3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Space, tradition and comprehensive health care:(1997) Chabikuli, Eugene NThe theoretical case that architecture should he functionally responsive to user needs is examined with particular reference to tne design of Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities in rural South Africa, In particular, the study investigates the effectiveness of architectural practice in meeting the spatial demands of health care facilities in a changing social and cultural environment. The functlonal requirernents of modern and traditional health care facilities are examined, the aim being to examine to what extent important traditlonal requirements are taken into account in the modern sector. The research relies on: 1. A comparative literature review on the interaction between the social requirements, architectural practices, traditional and modern healing systems. 2. Data collection on the study case (Mhala). 3. In-depth interview with 'users' (patients, relatives and health professionals) from both formal and informal health sectors. 4. A physical survey of traditional healers stations and Primary Health Care (PHC)facilities. 5. Analysis. 6. Conclusions and recommendationsItem Makeshift: an experimental stage for spatial exchange(2015-04-30) Marsden, ElliotUnderpinning this architectural design and discourse is the exchange of digital and physical space. An exchange that can be multi-directional, rapidly shifting embodiments of space between modes of digital and physical models. The parameters for translation are defined by a digital culture in flux, perpetually evolving new mediums for building real and virtual space. A new direct link has been established between design and construction, where digital methods of conceptualisation, modification and fabrication are questioning the historic relationship between architecture and its production systems. Sited at the University of the Witwatersrand, this thesis explores architecture’s role as a mediator for digital and physical translation. By proposing an experimental stage for spatial exchange, the building facilitates the collaborative and interdisciplinary integration of students, academics, industry partners and public around the archiving, projecting, conceptualising and fabricating of digital model space. As a hybrid, the building reimagines the factory, studio, library and archive typologies, subsequently speculating a new contextual role for university architecture that is educational, industrial, cultural and public. As a by-product of an evolving digital culture, digitals models can be conceptualised, manipulated and embedded with intelligence. Advancing applications of virtual reality, however, free these digital models from conventional two-dimensional modes through immersive simulations that enable users to engage and interact with digital models of all scales. Furthermore, virtual projection mediums have the potential to transform how designers conceive, perceive and modify digital model space through the advent of intelligent sensor and tracking devices that allow human gestures to shape digital form. While digital models have traditionally been generated from nothing, new three-dimensional scanning technologies enable the capturing of small to large-scale physical space digitally. Finally, digital and robotic fabrication tools facilitate the shift from digital to real space by constructing physical objects with a greater complexity, speed, scale, affordability and material composition than previously possible. Comprised of a sequence of interconnected ‘fields’ – namely scanning, projection, studio and fabrication fields – the building facilitates the local and global exchange of digital and physical model space. As a platform for integrating all the constituents of spatial exchange, this design and discourse challenges traditional modes of praxis by speculating an alternative future for architecture, technology, education and greater society.Item Translating the 'man-made': an underwater observatory on the shoreline of Lake Malawi(2015-04-30) Gruber, Adeline“" at environment and those structures invest the vast di# erences of nature with meaning intelligible to, indeed imagined by, a mankind and they involve in the end all those complex relationships of human buildings with each other that shape within nature a man-made topography.” (Scully 1991: 1) Humankind has forever been placed outside the realm of nature, peering in as a spectator through a frame. ! at which is organic is ‘natural’ and that which we create is ‘man- made’. A beaver’s nest would not exist if the beaver had not built it, yet it is ‘natural’. If humans are of earth then surely that which we build is ‘natural’ as well? Let us translate the ‘man-made’ back into the natural world. Lake Malawi makes up one-third of its country. Local Malawians are dependent on this resource for livelihood, food, water and sanitation but over" shing threatens it. Cichlid " sh native to the lake are a rapidly evolving species, they are also a rapidly depleting food source. ! e lake with its local " shing villages is nature with us in it. I propose an underwater observatory on the shoreline of the lake, to address a species and a food source. Local Malawians inhabit the shoreline within a nature that has been adapted to meet the needs of human activity. Fishermen prepare their nets at sunset, go out at night with # ickering para$ n lamps, and return at sunrise with a diminishing catch of Chambo while women make their way to the water’s edge to wash and collect water. ! e chosen site is situated in Cape Maclear at the entrance to Lake Malawi National Park which is protected aquatic sanctuary. An established tourist industry supports the local community of Chembe village. ! e observatory is a threshold to the park and a liminal boundary between land and water, in and out, above and below. ! e programme is categorized within Science and Community. Communal facilities address alternative food sources, sanitation and education while science facilities document and record the rapid evolution of Cichlids. If architecture can be viewed as a hybrid, a construct of both human culture and nature, then let an amphibious structure rest upon the water’s edge, partially submerged and partially elevated over water and land. Acting as a bathometer, climatic changes mark its surface as it modi" es nature while nature modi" es it. Designed to adapt to # uctuating water levels, the facility evolves as rapidly as its native Cichlid " sh. By reframing the mindset of locals and visitors, we become part of an evolving ecosystem and may begin to truly acknowledge the part we play in it. We attempt to preserve a species and a livelihood, yet preservation may be viewed as the pursuit of stagnation. Our livelihoods, our food and our buildings are of this earth. Like nature, they must continuously adapt, modify and evolve.Item Fighting for peace: a martial arts [Diversion] centre(2015-04-30) Rodrigues, Fàbio Armando Matos“There is no keener revelation to a society’s soul than the way it treats its children” -Nelson Mandela In places deemed safe for our children, they are being exposed, tainted and scarred by the darkness of crime - eight times as much as our adults. In desperation, some of our children seek support within their dysfunctional families but they fail. As their cries for a way out are unheard, the soul of our nation turns to crime as an alternative. This thesis explores the physical and emotional instability of children as a result of prevailing crime. Instability that, in cases, leads children into a life of crime. The look into statistics regarding children and crime intensifies the urgency of the problem. The aim of the new justice act is to divert children away from the formal justice system (a fairly new approach launched in 2010). An interview with social worker Esmé Jacobs pointed out that the use of a diversion center was a step in the right direction. In this thesis, the use of Martial Arts is being promoted and highlighted as the diversion. Martial Arts is used as a means to allow our brittle children to be nurtured, to be integrated in a safe environment, to be guided onto the best path, and can be seen as an alternative family entity. Martial arts was uncovered through its history and philosophies, and analyzed through its structures and composition. The effects of the practice of Martial Arts are prominent in the interview with Paul De Beer – an architect and one of the highest qualified aikido practitioners. De Beer introduces the look into a Clinical Martial Arts Programme for rehabilitation for children at risk. Martial Arts and nature are one. Architecturally, the concept embodies the amalgamation of nature and architectural design: The flow from one into the other; the concepts of openness and all-inclusiveness within Martial Arts are points to respect when creating the space for the recuperation of our children, and the architectural challenge of giving our at-risk children a chance at life by creating a second home and not an incarceration facility. Dojo Stara Wiés, the world’s largest performance training centre and a home for Martial Arts and Martial Artists alike, offers a platform to experience of the spirit, atmosphere and philosophy of Japanese Martial Arts. Dojo Stara Wiés was analysed to correctly expose the connection between Martial Arts and architecture and how they both embody the same energy and philosophies. Site selection had the prerequisites of educational, recreational and community facilities. Belief systems show the importance of water in cleansing and rebirth, therefore a site with water was crucial as it would aid change. The above elements were a priority when choosing a site so that children would be fully integrated within the environment and the community. Germiston Lake was chosen and analysed as the site for the Diversion Centre. A Martial Arts Diversion Centre: a young architect’s conscious effort to heal our children through the use of architecture in conjunction with the principles of Martial Arts. “Architects today tend to depreciate themselves, to regard themselves as no more than just ordinary citizens without the power to reform the future.” – Kenzo TangeItem Fingerprints of nature: an Ecological Discovery Centre magnifying and mediating human-nature interactions along the border of the Kruger National Park(2015-04-29) King, Bronwyn“Architecture embodies humanity’s relationship with the earth” (Hoosey, L. 2012. Pg. 118) There are many threats facing South Africa’s wildlife including the spread of diseases, increased poaching and habitat loss. As a result the Kruger National Park is one of South Africa’s most prized treasures and has become a wildlife recreation, resource and research hub attracting tourists and researchers from around the globe. However, despite the number of visitors to the area, there is an increasing number of local communities specifically on the Southern border of the park, experiencing high levels of unemployment and poverty. As a result, community members are often involved in the harvesting and trade of natural resources through activities such as subsistence poaching and farming. These practices are gradually destroying the natural landscape on the periphery thus posing a significant threat to the park’s biodiversity. In a contest between resource consumption and resource conservation architecture has the opportunity to mediate between the user groups of the region, sparking conversation about conservation. This thesis seeks to provide a building complex which will become the interface between land users and land uses and in so doing become a catalyst in the rehabilitation of the natural landscape. It will provide a platform for an exchange of conservation-based resources, information and skills intended to enhance the experience and understanding of nature. The complex includes a seed bank facility to store and grow a variety of indigenous botanical species to rehabilitate the landscape and support the harvesting of sustainable natural resources. The seed bank is directly linked to the research facility which is dedicated to the investigation and understanding of human-nature interactions along the park’s border. These conservation processes and findings are captured and revealed in the narrative of the ecological museum which forms a large component of the education spaces provided within the project. The three primary programs are consolidated within the design to create a constructed journey through the site. This enables the architecture to become the tour guide that enhances the visitor’s experience through man-made and ecological encounters along the way. In so doing a layering of public/private spaces is established using thresholds to create transition zones which blur the boundaries between inside and outside whilst maintaining a hierarchy of space. As with the building’s program the design is sensitive to its context. The project explores the typologies of the local community, farm structures and botanical nurseries to create an appropriate hybrid between the manufactured and hand crafted. This aesthetic is achieved through the use of locally sourced materials and labour in an attempt to reintroduce the disappearing vernacular building techniques to the region. This exploration is realised in the structural concept of articulating and combining elements of mass, skeleton and skin. In so doing, the architecture becomes a living organism which is climate responsive and houses both people and nature within its form. The structure is designed using the ‘eave’ to create an edge condition that modifies the micro climate of the interior and exterior spaces. It is through these edge conditions that the aesthetic of the building is transformed as species inhabit the structure to establish new ecosystems. This thesis does not attempt to provide a solution to the many threats facing this conservancy, but rather to focus on an area dealing with such challenges and allow architecture to house the means to empower, educate and expose users to the fragility of the natural landscape of the region. It is essential that wildlife conservation is extensively studied and implemented in order for nature to sustainably benefit the communities living off it; tourists travelling to it and conservationists working for it.Item Peek-a-boo(m) : architecture & the adaptive eye.(2014-09-29) Chen, I-Kuang AllenSophisticated in creation, Comic/Japanese Manga & Animation are a drastic representations of a real or hypothetical worlds. Comic and animation is a representation of cultural legacy that informs, excites and entertains the viewer in every tangible form of its existence, while filling minds with giant robots, space ships or masked super heroes. This dissertation serves as an architectural response to comic and animation creation. Through the exploration of the notion of the adaptive eye and its influence on the design process, the thesis seeks to create a dialogue between social legacy and comic & animation creation through the design of a production house. This thesis proposes a space that represents beauty, vision and excitement, but above all else one that realizes the possibilities of comic and animation as a means of social commentary. The building aims to symbolize the essence of comic and animation through its design and location, thereby echoing the vibrancy of Newtown. The production house is an attempt at social, cultural and environmentally responsible, generative architecture that induces thinking and energy within the world of comics and animation.Item Item Item Item