road, something so general and banal, yet something fundamentally etched with its DNA. A place en route in the great space between.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.