Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment (ETDs)
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Item “Artful Sustainability” Inquiry into Urban Waste and Public Space Practices: a Case Study of Riverside View Mega City, Johannesburg(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Mantshoane, Trevor; Charlton, SarahThe UN-Habitat (2021a, p. 29) has been spearheading efforts at ensuring that “placemaking institutionalizes the role of art and culture to achieve a lasting sense of place for [communities]” as per the SDG 11 agenda. Place-making foregrounds the central role of communities in ensuring quality and liveable public spaces often through arts-led interventions. To date, little research exists on how this global place-making agenda is faring at the neighbourhood level. Even less studied are the arts and cultural (ecosystem) services of public space and the impact of waste on people’s ability to benefit from these services. Against the global place-making agenda, this research artistically interrogates the eco-cultural dimensions of sustainability issues of waste and public spaces. It does this through a case study of Riverside View Mega City, Johannesburg (South Africa) This qualitative research study uses a case study strategy and draws on a range of practices broadly associated with the arts-based and practice- based methods. The study utilises a set of methodological tools like drawings, written and photo diaries to gain a window into the resident participants’ embodied experiences of waste and public space. In all, the research finds that waste malpractices have a disruptive impact on the residents’ ability to benefit from the eco-cultural services of public spaces in Riverside View Mega City. Consequently, public spaces are generally perceived and experienced negatively, although this is not uniform across all sections of the settlement. Moreover, efforts at institutionalising the arts and culture through place-making interventions remain ambiguous with little apparent relevance to the everyday sustainability issue of waste and public spaces.Item Place leadership for the governance of complex urban agglomerations(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Naicker, Thilgavathie; Harrison, PhilipCity-regions are complex agglomerations – spatially, economically, and politically. Understanding the dynamics and mechanisms that create the foundation for their development is an important undertaking in the face of rising globalisation, urbanisation, migration, and climate change. This research explores the concept of place leadership and its relevance for a complex space like the Gauteng City-Region (GCR). Place leadership is a concept that has been studied extensively in the global North and proposes the rise of leaders across local spaces. The city- region is a dynamic space of contested politics, coalition governments, diffuse power, differing agendas, fragmented, and silo planning and a deeply rooted socio-economic history that has left a lasting impact of inequality. Building a globally competitive city-region has been on the Gauteng Provincial Government’s agenda since the mid-2000s. The city-region argument in Gauteng, South Africa, still lingers, but party politics, differing agendas, the complexities of governance in the city-region, and frequent changes in leadership have prevented the vision from being achieved. The research question of this thesis is: How may the emerging concept of place leadership be applied in the complex, dynamic, and low-trust environment of the GCR? The thesis explores three thematics to analyse place leadership – temporality, crisis, and trans-scalarity. Gauteng, a city-region in South Africa, was examined as a case study. Water governance and the COVID-19 crisis were utilised as lenses to examine place leadership in the GCR. The exploratory mixed-methods study used semi-structured interviews with leaders from political, government administration, academia, and the water sector in Gauteng. A set of questions designed to explore a thematic on leadership and governance was also included in an established broad survey done in the city-region by the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, the Quality-of-LifeVI 2020/21. The outcomes of this quantitative element were analysed by performing cross-tabulations across other thematics, including trust, corruption, participatory governance, and demographic data, to draw conclusions. The interviews were assessed and analysed across the themes of temporality, crisis, and trans-scalarity through the lenses of COVID-19 and water.Item Urban design coding: A Qualitative Study into the Relevance of Urban Design Coding in Informal Settlements: The Case of Mushroomville Settlement, Centurion, Pretoria, South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Donga-Matambo, Thandeka; Msingaphantsi, MawaboIn the year 1994, South Africa saw the end of Apartheid and the beginning of a new democratic era. The African National Congress (ANC) came into power and adopted neoliberal policies that favor capitalism, entrepreneurship, a free-market economy and the privatization of some economic sectors. This approach benefited and provided resources to a handful of people at the cost of many – the rich became richer, and the poor became poorer. Today, the commodification of all aspects of life has forced the “urban poor” who cannot afford the city lifestyle to turn to informal means in order to be closer to socio-economic opportunities. Informal settlements have become a major concern to capitalists because they affect investors’ perception of an area and reduce the value of surrounding properties. For a long time, the government’s response to informal settlements has either been to upgrade the settlements in their current location or to evict the residents and relocate them on the urban periphery, far from opportunities, services, facilities and institutions. Unfortunately, the government’s efforts have resulted in the further marginalization and segregation of the poor. This research aims to assess the extent to which urban design codes can be used to redevelop informal settlements into livable, good quality human settlements that are stitched into their existing urban fabric. The Mushroomville Informal Settlement in Centurion, Pretoria will be used as a case study. The research will use qualitative research methods to achieve the set aims. The primary sources of data will include site visits, photography, interviews with an attorney and the informal settlement residents as well as observations of the residents within their natural setting. The secondary data will be sourced through desktop research on site-related court cases, newspaper articles, policies, precedents and other relevant literature. It is expected that the research findings will show that urban design codes can be a useful instrument in redeveloping informal settlements into livable settlements with good quality housing.Item Exhumation of forgotten souls: Indigenous knowledge systems and sustainable design approach to Patlong Village Relocation and place of memory(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Matlanyane, Samson Matlokotsi; Matsipa, MphoSince the 1940s, rapidly increasing demand for green energy globally along with water supply demands in growing urban areas have led to de- velopment of hydropower dams and reservoirs at an unprecedented scale across the globe. Although hydro facilities are a relatively clean energy, they have environmental and social impact at country, basin, and regional levels. At country level, construction of these mega hydro-projects comes at a great cost to directly affected communities as they cause involuntary dis- placement, lose of rangelands and means of sustaining livelihood in gener- al. Furthermore, existing social links are broken leaving indigenous knowl- edge systems at risk of erasure. Lastly, affected communities are usually undercompensated, relocated, and hosted in other villages or moved to new designated settlements where resources are already limited thus causing a further strain on such resources. Not only do said hydro-projects have negative impacts in their respective countries, unsustainable management of river flows and unequal use of the Basin’s water lead to conflicts between riparian states. Environmen- tally, damming of valleys negatively affect fauna and flora upstream by flooding and inadequate water downstream. The Lesotho Highlands wa- ter, a 4 phased bilateral agreement between Republic of South Africa and Kingdom of Lesotho is no exception to these negative impacts. This research Report investigated how indigenous knowledge of material and social culture can inform new relocation stratergies which will help anchor a newly developed village. Through recording of oral and literary history, mapping, and conducting semi-structured interviews at Patlong, an understanding of the community’s current livelihood was established. Based on the author’s findings, an Architectural intervention in a form of a settlement anchored by an agricultural skills development centre, a seed bank and a commercial retail node was proposed to ensure a sustainable relocation strategy.Item Evaluating the state’s response to flooding disasters: the case of deelpan village emergency housing(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Rirhandzu, ChumaOver the past few years, South Africa has been struggling with managing flooding episodes. From a housing point of view, one then worries about the living conditions of the poor people who do not have the necessary resources to recover from the effects of the disaster, like the people of Deelpan Village in the North West province. To obtain data for this research, I analysed secondary data in relation to disaster management, housing, and planning accessed from government websites. I also conducted a total of 18 semi-structured interviews with the officials and community representatives who were actively involved in the Deelpan Village emergency housing project. This study revealed that the people of Deelpan preferred permanent housing structures over temporary solutions; hence, the Temporary Residential Units have not been provided. The study concluded that the Deelpan residents rejected TRUs for permanent structures due to fear of state failure. Three years after the 2021 flooding, no housing support has been provided by the state, indicating a lack of resources to handle disasters.Item Cultural memories and place-identity: a case study of Syrian refugees’ resettlement and acculturation strategies in Egypt(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Fahmy, Randa; Elleh, NnamdiFocusing on the Syrian refugees in Egypt—the aftermath of the 2011 public uprising, and the so called “Arab Spring”, or the “Jasmine Revolution”—this thesis explores the interaction of four main social factors influencing Syrian refugees place identity in the host country, Egypt. The first factor is the circumstances that caused the displacement of Syrians to become refugees in Egypt. The second factor is the refugees’ production of architectonic elements in the host country that are ideologically presumed to be ‘authentic’ architectural cultural heritage from their homeland. The presumed authentic architectural culture manifests as territorialisation in the host country for the protection of Syrian refugees’ identity. The third factor is the ‘globalisation’ forces that blend commercially inspired diverse trendy architectural styles into universal interchangeable consumables while ignoring contextual and cultural specificity. The fourth factor is the elucidation of what was realised when the three factors—the refugees, presumed authentic architectural culture, and globalisation forces—come together in the host country. Preliminary studies suggest that Syrian refugees maintain interactive tensions among the perceived original homeland architectural cultural identity, globalisation forces, and the necessity to modify the presumed original culture to adjust and settle in the host country. Examining the intersections of these four factors is the topic of this thesis. It is also observed that refugees tend to conceptualise authentic heritage ideology in placemaking to maintain an assumed cultural- identity in these globalising times of displacements and movements. Thus, in the effort to realise the assumed authentic architectural cultural heritage in the host country, Syrian refugees’ placemaking in Egypt defaults into another form of territorialisation that is inspired by architectural cultural memories from their homeland. Territorialisation disaggregates, personalises, and distorts the image of cultural identity of the places where refugees dream to be because it motivates them to be distinguished from their host culture while at the same time seeking to assimilate into the host country. This irony and the conflict of wanting to belong to the host country but, at the same time, wanting to be separate by retaining their Syrian identity, is the core of the study. Also, this thesis uses the architectural production of Syrian refugees in the host land, Egypt, in examining how architectural cultural memories are used for recreating personalised places of displaced groups. It is observed that the refugees present the personalized new creations in the host country as their “authentic” architectural culture purely on ideological bases.Item Lagos as a Metropolitan Assemblage: Reading the Layering and Complexity in Urban Infrastructure(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Theron, Patricia Frances d'Altera; Elleh , Nnamdi; Harrison , PhilipThis thesis uses concepts that make up assemblage in Deleuze to explain an emergence of process and pattern in the urban setting of Lagos, as revealed through systems of physical infrastructure designed in relation to the network of waterways. Activities of the British Colonial Office, concentrated on accessibility of the Lagos port during the First World War, provide the initial focus. In the post-independence period, and after the Civil War (1967-1970), Lagos was a centre of exhibition for oil- wealth projects under the Nigerian Federal Military Government. Major infrastructure contracts were awarded to German-Nigerian firm, Julius Berger, which underwent a process of indigenisation in Nigeria. In 1975, a crisis of congestion resulted in a stasis at the Lagos port, with state-response involving infrastructural and legal resolutions. Julius Berger Nigeria (JBN) was to complete a new port at Tin Can Island in only 15 months, while simultaneously carrying out other extensive projects in Lagos. These undertakings would provide the blueprint for future operations at scale, and for the consolidation of the company’s footprint in territorial terms. The conceptual contribution lies in an exploration of the uses of ‘territorialisation’ and ‘coding’ that stabilise or disrupt, consolidate or expand social territories. Infrastructural projects are subject to social interactions that are coded, decoded or overcoded in organisations that are themselves forming and shaping as groups. The way in which social territories are held together through language, visual symbolism, codes of conduct and national law, constitutes this study, enabling observation of Nigeria’s complex infrastructural programmes, with emergent factors representing the binding elements at organisational and territorial levels. The archive is itself understood as an assemblage, bringing together resources of disparate origin, with Colonial Office and JBN records revealing an alternate and imagined Lagos, and effecting a reterritorialisation shaped in narrative terms. This reading attempts to speak to the complexity, in a vision of processes and interactions that were evolving and reacting in these historical periods, to respond to the question of how social territories are held together as a fabric, with processes of territorialisation and coding seen as manipulations of that fabric. Infrastructural projects are read in relation to wider strategic objectives of the Colonial Administration and the Nigerian State, involving intricate social and technical interrelations in implementation of programmes, with ideas functioning at the level of individual attitude and systemically.Item Spirit of place: demystifying the significance of sangoma practices in our communities, education, and well-being, while looking at how they can exist in modern spaces(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Pitse, DikelediWith the evolution of technology and the modern man, sacred spiritual practice and African tradition has become lost amongst our people. Ancient communities took pride in preserving ancestral teachings and rituals that kept us connected and grounded before the rise of modern medicine as we know it. The role of the sangoma/traditional healer in these communities was seem as extremely significant, in that they can communicate with our forefathers. These modes of communication provide clarity on where we come from, as well as where we should go. Therefore, I will be looking at ways in which this sacred practice can be preserved and have a legacy in the modern environment. Additionally, I will show that indigenous knowledge can form part of higher education. Lastly, through research and interviews, I will show the types of spaces that are required in urban the environment for traditional spiritual practices to remain part of everyday life.Item Community (mis)participation in Urban Green Space restoration: A case of the Wilds Nature Reserve, Johannesburg(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Marere, Nozipho P.; Leuta, TsepangThere is a notable rise in privatized urbanism in South Africa, a trend which re/produces urban inequalities. This research sought to determine whether community involvement in urban green space restoration follows the same trend of private urbanism resulting in an apartheid legacy of separate development, exclusion and segregation. The research followed the qualitative case study approach. Data collection instruments used were semi-structured interviews, with a sample size of twenty-two individuals, selected through a combination of convenience and purposive sampling. Participant observations, which were done over a period of three months, also supplemented by photographs of biophysical elements of note highlighted by participants through transect walks. Findings from this research established that community participation at the Wilds is informal. Challenges in the way of a working and effective public-private partnership include power dynamics, lack of trust and bureaucracy. However, in the absence of a formal working relationship, a novel form of co-production occurs resulting in spaces of hybrid character. Hybrid spaces are therefore the medium of (re)production of power, privilege, exclusion and inequality. Main groups excluded from participation in restoration include Black people, women and children. Their exclusion is based on social class or income level, level of education and awareness and vulnerability of physical assault and abuse. A recommendation for future research is an exploration of local systems of innovation by young people in Urban Green Space development and management.Item Exploring Developing Economies: Emerging Local Economies and Displaced Urbanisation: The Case of KwaMhlanga(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Shibambu, NhlalalaThis research explores the economic evolution of KwaMhlanga, a settlement in Mpumalanga province, within the context of debates over displaced urbanism—a concept that describes how people living in areas that were developed under Apartheid's forced relocations, which are far from urban centres and densely populated, are developing informal economies to sustain themselves (Mosiane and Gotz, 2021). The study investigates whether KwaMhlanga represents a form of displaced urbanism and examines its potential to function as a viable economic node. It builds on Mosiane and Gotz’s (2021) framework, which characterizes displaced urbanism as communities developing informal economies and modern infrastructure despite historical displacements. The research evaluates KwaMhlanga's economic potential by analysing policy, infrastructure, land use regulations, and the roles of local institutions, traditional authorities, and small businesses. The research methods that were used were semi-structured interviews with the Ndebele Traditional Authority and Thembisile Hani Local Municipal Official and business owners located along the R573. Observations using Google Earth were made of the KwaMhlanga crossroads and the businesses located there, these observations were mapped. Findings suggest that while KwaMhlanga is evolving economically in a limited way, with some growth of small scale businesses and the development of a mall, challenges such as inadequate services and weak institutional support hinder its development as a functional economic node. The study’s limitations include the inability to interview formal businesses at the KwaMhlanga Shopping Complex and limited sample size due to businesses unwillingness to be interviewed.