In the history of rural Xhosa people lies a rich connection between the people and the natural environment. Access to the natural environment provided a sense of wellbeing, a link to ancestral spirits, a location for religious rituals and a wealth of culturally inspired uses within the landscape. This connection underlies certain cultural activities and functions such as religious and traditional rituals, fuel wood collection, water collection, and farming. However, this incredible connection is under threat due to urbanization, environmental conservation strategies, Betterment planning and the introduction of new developments. Betterment planning appears to be the major cause of the isolation of rural Xhosa people from the natural environment. This study investigates how Betterment planning (a conservation scheme that was implemented in the 1930's, aiming at improving rural black people's lives), impacted the rural Xhosa people's social and cultural relationship with the natural environment. The study draws attention to how people lived before Betterment planning, in relation to how people are living now. The aim of the project is to generate a design that will improve contemporary rural Xhosa people's lives, while reconnecting them with the natural environment. The design focuses on interventions that may facilitate the strengthening of rural Xhosa peoples social and cultural ties to the natural environment as well as to revive land production, land use and appreciation of cultural ecosystem services. The overall concept of the design derives from a historically familiar Xhosa homestead layout and the relationship of its domestic spaces. The case study of this project is Shixini village, Willowvale.

Near the Point at Mossel Bay on the Cape south coast is a series of sea cliff caves that contain the earliest known evidence of modern human material culture: a record of complex tool use, collection of marine resources for food and use of natural pigments for symbolling practices. This is revealed by the archaeological excavation of 'midden' deposits - piles of refuse usually situated in the back of cave dwellings left by their ancient occupants. This evidence reveals that modern humans have lived on the Cape south coast for at least 167 000 years, a time spanning global glacial and interglacial periods with associated sea level retreat and rise. During glacial phases of sea level retreat - the norm during much of human evolution - a broad continental shelf was exposed on the Cape south coast, creating a coastal plain up to 90km from the present shoreline. This now-submerged landscape, uniquely temperate, well-watered and productive during harsh glacial phases, provided sanctuary for human and other life. It is thought that this landscape was critical in establishing the course of modern human cognition. A geological study of this coastal landscape reveals its sedimentary nature, the result of repeated processes of erosion and deposition. Notions of erosion and deposition are echoed by human interaction with materials through time. Humans extract material resources from the landscape, transform them, and then deposit them, changing the landscape. The urban landscape of modern Mossel Bay consists of a palimpsest of material traces deposited through time, forming an aggregate of layers of human history. As we enter the uncertain future of climate change and sea level rise, we must be conscious of what we deposit on the landscape. This forces a re-evaluation of our material use as designers and as a society. These considerations animated the choice of the Point in Mossel Bay as the location of a landscape design intervention - a space at the intersection of sea, shoreline, cliff, quarry, cave and plain, that has developed haphazardly in the modern era. The design, which envisions a modern 'midden,' a mound of demolition waste deposited over the existing site to form the new public landscape, impels a contemplation of the layers of material that we leave behind over time, and how this defines us to future generations. A design language derived from the language of geology (erosion, deposition) and archaeology (trace, excavation) informs the design and its experience. The fill material for the midden/mound is from two sources: the zones of settlement that will be forced to retreat from the shoreline due to sea level rise anticipated in the next 50 years, and the existing materials on site that are repurposed in the design of the new landscape. The design allows people to perceive and reflect on the layers of materiality that make up the human landscape, and on the possibilities of the thoughtful use of materials that will give way to the landscapes of the future.

People have become a lot more subject to a wide range of maladies from stress-related physical diseases, to psychological disorders, all the way to spiritual detachment. As Humans, we co-evolved alongside nature and the natural world. Human beings need contact with nature and the natural world. We need it to be healthy, happy and connected to live meaningful lives. Nature is not optional, it is absolutely necessary for a qualitative urban lifestyle. In order to live an effective pedestrianize living we will have to design compact and dense city to minimize the amount of traveling in between places. But compact and dense cities presents challenges to integrate nature and finding ways to make it possible for people in these environments to still be able to interact with nature and the natural environment on a daily basis. Connection with nature and the impact it has on our overall well-being is extremely important in a developing urban environment. E.O. Wilson, the father of the Biophilia Hypothesis, argues that our sense of belonging today comes from spending time in city parks, from the choices that we make for habitation, and from where people decide to spend their leisure time (Souter-Brown, 2015). Wilson states that we are hard-wired to be in nature, and it helps us to un-pack the fundamental idea of human nature and how people associate with themselves. Biophilic principles can be introduced to the public realm through bringing nature into pedestrianized spaces, creating a natural analogue, and creating vernacular spaces that draws reference to the contextual narratives of Cape Town. In this project we will look at different ways to re-introduce the natural world back into the artificial and urbanized city. The focus will be on the business district of Cape Town, where there is a recurring weekday interaction with the urban environment. Through creating a city park environment it will create a beneficial environment for daily commuters and pedestrians to benefit the mental, physical and spiritual well-being throughout our rapid urbanized city.

Our environment and our perception of it are continuously changing. This thesis objective is to change an existing site to become an experientially poetic landscape, imbued with meaning, a strong sense of place, presence and belonging. It explores the ideas of palimpsest, theory of place and experiential landscape architecture. The argument is that only through physical, bodily engagement with the landscape may it acquire meaning in the collective memory and significance as a place, especially when informed by the unique characteristics of the site itself. The site is positioned in Wingfield/Maitland, an under-appreciated, derelict, forgotten and currently nonexperiential large tract of land, lying in the Cape Flats area. The land is under a threat of re- development, with existing proposals intending to develop it to its maximum extent, not taking sufficient cognisance of its other values. This is a good case for when a landscape architectural approach may look at the site from a more holistic point of view, taking into account the various values, needs and claims of the site. Landscape in this project is understood to be a cultural construct. The design takes inspiration from understanding the unique natural-cultural qualities of this land, which serve as a tool to create attachment to the place and to nature's rhythms. The change is a poetic event. Compared to the extremes of climate of my childhood and adolescence homeland, I find the change in the Cape Flats landscape to be more subtle, and it takes time to grow to appreciate its poetry. The idea of change is a multi-layered one. It is about the poetical seasonal and other cyclical changes between the dry and wet seasons, wind strength, and flooding, changing colours and shapes, and the necessity of periodic fires. I believe, change is also imperative in our attitude towards our engagement with and appreciation of the landscape. Change is about the evolution of the landscape and its history, and about its continuous and necessary adaption to future conditions, in terms of both environmental and future human needs. The site has undergone a lot of natural and anthropogenic alterations. The topic of poetic change is inspired by both the site's natural character and by its history. The change is explored in the design through the concepts of movement and participation in the landscape, allowing for experience of various conditions. It is also supported by the concept of connectivity, both natural and human; and the concepts of contrast and counterpoint; as well as the strategies of inclusion and absence. Water, sand, vegetation, as well as some traces of human activity, are the main place-making elements in the design. The inland dunes with mosaic wetland habitat and their associated vegetation are some of the last traces of the typical Cape Flats landscape, that was/is not fully understood or appreciated. These natural elements are the best expressions of the landscape's ephemerality, changeability and the sense of time. It is the breathtaking potential abundance and variety of life on this site that is the inspiration for this design thesis.

Trees in the urban fabric are often overlooked, and their significance in the effect of their presence that they hold is most often lost. Trees are seen as something of an afterthought, something purely aesthetic, or even something that poses a problem to the city instead of a solution to certain problems. Through my study project, the "Urban Arboretum", the objective is to explore all the different potential possibilities and opportunities that trees could have in the urban realm, not only pertaining to aesthetics, but also in terms of spatial and architectural qualities, as well as cultural connotations, and especially the productive and ecological potential that they hold. Through the study and understanding of these objectives they are applied to a chosen site through the concept of the dissertation which is "the Architecture of the Forest" This concept functions through the design and active maintenance of the scientific principles of succession of species.

The Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Botanical Garden of Mauritius, commonly known as "Le Jardin des Pamplemousses" was founded during the French occupation in 1770. Then it was the first tropical botanical garden in the world in addition to being the first botanical garden in the southern hemisphere. "Pamplemousses" has been acclaimed for its wide collection of palms and spices, which have fascinated tourists and locals for centuries. However, the value of this botanical garden that was once a pearl of the Indian Ocean has depleted. The garden shows traces of neglect accumulated over decades, which has resulted in a typically negative reputation locally. The botanical garden is a unique landscape typology. Primarily it can be understood as a natural theatre where items are collected and exhibited and secondarily as a laboratory where new techniques are explored. Today botanical gardens are faced with new challenges as the environmental crisis reaches new proportions. Furthermore, Le Jardin des Pamplemousses, established under French rule, is also confronted by the challenges that arise from its colonial identity in post-colonial Africa. The 'botanical' and 'post-colonial' can therefore be understood as the 2 main identities of the garden - ones that should be interrogated symbiotically in order to uncover the garden's development and future. This Research Project is an investigation of the past role, current state and envisioned future responsibility of Le Jardin des Pamplemousses based on a critical interrogation of its botanical onus and its colonial legacy. The investigation is supported by an inventory of the botanical gardens of Africa which acts as a contextualizing benchmark study, a literary review, in addition to specialized and public interviews carried out on site which aim to unpack the contemporary perception of the garden, and finally a mapping exercise which facilitates an assessment and evaluation of the present state of the garden. The Research Project condenses and resolves this information to allow for an informed interrogation of the future of Le Jardin des Pamplemousses, both as a botanical garden and as a remnant of colonial infrastructure in post-colonial Africa.

Rehabilitating the Prison System: The prison system in South Africa is a harsh and ineffective system that emphasises the need to punish rather than rehabilitate and reintegrate the incarcerated back into society. Although a lot of prisons in South Africa host a number of workshops and activities which have been introduced to inmates for such purposes- the recidivism rates of offenders, that have ended up in the penal system, has failed to drop or decline. A Process of deconstruction and synthesis: The method of this study is to analyse and deconstruct existing prison or correctional/ penitentiary/ rehabilitation institute landscapes into potential design components and then synthesise these into environments that can promote the rehabilitation of prisoners. The projects analysed are of international and South African origin, and are of prisons or mental and other high-security institutions. The analysed projects will be looked at as potential interventions that can be synthesised within the landscapes (rather, lack of landscapes) of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Looking into redesigning Pollsmoor Prisona prison where conditions do not support opportunities for rehabilitation and integration and where bland, cold concrete and brick facades enclose inmates for mostly 23-hours a day.

My study consists of an inquiry into archaeology and palaeontology, and the relationship of 'the dig' to landscape. I focus on the idea that digging or excavating is a process that can reveal ancient landscapes and suggest new narratives. My research revolves around ruin discourse, and the idea that a 'dig' is a sort of ruin in reverse. I began thinking about the criteria that define a ruin and applying them to landscapes. The study culminated in the idea of the landscape being a kind of ruin itself; the experience of a ruin, or ruinenlust, isn't only about a structure that has been dragged down into the ground over time- it's also about light, temperature, plants, views - all the elements that make up our experience of landscape. I set about trying to turn this study into a project - how do I design the idea that all landscapes are ruins? The ideas I had explored of excavation, and especially the image of the 'grid' of excavation as an imposition over the landscape, led me to the Higgovale Quarry site.

Includes bibliographical references. / A thing of beauty is defined by the way one apprehends it, by the reaction of and the experience it evokes in the participant. Two modes of approaching beauty are explored: the first is that of beauty being fundamental to a particular form, holding on to past idealized images; or secondly, that beauty is associated with an emotional experience or response, bound up with the senses. Integral to the design exploration of this preconception of beauty, is Ingold's dwelling perspective, that landscape is seen as an enduring record of what has been and what is left behind (1993: 59), our experiences become linked to the temporality of place. Or, alternately, our "perceptions of landscapes, influenced by the metaphors associated therewith (Spirn 1998: 24), greatly affect the way that they are experienced" (Prinsloo, 2012 a : 37), becoming the archaeology of experience. In exploring the concept of the perception of beauty in derelict quarry landscapes; the damaged site and geology is eroded, succumbing to the temporal processes. This change, the inducing of experience, is felt not only in the dramatic difference of the quarry face to that of the tenacity of the vegetation, but also a richer peculiarity : the original industrial function of place is re-imagined as a medium for biodiversity. This re-imagining of site evolves into that of 'wunderkammer' or wonder room, in which the differences between the wonders of nature and the artefacts of man can be juxtaposed. The concept of 'wunderkammer' provides a platform where ideas can be tested, making the place more capable of appearing; thus, the perception of beauty unfolds in the landscape becoming something in which we explore. The way in which the quarry retains itself, between the decay and revitalization, as a unique place is that it is an alternative to the current reality elsewhere.

"Land Mosaic" is a term often referred to by Richard Forman as the fundamentally different ecotopes which play out within a landscape forming a spatial juxtaposition of landscape patchworks. Each ecotope is defined by a variety of factors such as landform, soils, hydrology and weather. In a natural setting, the relationship between two different ecotopes tend to be less abrupt than that of an urban setting. When two different ecotopes meet, a gradual gradient is formed called an Ecotone. A sort of "mosaic" or gradient of ecotopes entwined within the boundary of the ecotone. Gradient is a critical characteristic of many healthy ecotope edges. In the book "Urban Ecology" by R. Forman a comparison is made between this ecological theory and the functioning of an urban setting. This study uses Formans theory in Section A. to analyse the zoning, land use and function of the urban fabric within the diverse neighbourhood of Elsieskraal, CT, following the rapid changing zones along the public river corridor, to reveal relationships between the spatial qualities of ecotope boundaries and the success of the ecotopes functioning. The study finds an interesting process is hindered by an unconventional boundary, perhaps the type of boundary a city planning or urban design method of analysis might have overlooked. The process of crop pollination by Cape honey bees (Apis mellifera capensis). The study found that although no physical conventional barrier stops the bees from flying into the desired agricultural land from their more permanent foraging grounds, they are restricted by the spatial quality of the two ecotopes edges. The lack of curve linear "lobed" edges prevent the interaction between the two ecotopes through short flight range by the bees. In Section B. the document further continues to investigate the process of pollination, bee life cycle and desired nectar-rich plant palette to design system which encourages the interaction whilst assisting the devastating bee crises, increase crop yield. The design lays out a network of proposed corridors in a specific off-set from one another, running through the agricultural land, linking schools environmental, tourism and economic activities as a "spin-off" effect. Emphasis is placed on designing landform and soils within the network of corridors to help grow the largest variety of colourful, nectar abundant and scented flowering species possible, all which are carefully chosen for their desire by the cape honey bee and their flowering time in comparison to local crops. By the morphing the boundary of nectar-rich foraging grounds into the mono-cultural farm land in the form of lobes the project creates an essential relationship between crop and foraging ground, reintroducing a critical process of pollination and bridging the boundary between socioeconomic and environmental aspects.