Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree: 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, 2016 / The heritage and history of a city is often based on urban legend. These stories pertain the cultural rooting of the society that had lived within the cities from their founding and until today. Johannesburg or Egoli appears to have skipped this cultural rooting and instead stems from the political and commercial soil of the gold mines. If we excavate into the gold mining history of the city – and even into the history preceding it - we can find the hidden sacred and cultural beginnings embedded in our society today. Our society has been formed on the continual evolution of the ideas of the sacred and profane through practices of incorporation, salvation and adaptation. As the gold mines in the city shut down, in 1940, the migrant labourers were left in hostels in an unfamiliar terrain and little means to make a living (Potenze, 2015). This means that today, we can still find evidence of the importance of sacred rituals similar to those in the mining compounds. Religions and cultures in Johannesburg, that have been gradually changed overtime, are a result of the incorporation of mining labour, urban customs and western ideas (including religion and technologies). Although the city has clearly harmed the rural traditions, we can still see glimpses of the endurance of the sacred within the profane landscape. The profane is adapted by the different communities in the inner city – as will be discussed with reference to the Mai Mai and Shembe (Nazareth Baptist Church) communities – to express their cultures of the sacred, traditional and religious and to accommodate for ritual practices associated with them. Today’s societies of the inner city are a mix of cultures, religions, God, the ancestors and ritual practices - both sacred and profane. By learning from the way in which these communities continually evolved to incorporate their environments into their traditions, the city too must now incorporate these communities and their beliefs into its structure. If this is achieved, it could ignite a healing process through integration as opposed to replacement or removal of elements of the city or of its society. This report explores ideas of the importance of religion and culture in Johannesburg’s context. As it is an architectural analysis, the response will be a proposal for religious infrastructure and space within the area of City and Suburban, alongside the Kwa Mai Mai market and the gathering spaces of the Shembe / Nazareth Baptist Church. This will promote and retain the cultures, traditions and religions that were brought to the city and used as a tool of survival. / MT2017

This thesis is submitted to the School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand in fulfillment of the requirements for the Masters of Architecture (Professional) / This thesis, entitled ‘The New Public’, aims to investigate the role of public space and civic architecture in the information age. Specifically, examining the role of design in facilitating multiple different forms of public life as well as challenging the current approaches to pedestrian movement within the city. The design approach was to create a campus containing a new public space and a hybrid civic building which together allow for spaces that facilitate new forms of public engagement. The aim of this campus is to create public spaces which host many different forms of public life and allow for mixing and exchange. The thesis is grounded in the context of 21st century Johannesburg, a city which brands itself a ‘world-class African city’ and whose vision is to be a city that provides real quality of life for all its citizens. However, while the current spatial policies strive to build a collective and shared vision for the future of Johannesburg, the city still plagued by a past based on segregation and inequality. What this has left us with is a bifurcated public environment. A spatial condition further impaired by the currently strongly dived public and quasi-public transport systems. I have therfore chosen to site my project in a space within the city which encompasses these issues: The Park Station precinct, Johannesburg. The research component of this thesis aims to unpack the factors which have led to a change in the culture of use of the public realm both globally and locally. I also investigate how Johannesburg’s past and current planning strategies created spaces that contain a ‘legacy of separation’. Lastly the research extends to the relationship between public transport and public space and the effect of transit oriented design (TOD) approaches on public life.

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

This dissertation examines the production and experience of class and racial distinctions in contemporary Mexico City by focusing on encounter and proximity between different social groups in the country's most emblematic urban center. It draws on eighteenth months of ethnographic fieldwork with artists and young professionals living in the city's historic center as part of a public-private redevelopment plan locally known as the "rescue." Led by multimillionaire Carlos Slim, this endeavor has been framed as an initiative of civil society to recover the symbolic heart of the nation from crime and illegality while transforming it into a secure and livable space for all Mexicans. The rescue mobilizes a neoliberal idiom of the modern (associated in Mexico and across the world with democracy and responsible citizenship, a retreating state and a free market economy) and epitomizes the illegibility of public and private distinctions. I focus on moments of encounter between the historic center's new affluent residents, on the one hand, and the inhabitants of its dilapidated tenements and the vendors of its informal street markets, on the other. Such encounters slide into suspicion, uncertainty, instability and misrecognition. In focusing on encounter I trace new residents' desire for commonality, for an "all of us" in the historic center (a recognition as urban dwellers or as fellow citizens), and their anxieties about the very possibility of this commonality. Such situated fears, I argue, articulate with longstanding elite apprehensions in Mexico about the popular masses, historically construed as the embodiment of the national subject and at the same time as the manifestation of atavistic residues. In the discourses and practices of different agents of rescue (new residents, the police, private investors and state officials) these masses figure at once as subjects to be redeemed and as plainly irredeemable others, unfit for the requirements of modern democratic citizenship. The dissertation thus traces relations between new residents' quotidian fears of crime and violence in the socially mixed spaces of the historic center on the one hand, and contemporary debates and anxieties over liberal democracy, citizenship and social belonging, on the other.

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This document is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree: Master of Architecture (Professional) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in the year 2014. / This thesis explores theories of escapism and applies them to the Johannesburg precinct in the form of a socially interactive public space. Our day to day banal realities do not satisfy our innermost desires, as a result; we choose to disconnect from our realties. We often become passive consumers in a world dominated by production, fuelled by retail advertising and marketing media, and in turn we frequently overlook the shaping of our own social existence and choosing healthy forms of flight. I feel that our city does not provide opportunities for escape in the form of urban rituals and therefore a sense of belonging is inadequately specified. I aim to provide a positive form of escape which supports urban rituals, and thereby define a place within Johannesburg. A public space enables social interaction and individual exploration and is therefore a temporary from of escape. Our city is often perceived as dangerous and unaccommodating, but there is vast opportunity within the precinct due to the many existing connections and vibrant pedestrian life. My chosen site is an existing heritage building and the active node, Gandhi Square, currently existing divided by a sprawl of busses through which pedestrians are forced to navigate through. Through the redesign of this space, I intend to encourage a pedestrian dominant city, and a civic space that enhances public life and further facilitates urban renewal. My intervention involves 3 elements; an outdoor theatre, the redesign of the Metro Bus facility and a public space to promote a harmonious transition zone between the two. The contemporary theatre I am proposing forms space without physical walls, as light and sound evolve to stage events. The theatre functions within the reshaping of an existing heritage building located on site. It is a flexible space where intense sensory events can occur and carve the avenues into a socially interactive city. This engaging atmosphere caters for the collective as well as the everyday encounter, transforming to the needs of Johannesburg. My intervention will define a place where the celebration of community is lacking and in turn seek to change the perceptions of our city. Through the experience of the whole, my design facilitates chance interactions in which mystical moments can be manifested within a public space devoted to civic escape.

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 / This research report intends to illuminate the effect of how we can slow down, clear our minds and come to a complete standstill in extremely fast cities. To apprehend these effects the investigation focuses contextually, around the eastern edge of Newtown Johannesburg. This site is juxtaposed within the intensity of major transport nodes. We are living in a world that is accelerating at a frightening pace, and people are not keeping up - there is very little time in one’s day to escape the rapidity, acquire peace of mind and absorb the present moment. This research report acts as a precedent for how future utopian cities can host a space that encourages a meditative-lifestyle of slowing down. I unfold three theories to help support my investigation; Lieven de Cauter’s theory on capsularisation tells us how man has turned to ‘hyper-individualisation’, closing himself off from the world and creating social barriers. The second theory I look at is non-places by Marc Augé who talks about the in between places we pass through such as petrol stations, bus stops, terminals, etcetera, and how these transient spaces have become more meaningful because one is spending more time in them due to technological advancement. I label these as delayed spaces in my thesis which is the third theory I look at by Fardjadi and Mostafavi. I engage with these last two theories by doing an evaluation on them; these include multi-faith spaces, petrol stations, bus stops, terminals and launderettes. I do so because these are spaces where people slow down and pass through within an ordinary day. I suggest how these activities, that are normally considered mundane, can be transcended through different opportunities to slow down through a meditative life-style. Within each evaluation particular lessons are acquired that are integrated in the overall building design. At one point in the research report I take a time-out from the design process to question the value of slow architecture. Much of the working world as well as universities have an uncomfortable urgency when it comes to design. There is no time to reflect on mistakes made or gain perspective on the process which leads to quick decisions without much thought, and often lack in creative depth or meaning. I touch on my own design process and thinking as an example to explain why it is important to slow down and review what has been done to be able to move forward with clear direction. In terms of the architecture for my research report, two specific concepts are unravelled; the first one is movement - how one approaches the building as well as the circulation within it. I used the labyrinth and the notion of time-frames to support this idea of slowing down from speed to stillness which determined my program. The second concept is the ‘consciousness capsules’ which host the main meditative spaces and activities in the building. These activities make up the program and they include a multi-functional gathering space, a communal library to learn about meditation and its philosophy, hand-craft workshops (such as painting, quilting and basket weaving), meditation rooms, collective yoga, a dormitory, and finally a public garden terrace at the very top accompanied by a walking labyrinth. The whole journey through the building portrays a ‘stairway to heaven’ and provides an overview of the city that allows for one to escape the bustle and re-collect ones’ thoughts and immerse in the present moment - as nothing is more urgent today than slowing down. / GR2017

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree Master of Science in Development Planning to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017 / A sustainable approach to development brings together social, economic and environmental aspects. However this does not occur in a vacuum, development decisions take place in a palimpsest of underlying decisions and a myriad of conflicting uses and tensions. The sustainable development of parks entails making trade-offs within a conflicting environment. This study reflects on officials’ practices in the processes of park developments. It evaluates the decision-making terrain for park developments to understand the challenges, the advantages and the limitations in achieving an integrated and sustainable park. To this end, I have reviewed JCPZ (Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo) officials’ practices in the park development of an urban wetland in Mshenguville, Soweto. The methodology used for this paper is mainly the case study approach and reviewing archival documents used for the development process. What makes this case study interesting is that this park has some contested, proposed and appropriated land uses such as golf, cattle grazing, and an eco-park. The research report mainly shows that a balance or win-win approach to development is not easy to attain especially in highly contested developments but rather a compromise can be reached provided that the other forces ( stakeholders) within the sustainability triangle (particularly social, economic and environmental) persistantly negotiate their space to be included in the development plan. / XL2018

This document is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree: Master of Architecture [Professional] at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in the year 2013. / This design intervention takes place in the Olympia Park sports precinct in the town of Springs. Here, unique contextual conditions have informed the development of a Hybrid typology between industry and Public Park. A bicycle factory is proposed along with bicycle transport infrastructure that is implemented on an urban level. This intervention is aimed at creating an interface between the community and the existing, dilapidated sports and recreation facilities that exist within the precinct. Industriality is an important part of the ecosystemic organism called Springs. The new typology questions the notion that ““the harmony of natural landscapes as embodied in songs or poems, cannot be reconciled with the brutality and pollutant image of industriality” (Corner, [video] 2009). By using contextual elements, a design language and programmatic response emerges that could satisfy these criteria. The park by its very nature is a landscape that embodies a spirit of relaxation and relief. By using earth as a spatial device or building material, it is possible to integrate that spirit, and literally the park, into the building. James Corner, Landscape architect of the New York Highline Park says that; “The harmony of natural landscapes as embodied in songs or poems, cannot be reconciled with the brutality and pollutant image of industriality” (Corner, [video] 2009). The park and the industrial are two completely different bodies of thought. But by using the landscape in all its green glory as a foundation for and industrial building, one creates a condition where both these elements are overlapping in an effort to survive and thrive. The park typology signifies a desire to experience a specific kind of environment. By using landscape to soften the interface of the hard industrial aesthetic, the factory is absorbed into the romantic image normally associated with landscape. However, conceiving landscapes purely pictorially does have limitations. The imperative is to overlay a new layer of activity onto a landscape. By placing the factory and the bicycle infrastructure in the un-programmed park, you are creating a pragmatic and technical landscape. The design is therefore not conceived in a pictorial way, but in a productive and functional way. Scripting activities in the park does not force a specific set of activities but allows the user to have a subjective and interpretative experience. This will consequently also have a catalysing effect for new layers of activity to be imported through the passage of time. It is therefore not a concluding intervention but part of the process of progress and growth; or an engine for process. The design is conceived as a mechanical tree. The power of this metaphor lies in the fact that both a tree and a machine are process based. There is no climax state for the tree, only a useful life span. Similarly, the machine is made to be completed, but to be used. Its function is a process, like producing something and doing so continuously. Viewing cities and buildings as process driven organisms should be integrated into our perceptions of industry and sustainable environments.

The concept of the city has come to play a central role in the practices of a new generation of artists for whom the city is their canvas. Street art is a complex social issue. For decades, its presence has fueled intense debate among residents of modern cities. Street art is considered by some to be a natural expression that exercises a collective right to the city, and by others, it is seen as a destructive attack upon an otherwise clean and orderly society. This research focuses on various forms of street art from the perspective of the urban audience. The general aim is to further an understanding of how people interact with and respond to street art. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered via direct participant observations of street art installations and 139 surveys conducted with residents in Portland, Oregon. Survey respondents distinguished between street art forms; generally preferring installations and masterpieces over tagging and stickers. More respondents considered graffiti to be a form of artistic expression, rather than an act of vandalism. Participant observations indicated that purposefully-designed street art can promote interaction between people, art, and public space. Random urban spectators became active collaborators; using art and performance to express themselves in public. These findings indicate there is a need to reconsider zero tolerance graffiti policies. Overall, these findings also contribute to a more informed discussion regarding the regulation, acceptability, and possibilities of unauthorized artistic expression in cities.