Abstract
Soweto is a place “caught between old squatter misery and new prosperity,
squalor and an upbeat lifestyle” (Group, n.d.) and the continued forging of lives
through ‘hustling’. The Hustler is an integral character in any township and is the
embodiment of resilience theory (Salt & Walker, 2006). The opportunity to
intervene in this context lies in the nature of the ‘hustle’ between the wetland as
a resource and the people who would promote its well-being as such. The
premise of this study is that through an architectural intervention that speaks to
the land and the people, a greater appreciation of the relationship between the
natural and human systems will be developed and continued. The community’s
desire for self-improvement yields the opportunity for a building to become a
distributor of skills within the local community and beyond the immediate
context. The focus area for the site is the vacant concrete beam and column
infrastructure formerly used by the power station present on site east of the
Heroes’ Bridge and Nomzamo Informal Settlement . The structure is optimally
positioned in relation to the wetland, the settlement, the formal housing, and
schools and offers an opportunity for adaptive reuse through a new programme.
Its prime location also affords the opportunity in stitching together the aforementioned
areas to create connected reliant relationships. The proposal deals
with relationships on spatial, programmatic and material layers where the context
dictates what is needed and how it should be integrated into existing systems. It
will enhance existing economic networks around the site by nurturing reliable
economic dependencies with the wetland. Programmatically, the intervention
contains a skilled trade and art centre, including a library, day care and after
school centre which supports recreational programmes. The entire structure
doubles up as a community centre with the architectural design being inspired by
the notion of a repository of the exchanges between natural and human systems...
M.Tech. (Architectural Technology)