M.Tech. (Architecture) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / This book is based in, and begins with, dialogue. This is the exchange between author and reader, as consumer of its narrative. Portions of this work are interactive in order to extend and capture this dialogue between each of us and the ‘material’ content that “constitutes the city, as lived experience, encounter and representation. The book is an imagining of the city. It is a visual-textual craft anthology that develops over time as a collection of artefacts that point to an alternate future reality. This is done through the process of design. [0.1] The dialogue is interlaced with cross-stitched personal histories[G] of both author and the site. There are many personal reflections about place, image and experience of space comprising the presented material. These are woven into the subject matter. The book sews together these patches of the experiential, the visionary and the idiosyncratic nuances of the existing and future city, and site. The format and composition of the pages that follow resemble material ‘things’ as the manifestations of city. Using montage and collage as devices of visual narrative, the subject and design process is suggested, developed and compiled. The ‘image of the city’ is derived through collection and accumulation of textile-tectonic narrative. This is presented as assemblages that can, at any point, be read as past, present or possibility.

M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / This research aims to explore the ways in which offering media and architectural facilities to protesters might contribute to a healthy culture of protest and dissent in Johannesburg. It looks at the rich and complex history of activism and protest in both South Africa in particular but also drawing on recent global protests and their spatial ramifications. It proposes a new facility on the site of one of the city’s most (in)famous protest and incarceration sites, Constitution Hill, and proposes a programme of information and education aimed at encouraging all interested citizens and activists to both understand their options, rights and responsibilities in a young democracy, and crucially, a platform to enact them.

Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Architecture (Professional) to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017 / ABSTRACT The aim of this dissertation is to explore alternative ways of looking at architecture through the use of theory, the type of theory, alternative building programme development, representing architecture and how architecture is implemented. By doing so, an intervention is designed to expose various social truths, stimulating self reflection and adding value to the Alexandra-Sandton corridor context. This research project utilises the spirit of carnivals as subversive and radical events to change a community’s behaviour. This dissertation explores Bakhtin’s theory of the “carnivalesque”. This theory was used as the theoretical framework based on four characteristics. Throughout the research process these are used to analyse site context and create an intervention. The four carnivalesque characteristics are: - Usurping of hierarchies; - Pushing taboos; - Unusual connections; - Eccentric behaviour. The social inequalities along the Alexandra-Sandton corridor are broken down into every day activities and juxtaposed to amplify and expose hidden rules that we have come to accept in Johannesburg. The intervention acts as a commentary on the future connection of the two contrasting communities for spectacle and self reflection, transcending the everyday experience into a surreal playground through virtual reality and other means. Architecturally, Social Fiction has three main design strands 1. Theoretical exploration; 2. Architecture as emotional stimulus; 3. Virtual reality as fictional representation. Social Fiction is a project that bridges architecture, politics, socioeconomics and philosophy, using the medium of virtual reality and comic book fantasy as an open and accessible way, challenging the traditional plan, section elevation as a means of communication. / GR2017

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning; and, (M. Arch. in Advanced Studies)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1974. / Bibliography: leaves 341-347. / M.C.P. / M.Arch.A.S.

Contemporary theory on human interaction with the built environment focuses on the creation of place (“placemaking”). A place is defined as a given section of the environment to which humans have assigned appropriate feelings and behaviors. Using the Roman civic feast as a test case, this paper applies the model of placemaking proposed by Amos Rapoport to the built environment of Ancient Rome with the civic feast as a test case. I look to epigraphic, literary, visual, and archaeological evidence for the set of appropriate behaviors assigned to places of civic feasting (“Feasting Places”). This investigation involves laying out the theoretical framework, the physical circumstances of the Feasting Place, behaviors of Romans within it, and evidence for Romans distinguishing Feasting Places from other places. In conclusion, Romans do in fact distinguish between places by means of environmental cues, as evidenced by the case of the civic feast. / text

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Among the few matrilineal communities from around the world were the Nairs of the south-western coast, also known as the Malabar coast, of India. The system of matrilineal consanguinity and descent practiced by the Nairs was remarkable for its complex kinship organization and joint family set up, and the unique status---social and economic---it afforded to the women of the community. / These factors were reflected in the spatial morphology of the traditional Nair house, an assemblage of four blocks, called the nalukettu. The different structural identities of the tarawad institution; the comparative latitude and the bias of inheritance that women enjoyed; the codes of marriage, interaction and avoidance; and the observation of rituals, an integral part of the cosmology and temporal cycle of the system, all find expression in the layout and spatial organization. On the whole, the geometry of the Nair nalukettu was a graphic metaphor of the social and behavioral patterns of the Nair community overlaid on the Hindu way of life, as interpreted by the community. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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