This dissertation explores wastelands on two levels: an urban planning level and a poetic spatial level. As a real world problem, people move to suburbs (notably in the form of low density housing estates) in search of nature; as they move they destroy nature and contribute to the decay of urban form and fabric of the city. Due to the ensuing urban sprawl and other factors, cities are punctured with wastelands that lie abandoned, neglected and forgotten. On a planning level, this dissertation investigates if wastelands can become the healing tissue that a city needs to reverse urban decay of form and fabric. However, once identified for redevelopment or re-use, the intriguing enigmatic character and richness of wastelands are often ignored and erased in a process akin to gentrification - the sterilisation of wastelands results in ‘non-place’. Thus, on a spatial and experiential level, this dissertation explores the potential of wastelands to become enigmatic landscapes in reaction to the ‘non place’ of modernity. Wastelands in Pretoria are mapped in order to identify potential areas that can be re-imagined to serve a decaying city with open space, yet not be reduced to ‘non-place’ - a site in Salvokop is selected for the study. The design follows a hypothetical process that start with spatial explorations followed by planning considerations; not vice versa. Technical investigations test the validity of the proposed intervention and refine it. A portion of the site is resolved to a detailed sketch plan. / Dissertation (ML(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Architecture / unrestricted

This dissertation responds to the problem that intervention on historical architecture generally represents a loss of value to the existing building and new programme. It investigates the relationship between the alteration of historical architecture and the introduction of new intervention which reflects current users, time and programme through cultural production. Historical architecture is static and rejects the notion of change. Interior design opts to alter the existing to ensure new inhabitation in changing times. Cultural production is the process by which products are designed to relate intrinsically to their user group culture and identity. The study links all three factors through the design of the People’s Upliftment Programme skills training centre in Salvokop (2011 POPUP), in a building which was constructed in 1909 as the chief engineer’s office (1909 CEO) for Pretoria’s railway line. The project seeks to identify a balance between retaining the identity and character of the existing (“historical ideal”), and explicitly reflecting the energy of the skills learners and skills training programmes which have subsequently occupied the building. / Dissertation (MInt(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Architecture / unrestricted