published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

During the course of my graduate year of studies, many avenues of design were explored. The three projects shown in this thesis are the conclusion of this year. My primary concern had been to achieve a confidence with building elements as they operate together. As can be seen from the presentation, I did not arrange spaces but instead designed an ordered system of columns, walls and beams, that arose from a general program and could subsequently be manipulated to provide for the unique requirements of a particular building. These are not really systems buildings, or warehouses to handle any function needed; but instead a set of basic statements arising from the general activities of performing constructing and living. These general categories were chosen from local design projects. Specifically, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is in need of a new Fine Arts facility--Theatre, Dance and Music. My design provides a general building language for such a facility. Radford College Art School was in need of an outdoor paint and sculpture area - a place to work and construct objects that would best be done outdoors. The design by Jaan Holt, which I participated in, gives the college a pavillion "language" capable of incrementally changing to provide for their specific needs. Finally, I feel the public is in need of a better house. The house included is not the answer but an attempt to introduce new design information into the present "symbolics" of the American house. The three projects combined are the result of an attempt to understand specific building languages at several scales and provide an academic end point, as well as a beginning, to professional design. / Master of Architecture

M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / Alexandra's Far East Bank, formerly an apartheid buffer zone, is caught up in a reactive process by government to provide both housing and public transport. This process has resulted in a segregated relationship between the Marlboro Gautrain Station and the adjacent Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) housing scheme. The station is completely cut off from the immediate community by a perimeter fence with 24-hour security. This further entrenches the division between the Gautrain commuters and surrounding community. This forced physical relationship sets up an opportunity to design and create a space that aims to straddle the current socioeconomic gap. After on-site investigation and research, a This project would be the first catalytic response to the City of Johannesburg’s Regional Spatial Development Framework (RSDF) for Region E (CoJ 2009/10: 149). The

Notre étude veut apporter des précisions historiques sur la scène artistique des années 1990 à partir d’un travail de critique d’art. Nous interrogeant sur la place de ce type d’écriture dans un contexte qui médiatise largement une crise de l’art contemporain dans l’espace public, nous examinons comment la remise en question de la modernité est propice à la création de trois nouvelles revues Documents sur l’art contemporain, Blocnotes et Purple Prose. La recherche nous porte à examiner les structures existantes dans lesquelles évoluent les différents acteurs du monde de l’art qui vont accueillir une nouvelle génération de critiques et d’artistes, - des centres d’art mais aussi de nouvelles galeries d’art symptomatiques d’un héritage culturel de décentralisation. Nous dégageons la spécificité de Blocnotes : le rejet des années 1980 et les repères historiques conceptuels des années 1960-1970, les rapports de l’art et du féminisme, la collaboration centrale des artistes, la réflexion sur l’exposition, l’objet fini, l’in situ et l’installation, le cinéma comme modèle. Loin d’une vision univoque de la décennie, nous redéployons des pratiques artistiques et leurs enjeux en nous plongeant dans les textes des nombreux contributeurs de Blocnotes tout en prolongeant par des entretiens des échanges entre critiques et artistes. / The study we are developing here wants to provide historical precisions about 90's artistic scene from an art critic's point of view. By questioning ourselves about the place of this type of writing in a context which widely mediates a contemporary art crisis in the public space, we would like to analyze how the questioning of modernity will be propitious for the creation of three new periodicals : Documents sur l'art contemporain, Blocnotes and Purple Prose. Our research leads us to study the existing structures that will welcome a new generation of critics and artists in which evolve various protagonists working in the field of art – art centers but also new art galleries symptomatic of a decentralized cultural heritage. We particularly enhance the specificities of Blocnotes : the rejection of the 80's and historico-conceptual markers of 60's and 70's, the relationships between art and feminism, the central collaboration of artists, the reflection about exhibition, finished object, the in situ and the installation, the cinema as a model.Remaining far off an unequivocal vision of the decade, we redeploy artistic practices and their issues by plunging ourselves in the texts of Blocnotes' numerous contributors while extending by interviews and exchanges between critics and artists.