Abstract
This project explores architecture’s potential to address South Africa’s history of racialised land laws and systemic marginalisation, using adaptive reuse as a pathway for economic and cultural empowerment. With the National Heritage Resources Act (NHRA) in focus within this historical context, the thesis recognises how the NHRA inadequately protects indigenous heritage, relegating it to secondary status and reinforcing an exclusionary national narrative. This critique underscores the need for a truly inclusive heritage model in South Africa. The design narrative unfolds across three historical periods: the forced displacement of the Bapedi people from their ancestral land; apartheid’s oppressive relocation policies, highlighted through the juxtaposition of Alexandra and Modderfontein; and the reimagining of Dr. Xuma’s home in Sophiatown as an economically sustainable indigenous garden. Through site-specific interventions, symbolic materiality, and economic revitalisation models, this project proposes a heritage framework that places indigenous culture at its core, redefining preservation as a means for social equity and sustainable community growth.