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The service lobby : making public institutions public

Authors: Hollis, Kyle
Date: 2019
Subjects: Architecture , Public institutions
Language: English
Type: Masters (Thesis)
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/293310 , uj:31890
Description: M.Tech. (Architecture) , Abstract: Our public-facing and Civic institutions such as Post Offices, Revenue Services and Home Affairs Departments are vital parts of a nation’s democracy at service, it serves as a key contact point between the state and its citizenry and is therefore required to provide the fundamental services as part of its Democratic obligation. In reality, this is seldom the case, as access to these institutions are symbolically and physically contorted. Grand, incremental and micro assemblages of doors, guards, gates, CCTV, sign-in forms, lobbies and passages create a formidable entry threshold. This practice is in stark contrast to the roles public-facing institutions are obliged to perform, resulting in public-facing institutions that are forts in themselves with the threshold assuming a powerful mediating role between institutions of power and its citizenry. In practical and architectural terms, the doors, gates and entry rituals assume great significance as they are the physical attributes that define the journey of a citizen through the thresholds that separate public space and function. Historically the origin of Lobby is derived from medieval Latin lobia, laubia; covered way, and is more recently defined as “an entrance hall, corridor, or vestibule, as in a public building often serving as an anteroom; foyer.” As the entrance to a public institution, the lobby is a crucial point of interaction and should serve as a mediating space that allows for the public and civic to come together in neutral terms. However, the Lobby to the Civic function has become so physically contorted by the adoption of privatized security elements, that it is no longer perceived as public. Quite similarly to the Civic, the Corporate private lobby spaces have adopted characteristics from the Civic, in the attempts to create gestures of ‘public space’ and pedestrian access, which are based around the archetypal views of the Lobby as an Aesthetic that promotes the face of the Corporate program. But like the civic, the corporate lobby has too become contorted as it is no longer the Aesthetic Archetypal lobby space that is used for this function, but rather the elevator lobby situated somewhere within the parking basement levels, that bypasses the Archetypal Lobby space and leads directly to the corporate function. As a developing country South Africa is in constant transition. Its cities and suburbs continuously grow and change, and in its history of Colonization, Apartheid and postapartheid democracy its seen quite drastic changes and growth, however it is evident that the...
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A conceptual systems framework for the built environment

- Prazeres, Gabriel Luis Alcantara

Authors: Prazeres, Gabriel Luis Alcantara
Date: 2012-02-06
Subjects: Architecture , Sustainable architecture , Sustainable engineering , Sustainable design , Sustainable construction
Type: Mini-Dissertation
Identifier: uj:2001 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/4355
Description: M.Phil. , The building/construction industry is undeniably one of the largest; it however is also one of the most inefficient. These inefficiencies span design, construction and the operational phases. The depletion of natural resources and the need for sustainability has however created an urgent need for Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) consultants to address these issues and develop life-cycle integration systems capable of eliminating or substantially reducing waste and efficiently managing the complex process of building design, construction and building operations management. Such systems may be based on advanced production techniques developed in the aerospace industries for the US military and subsequently adapted for use in the industrial manufacturing industry. This dissertation will attempt to explore the following: 1. Identification of current trends in the AEC industry including global warming and sustainable development, to determine the impact on the Building Industry. 2. The relevance of life-cycle engineering and Lean Production philosophy for the AEC industry. Of particular interest is how System life-cycle engineering will benefit the trend towards 'green' environmentally sustainable buildings. 3. Analysis of the AEC Design/Construction/Operation process (Project life-cycle), with the intention of identifying major weaknesses and strengths. 4. Information systems (current and future) and how these are driving change in the industry. Information systems as a backbone for the implementation of a proposed systems framework. The possible implications of life-cycle systems implementation for the architectural profession and other AEC professions will result in new proposed structures, obstacles and opportunities.
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High and low territories : portraits of the new vertical

- Le Bron, Chantelle

Authors: Le Bron, Chantelle
Date: 2018
Subjects: Architecture
Language: English
Type: Masters (Thesis)
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/293350 , uj:31895
Description: Abstract: Cities are inseparable from their built form, with skyscrapers acting as a metonym for the urban fabric itself. These vertical figures serve as both the image of the city and the canvas for the application of secondary and tertiary applied identities. Vertical surfaces of cities become a layered canvas for self-expression, opportunism, commercial chance taking, and conscious city branding through the application of advertising billboards, branded building wraps, graffiti and large-scale artworks. The power and influence of these surfaces declares different territories for trade, consumption and social classes, splintering the notion of a specific place through the generic commodification of the urban visual space - a Heineken or Cartier advert is the same in Johannesburg or Durban as it is in Dakar or Tokyo. The consumerist city is now a global condition. This depositing of applied value onto our urban environment disturbs our relationship with an understanding of the built fabric in our cities. In his book The Urbanism of Exception (Murray 2017), Martin Murray states that symbolically, verticality has meant that the developed and developing world is spread out into a fragmented patchwork that severs territories into separate and discontinuous layers. This practice of layering produces landscapes that resemble an extended ‘territorial ecosystem’ of externally alienated, but internally homogenised, enclave spaces located next to, within, above, or below each other (Murray 2017:131). The layering of the building skin and resultant ‘thickening’ of this surface space further emphasises the sealed, isolated nature of the internal environment. Architect and artist Gordon Matta-Clark exposes this condition in his work by sawing and carving sections out of buildings to reveal the interior, things never meant to be seen. The artist Dan Graham (quoted in Bernstein, 2017) states that “Matta-Clark saw his ‘cuts’ as probes . . . opening up socially hidden information beneath the surface”. This approach by Matta-Clark was an attempt to recover lost and neglected parts of the city and open them up for public enjoyment and co-creation. My proposed project employs a similar methodology to Matta-Clark’s ‘anarchitecture’ – a destructive investigation to expose and interrogate the physical and symbolic construction of our consumerist city. This site for the Major Design Project thus becomes the built structure, the applied branded surface and the thickness of the space between and through internal and external velums... , M.Tech. (Architecture)
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The scar : coalescing spaces of production and consumption

- Tatham, Paul Ross

Authors: Tatham, Paul Ross
Date: 2018
Subjects: Architecture
Language: English
Type: Masters (Thesis)
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/293497 , uj:31913
Description: Abstract: The Scar: Coalescing Spaces of Production and Consumption is the culmination of an exploration into architectural language (how we see, draw and build architecture). Through performative drawing, digital projection and tectonic prototyping the project speculates on new forms of consumer convenience in our city. The resulting proposition, a new form of Convenience Store, is not simply a fixed building, but rather a conceptual fabric and transactional space of production and consumption. The project is sited in three public sites in Johannesburg. Each ‘store’ is proposed as an environment for producers and consumers to practice rituals of consumption at a heightened state of convenience – an instantly individualised and immediately accessible state of convenience. Additionally, the work also explores how information produced through the act of consumption can be captured and exchanged, inventing new forms of value and currency. The intention of the proposition is to produce a space where the processes of production and the act of consumption are compressed into one surface (skin, material, fabric). The resulting ‘scar’, the line between produce and consume, manifests as a compressed supply chain; an intelligent surface, a compact manufacturing unit and an observed space. Beyond the functionality of 20th century inventions such as the vending machine and the automated teller machine, the convenience store houses contemporary forms of small-scale production such as 3D printers (where objects can be manufactured) and computers (where information can be exchanged). The project emphasises ‘process’ as a medium for research and discovery, this process is made of two parts: observe and translate. The field trip, films, architectural precedents, collaborative dialogues and other references are seen as inputs for the process, along with my own interests in sensory experience. These are translated into work through active performances (drawings) where the human body is seen as the central device in unpacking and creating architecture. , M.Tech. (Architecture)
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