Includes bibliographical references. / Densifying within an already built-up, existing city inevitably brings up the question of how to build within an existing built environment, such as Cape Town, where many buildings have historic meaning. This dissertation explores this question and ultimately argues that we should use the spaces and buildings that we have more effectively, rather than searching for greenfield sites outside the city where we can build from scratch. I see buildings as existing in time and having a life of their own – this means that they can accommodate different uses and occupations throughout their lifetime. I believe the evidence of other uses and previous occupations should not be hidden and that exposing the secret life of buildings will create a richness and complexity in our urban environment. Structures retain time, they exist of layers of time and this should be acknowledged. The emergent themes of architecture as palimpsest, of time and the thinking about sustainability was developed in response to urban sprawl and the disregard of all that went before it; both remnants of modernist policies still evident in the development and expansion of Cape Town. Reusing, renovating, adapting and extending older buildings retain the social and cultural capital embodied in buildings and it is inherently more sustainable because it involves less material use, less transport energy, less energy consumption, less pollution during construction and the reduction of generated landfill waste. The site occupies a large piece of land right next to the historic Leeuwenhof, Waterhof and Welgemeend farm homesteads in the Upper Table Valley. The programme was developed in response to site; both in terms of its current use and its history. It is a design for a satellite campus for the Cape Peninsula University of Technology’s Hospitality Management School. The historic waterways serve as inspiration for a circulation spine and route connecting and supporting a series of free-standing buildings. The discovery of really thick masonry walls at Montrose serves as inspiration for the principle of using thick masonry walls as another ordering system. Building within an existing environment will become increasingly important as expansion of cities becomes less favourable as less land is available. This dissertation serves as a case study of possible ways to build within an existing environment where some buildings have historic value.

Includes bibliographical references. / ‘Building Walls: Breaking Boundaries’ is based on the manner in which difference and diversity meet in the city and how architecture and the built environment can be used as a tool to either facilitate interaction or hinder it. Cape Town is a vibrant multicultural city, endowed with a monumental natural landscape that defines its edges. Despite this, the visual language of the city is one of spatial separation; a result of the enduring legacy of Cape Town’s colonial past and modernist city planning, and further perpetuated by the segregationist programme of the Apartheid regime. Cape Town is a place where a variety of natural features and diverse landscapes and persons are concentrated, but each remains isolated and segregated, resulting in the potential of this diversity being lost. My interest lies in the exclusion of both people and animals from the city. Through contradiction and confrontation, this dissertation investigates what happens when these previously excluded groups are reintroduced back into what society deems normal or acceptable. It explores what changes occur when our neatly compartmentalised lives are injected with the unfamiliar, where the boundaries we define are traversed, and where the walls we built to keep ourselves separate are broken down. In this dissertation report, I will explain how people with mental illness and nature are included through an architectural intervention that reconciles the contrasting programs of a halfway house, a sanctuary for neglected city animals and a gateway building as a public interface for Table Mountain. While I have chosen a specific site and designed a building particular to that site, several other comparable sites have been identified within the city where this concept is relevant and can be applied within site specific opportunities and constraints. However the focus of this dissertation is not an urban scaled intervention but an architectural solution to a site which allows the fullest exploration of the conceptual framework underlying this project.

Includes bibliographical references. / I am a mountaineer. I hike, I climb, I camp (mostly without a tent, unless it snows of course). It has been a serious hobby since I was a Boy Scout at the age of fourteen. At the beginning of the year, I saw an opportunity to add a personal touch through experience and interest in order to better design my project-to-be. Something that I have noticed about myself throughout my years of studying is that I am a very image or visual orientated person and so for my participation in the studio design exercises, I sought images that could have provided me with some direction towards an architectural concept. The siting of my project came about while I was riding my motorbike on Rhodes Drive on my way to Camps Bay for sundowners. As I rode past the parking entrance, I did not realize that I passed Cecilia Forest, a place that I was familiar with and yet, as it turns out, not any more. After establishing my site, I explored its history and present condition, which turned out to be quite extensive, hence my initial interest. At this point I very much wanted to arrive at a decision concerning a programme that would be suitable with regards to everything I had researched as well as my own personal drive intents. There were earlier attempts to design a public bathhouse and educational facilities, but the final decision came about after a completed a rather long and grueling trek across the Drakensberg for nearly two weeks, hiking. Hiking has always been a major interest of mine that originated from my youth as a Scout. I consider myself relatively experienced in all aspects of the activity and physical conditions, as far as South Africa is concerned, but this led me to question as to why I had not fully explored the Cape Peninsula from a hiking perspective. This further led to me linking Cecilia Forest to a macro / urban scheme as well as initiating a relative programmatic response through my building.Timber has fascinated me as a structural element because I have yet to work with it at that level. The use of timber was an obvious choice to better integrate the actual site through the physical and symbolic as well as a sustainable approach. The end result is a building suited for mountaineers and the general public to inhabit the forest at various hours and through various uses. The size and bulk will be controlled by what was built there previously as well as what is needed to accommodate a reasonable capacity of people.

In Windhoek and other South African cities six of eight traders are women. As noted by Huda Tayob, spaces occupied by female traders are sites of refuge and care within a highly contested urban realm. In Eveline Street, Katutura, Windhoek the capitalist uneven spatial development has led to continued movement from rural areas to the city. Yet the plethora of opportunities the street offers are limited when it comes to gender mainstreaming. The approach for designing has largely been self-built and conditioned for more men against women trading in the street. Furthermore, research shows that women are more likely to use their earnings on necessities such as food, clothing and education. It also shows that women constantly have to battle for safety in public spaces. The design component of this research study seeks firstly, to facilitate women's access to gendered spaces in these locales by taking on a feminist approach to urban design, by building on the thriving nature of everyday spaces on the street. Secondly, to establish how a collaborative design process between female traders and urban designers may result in better access to infrastructure, recreational spaces and public care within existing public spaces, across multiple scales in Eveline Street. Thirdly, to achieve the trade potential for women in order to ensure food security, vital job creation and poverty reduction. The methodologies used to represent the spatial processes in Eveline Street included: Participatory design methodologies, focus groups, storytelling, non-participant observations, video analysis, data analysis and desk research.

This dissertation is based on the premise that experience is inherent to architecture and that we ought to build resolute in creating inhabited and traversed spaces. Thus, human experience and phenomenology are investigated with the aim of establishing an entry point into designing spaces which are socially resilient. The preliminary research, which is exploratory in nature, recognises phenomenology as a valuable tool in realising an engaging architecture; acting as a mediator between people and environment. The value of phenomenology emerges through its challenging of the design decisions made within architecture, based on how integral and effectively they contribute to the lived experience of a project. Designing around the human experience and scale arguably provides the architect with the best means with which to produce spaces with lasting public resonance. Motivated by the often-overlooked role that walking plays, as both a segment of public transport trips and travel mode, this dissertation aims to celebrate the act of walking and waiting as an addition to the experience of the ‘every-day. Cape Town Station, the point of arrival and departure, is integral to the story of most an urban dweller and everyday traveller, and thus provides a unique opportunity for the built form to bridge the various means of transport, while engaging with the vital role walking plays as part of the everyday journey. The provides the project the potential to contribute to the improvement of the current configuration of movement within the existing local movement network. Although architecture can be a catalyst for change, one must acknowledge that architecture alone cannot address all issues. These intentions are explored through the design of a civic connector which runs from Cape Town Station Taxi Rank, connecting to the Bus Terminal, before finally spilling out onto Grand Parade and into the CBD.

The use of geospatial techniques plays a crucial role in solid waste management. Collection and transportation of solid waste must be done in an efficient manner to avoid negative environmental impacts. At the time of study, there are no collection and routing system in Maseru City, leading to haphazard collection and disposal of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). The aims of the study are: (i) To get an understanding and address the challenges faced by relevant stakeholders in solid waste management for Maseru City, (ii) To minimize adverse environmental impacts due to unscientific location of a disposal site and (iii) To minimize transportation costs and time during collection. The objectives of this study are summarized in the following: assess the current solid waste management, model suitable disposal/dump sites, determine MSW collection points and develop an optimal route for MSW collection and disposal in Maseru City. To assess the current solid waste management, 130 households, 73 community waste pickers, 15 Maseru City Council (MCC) management staff and 3 drivers were interviewed, and relevant data collected. Both primary and secondary data collection methods were used. Primary data collection methods included interviews, questionnaires and observations and creating feature classes in a geo database. Secondary data collection was done from relevant government repositories, digitization, and internet web sites. Simple random, area, cluster, and convenience sampling techniques were applied. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Remote sensing techniques were used to carry out suitability and network analysis, and location of MSW collection points. The study found out that the dump site (Ts'osane) was used by MCC and was not suitably located, hence more suitable alternative dump sites have been proposed. However, Ts'osane dump site was adopted in the analysis as it is the one used by MCC at the time of study. The researcher also found out that there were no designated MSW collection points and optimal routes, and that solid waste collection was done by both MCC and CBOs. In this regard, 334 collection points have been determined based on population and generated solid waste per Constituency and were randomly located in the study area. However, due to the policy that within 25m from the road no development could take place, only collection points which fell v within 25m from the road were selected and used in the routing analysis. One truck was used in the analysis, although more trucks could be used as it was at the time of study. For future research, there is a need to research on policy so that criteria for locating solid waste disposal and location of collection points is explicitly specified in the law to be able to conduct scientific analyses. A multi modal network analysis that would include all the vehicles used by MCC and the CBOs to develop a comprehensive network analysis that would also include necessary attributes such as road names, type, class, and length is needed.

South Africa's tumultuous and oppressive past has given rise to a ubiquitous inequality in the country. This inequality has manifested itself in disparate access to essential needs including but not limited to adequate housing, education, sanitation, job opportunities and child care amongst others. Limited access to the aforementioned, on top of the exponential growth of South Africa's population, has left many in extremely undesirable living conditions and immense poverty. These ubiquitous issues have not gone unnoticed and there have been many attempts to better these conditions through a top-down approach – for example, provision of housing and affirmative action through employment opportunities. However, what these topdown approaches fail to tackle is the problems at their conception. The betterment of the country lies in the nurturing of its growing communities, especially its youth. Nurturance as an attempt to care and protect that which is growing both at the community and individual scale. This project aims to find a way in which to achieve nurturance through the built environment and tests ideas of integrative design that protects and cares for the growing impoverished population and the children that are born into it through physical intervention. It will be an attempt to lift people out of the cycle of poverty at its root through empowerment of both impoverished communities and the children born into them. This intervention will be designed and tested in the community of Vrygrond, one of the Western Cape's oldest informal settlements, which is a prime example of a continuously growing settlement with a very large young population. The site is located in the nucleus of the settlement as a symbolic embedding of a child-centred programme into the informal urban environment. This acknowledges the imperative need for child-centred spaces by weaving it into the pre-existing built fabric.

The provision of adequately -designed housing alone will not eradicate poverty, and on its own, will not completely change the quality of life of people living in the Cape Flats area. The dissemination of houses has marginalized its recipients and disrupted communities through prescriptive and homogenous development that was brought about through Apartheid spatial planning. The appalling planning of housing typologies and poorly defined residual spaces that make up most of the Cape Flats have resulted in a series of neighbourhoods that sorely lack a sense of place. This dissertation examines the topics of: resilience, claiming the right to space, amenities and place-making in the face of adversity within Hanover Park. My aim is to draw inspiration from the existing infill spaces that subsequently manifests into a speculative design proposal to harness ideas of polyvalency and heterogeneity which will aid in alleviating the cycle of poverty. How can Hanover Park's poorly defined residual spaces within the existing stagnant built form be improved to enable communities to participate in the process of place -making? Further, how can a reimagination and adaption to existing fabric be modified to allow for sensitive and careful expansion in support of creating well-defined public and private spaces? The conclusions drawn from this line of enquiry should lend itself to a clearer understanding of the opportunity that lies within Hanover Park's unheld residual spaces to house the diverse pool of micro-enterprises and activities that transpire in the community. Further, it heroes a system of community-embodied spatial design as an act of resistance to histories of forced removals and displacement.

The production of the food we eat has an effect on the landscapes around us, from deforestation, to air and water pollution. The world grows 95% of its food in the uppermost layer of soil, making topsoil one of the most important components of our food system. Current conventional agricultural practices unfortunately degrade our soils. If we continue to degrade the soil at the rate we are now, the world could run out of topsoil in 60 years. If we want to repair our soils, we have to change the way we farm, to change the way we farm we have to change the way we consume. To change the way we consume we have to learn how our food is produced and the impacts thereof. My thesis intents to create a demonstration site where people can learn about various soil creation processes, whilst experiencing a landscape with rare and beautiful heritage. With the improvement of the socioeconomic and ecological conditions of the local community at the forefront.

Bearing witness to domestic violence and the crippling nature of trauma drives the interest in designing healing spaces for women and children. A person of inspiration and countless similar stories have resulted in the dissertation topic of a sanctuary, for women and children, as a space of healing and protection. The proposal is informed by research into feminist perspectives on space-making, phenomenology as a design tool to bring meaning to spaces, and responsive architecture as a way of deeply understanding and responding to site, context, and the community in an impactful and connected way. Two key issues are highlighted from the research and experiences of others, firstly that of needing to provide a space that feels homely and safe, not sterile and clinical, and secondly, that of providing access to facilitated healing and empowerment: with access to support, skills training, workspaces, connections, and nature. The resulting proposal is situated in Hout Bay, adjacent to a wetland, offering accessibility, access to nature, as well as an inherent sense of sanctuary. The design explores the juxtaposition between protection and openness by layering spaces to offer varying degrees of privacy, also using materials to explore solidity and transparency, heaviness, and lightness. Protective thresholds frame and enclose spaces, giving way to openness. Grounded programme is contrasted by the lifting of the most private spaces. More broadly the juxtaposition between public and very private is also explored, where the normative practice of radically disconnecting healing process from ‘normal' daily life is challenged. Important to the design as a whole is for the sanctuary to offer nurturing to both the inhabitants and to the landscape.