The current model of complete separation between different industries, buildings and the public, hampers growth and sustainable development within the city. If connections can be identified between several related programmatic elements, can these work together to share and build common resources that benefit all parties involved? The showgrounds in Pretoria West currently exist as a void in the urban fabric, A large part of its infrastructure built for, and is now mostly only used for the annual Jacaranda Show that will now longer take place there. The role of the agricultural show within the city, however, remains a meaningful part of how the public interacts with the agricultural industry. In order to prevent the loss of this relationship and the heritage of the showgrounds, how can a new development around the existing Champion ring retain this role as well as build on the concept of connecting related industries and the public? The main aim of this dissertation is to investigate how architecture can address the interface between the livestock industry, research, education and the public, so that the collaboration between such programs will result in a reduced environmental impact and be of mutual benefit. / Mini Dissertation (MArchProf)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

Upcycling in today’s society is still relatively rare, with most upcycling occurring in works by artists and product designers. This ‘creative reuse’ is a form of minimising waste products in a more effective process than recycling. This study deals with the design of an upcycling centre and how interior architecture is a framework for the upliftment of the host building in the Pretoria CBD, the model inhabitants (namely waste pickers and crafts people), waste materials and the surrounding environment. Many people perceive the self-starter occupation of streetwaste picking as being dirty and inferior. However, those who practice waste picking usually do so as a means of survival, and can offer valuable assistance in environmental sustainability. Waste pickers are often isolated as a social group – unable to reach higher income levels or living conditions. Ignorance around this informal economic sector has led to a divided and fragmented society, particularly within the Pretoria CBD (identified as the location for the intervention). Finding sustainable solutions to waste reuse and job creation, such as this proposed upcycling centre, which actively engage various members of society (in this case, waste pickers, crafts people and the broader community) is important. This is because such programmes can be beneficial to communities living in dense neighbourhoods, as they can provide the key blocks of cohesiveness and symbiosis for building a prosperous future. The interior architecture discipline is relevant here as being a tangible framework to enable cultural production of new objects, environmental sustainability, cultivation of human capital and a support system for model inhabitants. Waste material and discarded products can inform the character of an interior space, and reflect user intervention with built forms that echo the activity and daily routines within the community. As a facilitator, the interior architecture has been imagined to stimulate, inspire, revive and be perceived as a cyclic journey of renewal. This is the concept which governs the experience, activity and process for users entering the proposed upcycling centre. This proposed intervention of the identified Minty’s Tyres building utilises three theories to guide and inform its responses. Firstly, environmental psychology theory guides the alteration of the building to respond to community and social inclusion strategies. Secondly, adaptive reuse theory informs the alteration of the building in response to the new programme as a form of upcycling and improving the building’s user experience and resource efficiency. Finally, regenerative design theory based on restorative actions and technology is consulted to produce a system that is both efficient and sustainable. The architecture itself (i.e. the physical building, materials and structure) is developed alongside the actual site and ecological surroundings. / Mini Dissertation MInt(Prof)--University of Pretoria 2018. / Architecture / MInt(Prof) / Unrestricted

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the legacy of industrial spaces, the effect of this legacy on the surroundings, and how these spaces then become disconnected and isolated after industrial activity is decommissioned. The research forms part of an NRF research scheme that specifically focuses on building the resilience of cities through innovation in the planning, design and construction of the built environment. The hypothesis on which the dissertation is based states that a process of reintegration of a decommissioned industrial site with the immediate surroundings would enable such a site to become a positive space of transition, and would allow for the reconciliation of society and the ecology that was exploited by the industry. It sees the decommissioning of industrial infrastructure not as a loss or abandonment of obsolete capital, but as the release of energy and potential that can be positively reconstructed. The mechanistic and reductionist world-view that contributed to an unhealthy relationship between people and their ecological surroundings is theoretically explored through the hybridization theories proposed by Bruno Latour (Latour 1993), and the regenerative methodologies put forth by members of Regenesis (Mang, Reed 2012a). The potential of obsolete industrial infrastructure to provide powerful leverage points for changing paradigms from mechanistic to ecological is discussed in the light of its history of developing from craft to large-scale production. Craft becomes an important mechanism for the integration of people with the value and purpose of their work, and also of natural materials and the cultural objects they become. The theories stated above are architecturally applied to an industrial site in Eersterust, Pretoria, which is on the verge of being decommissioned. The site is approached as a constantly evolving and living entity. It is investigated in terms of its patterns and cycles, and these are illustrated as a narrative of all the forces that have impacted on it over millions of years. The narrative provides clues as to possible programmes and site lifecycles, and enables those phenomena that will nurture the biophysical evolution of the site to be given form. The concept of potential sets arises from this investigation, and informs an architecture that aligns itself with both the ecological and cultural forces on site, and represents the hybridization of the two. Potential sets distinguish patterns of ecological, social and industrial phenomena that occur on site over different time frames. These patterns aid the understanding of the ecological purpose of the site and the alignment of the built intervention with this purpose. A building is imagined that will create solutions for public, industrial and ecological spaces, with different levels of engagement between the three. The concept of a solvent enforces the notion of hybridity and allows for new relationships between the public, industrial processes and natural cycles to develop. / Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2014 / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

The dissertation offers a contribution to contemporary discourse which is greatly concerned with the environmental impact of the built environment. It grapples with issues of man’s identity, a reading of place and the relationship between the habitat and inhabitants, by considering how a post-industrial site, namely the Vereeniging Refractories, can be regenerated. The project investigated the various layers informing place, through the lens of regenerative theory. The purpose is to develop a narrative that is sensitive to the site’s environmental, social and economic context, yet can weave the past, present and potential future together. Various responses to three main design drivers, are explored. Narrative (or heritage), environment and programme were weighed up against each other as architectural informants, to establish the most appropriate hierarchy guiding the architectural product. As programme a vocational college for the built environment is envisioned. In terms of the larger scheme for the site, this will be the first implementation which will facilitate the development of the campus to accommodate various interrelated fields of vocation. Co-dependence, collaboration and integrated learning through doing hands-on activity is explored as a means to build a new relationship between man and environment (as a complete set of ecosystems & narratives) – a relationship rooted in a state of well-being, not one of exploitation and inequality. The approach alternated between qualitative and quantitative research and responses, synthesizing decisions into a balanced response. The programme raised a number of challenges that critically influenced decisions throughout the design process. Accommodation of spaces for academic activities parallel to workshops housing traditional and technologically aided construction largely determined the spatial organization of the project. Iterations based on environmental response and the requirement of the intervention to act as catalyst for future development justified the proposal. The transformation of the skin of a portal frame structure was explored, in order to optimize the building’s response to the natural elements, whilst creating optimal interior spaces. This transformation embodies the narrative and meaning of the place, through integration of different re-claimed brick types and vegetation into the skin of the architecture. The architectural response takes the user on a journey through the transformation from a post-industrial place-less space towards, a place that connects the various layers present, towards the ideal of a dynamic human and natural relationship of well-being. / Mini Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Carl & Emily Fuchs Foundation / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

The dissertation investigates the formative influence of hydrology in shaping the spatiality and socio-economic production processes of the urban environment. It acknowledges the surging pattern of human development, the unprecedented growth of cities and the reality of climate change to propose an intervention which aims to introduce the concept of Regenerative Architecture to a South African context. The intervention manifests as an Integrated Biotectural System for the Production and Reclamation of Water, a new architectural typology which is adapted to suit local conditions and to provide innovative possibilities for socio-economic production. The site of the intervention is located behind the G Berth in the Duncan Dock of the Port of Cape Town, extending up the Heerengracht Axis, the most prominent remnant of the formative influence of hydrology on the City of Cape Town. The intervention proposes to form part of a larger Continuous Productive Urban Landscape defined by water, which connects Robben Island – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – from Duncan Dock, through the Heerengracht, Adderley Street, the Company’s Gardens, Orange Street and De Waal Park through to Table Mountain. The intervention acts as a productive landscape that regenerates the connection between the city, the hidden and inaccessible shorelines and the socio-economic production processes those shorelines inherently represent. It harvests the heritage and cultural resources of a historically productive City of Cape Town to present the socio-economic production possibilities of the future: the generation of water and food and the regeneration of land within the urban environment. Copyright / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Architecture / Unrestricted