Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation emerged from a fascination with the rich urban and architectural fabric of dense inner-cities, the layered palimpsest, and strong sense of character as a result of the piecemeal evolution of the city over time. Retaining this character is at odds with the phenomenon of a market-driven, developer-led method of place ‘un-making’ within the city which aims to maximise utility and scale, removes large portions of the existing urban fabric in the process, but adds much needed density to the city. The dissertation attempts to understand the paradox between the positive addition of density, and the nega- tive destruction of good urban fabric and character. While vacant erven within the city are scarce, the city’s density is far less than is planned due to many existing buildings having a lower bulk than is allowed. Simply put, there is a vast amount of airspace above the existing city which is being underutilised and underdeveloped. This dissertation explores a method of placemaking less dependent on the ground plane, and able to occupy the underutilised airspace above existing blocks and erven; densifying the city, and expanding its capacity, while maintaining the unique sense of character and rich urban fabric which is a product of generations of small steps in development. The dissertation attempts to cover, as a narrative, the process of unpacking ideas as pragmatic as zoning and as poetic as what it means to contribute to the rich architectural palimpsest, and everything in between.

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation is inspired by the age of digital media as a mode of cultural production. This project aims to uncover how social interaction is shaped by digital space and its effects on physical space. This is an exploration of an architecture which mediates between the tensions and contradictions that exist between a digital and physical dimension. I believe today's culture is largely driven by the use of digital and social media, be it Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. Through the use of digital media, people are able to consume and produce material (online) simultaneously and collaboratively. I believe this has transformed the manner in which people communicate and establish their sense of identity. Digital media has also made way for the concept of globalisation, where people are brought closer through instant and rapid forms of network communication, thus contesting and collapsing the reality of distance and physical boundaries. According to Virilio (2012:73), “...we must at least resolve ourselves to losing the sense of our senses, common sense and certainties, in the material of representation. We must be ready to lose our morphological illusions about physical dimensions...". This indicates that there is a tension between the formal environment and digital space. In this age of digitalisation, the human artefact and its mode of communication is changing: with it, so will our physical environments. This dissertation seeks to negotiate between these two dimensions, through the architecture and its programmatic response in relation to the urban context of Cape Town city centre.

The intention of this thesis was to challenge how we, as architects are appropriating new formations of space within the city. The research began as an exploration into how a contemporary African city space could be envisioned, a future trajectory of design thinking that challenges normative systems of design. The diverse nature of South African cities should have an architecture that responds to its lived reality and one that reflects cultural difference. This exploration was narrowed down to view a need that ran across cultural lines. I chose to do this through looking at various health systems that prevail in our current society. The challenge was to critically seek out new ways that one could accommodate for various cultural beliefs while viewing these various health practices. These explorations were carried out in two sections - the first section looks at our current condition and what the prevailing health systems are in our society, as well as the challenges these various views on health pose. The second section focuses on a spatial understanding of how these systems are carried out in our city and seeks to analyse the various spatiality's of healing practices. The idea is to search for how new spaces of healthcare could be realised that reflect cultural difference, rituals and practices and which respond to a South African condition.

Includes bibliographical references / This dissertation is a speculation on the role of infrastructure in shaping the city. By reimagining infrastructure in terms of its social, economic and topographical effects rather than purely on functional terms, the project proposes a method of intervention that transforms the city by ameliorating the negative spaces of existing infrastructure, bridges spatial divisions, and provides physical and social services to underserved communities. The dissertation is founded on an understanding of Cape Town's twentieth-century planning and development as a modern, infrastructured city and simultaneously a segregated apartheid city. The modernist preoccupation with separation is demonstrated to have dovetailed with apartheid policy to produce a functionally, economically and racially segregated urban landscape, with infrastructural projects used to carve up these discrete land parcels. The proposal is a hybrid spatial intervention that simultaneously adopts and subverts infrastructural processes to produce a more holistic approach to structuring the city, dealing with the issue of infrastructure at three levels: re-imagining existing sites of infrastructure to mitigate their divisive spatial effects and turn them into an urban resource; providing infrastructure to communities in need of basic services; and broadening the scope of what constitutes 'infrastructure' to include not only mobility and services but also social and educational facilities, landscape, recreation and access to information. The result is a device for reconfiguring the urban landscape to encourage economic opportunity, social mobility and urban liveability, suggesting a route to a more integrated city.

Bibliography: leaves 177-187. / This dissertation presents a novel system for semi-automatic modeling of buildings in informal settlement areas from aerial photographs. The building extraction strategy is developed and implememed with the aim of generatinga a desk top Informal Settlement Geographic lnformation System (ISGIS) using felf developed and available PC-based GIS tools to serve novice users informal settlement areas.

Bibliography: leaves 117-125. / The task of recording our physical heritage is of significant importance: our past cannot be divorced from the present and it plays an integral part in the shaping of our future. This applies not only to structures that are hundreds of years old, but relatively more recent architectural structures also require adequate documentation if they are to be preserved for future generations. In recording such structures, the traditional 2D methods are proving inadequate. It will be beneficial to conservationists, archaeologists, researchers, historians and students alike if accurate and extensive digital 3D models of archaeological structures can be generated. This thesis investigates a method of creating such models, using digital photogrammetry. Three different types of model were generated: 1. the simple CAD (Computer Aided Design) model; 2. an amalgamation of 3D line drawings; and 3. an accurate surface model of the building using DSMs (Digital Surface Models) and orthophotos.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / One of my initial research questions was to answer how informal settlements can pioneer the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in Cape Town. The objectives included understanding energy usage in informal settlements, invetigating current energy technologies and innovating an architectural typology which can support multiple renewable fuel sources and create positive, urban space in these communities.

Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Includes bibliographical references. / The thesis traces the development of universities, identifies their characteristics in terms of space, building and planning structures and explores the social background which gave rise to these features. The core chapters explore the emergence of university spatial development, first in the medieval colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, then in the renaissance and neoclassical European universities. These are followed by the exploration of the campus plans in the United States and finally, the postwar universities.

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation explores therapeutic architecture and the integration of addiction rehabilitation into the Cape Flats, Mitchells Plain area. This project ultimately introduces the concept of an integrated community rehabilitation and wellness centre in one of the most notorious, unhealthy urban environments in the Western Cape, Mitchells Plain. This will demonstrate that a healing environment can be achieved in any context, urban or rural. A rehabilitation centre that engages with its surrounding community, fostering various levels of controlled interaction between patient and public. An integrated facility that gives back to its community through shared facilities. This investigation also unpacks the existing rehabilitation ecology and the gradual transition process in the formulation of a new hybrid system that combines the various stages of rehabilitation within a centralised facility. The project aims to deinstitutionalize the existing rehabilitation programme through the ‘simulation of a real life’ concept, where the facility will incorporate familiar elements, such as the house, neighbourhood and downtown to replicate the variety of environments in our everyday lives. The design uses ‘nature as therapy through architecture’ with the implementation of various concepts, which includes a raised therapeutic platform and a perimeter planter, serving as an urban filter that defuses the harsh urban context of Mitchells Plain. This project also explores the role of Architectural technology in therapy and ultimately introduces the concept of a highly localised adaptive façade system that allows for individual patient control and to filter the interactive visual relationship between patient and public. Our modern healing facilities have been designed to house apparatus for healing but not to be healing instruments in themselves. Architecture should be considered just as significant as the treatments that it houses.