Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Architecture (Professional) to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017 / The end of apartheid signalled the need to reinvent
and re-configure South African cites not
just spatially but economically as well, to be
more inclusive of the people it once marginalized
and excluded. South Africa’s urban identity
is intrinsically intertwined with the history of
apartheid to the point where it is impossible to
have the one without the other. Johannesburg
much like all the other cities in South Africa is
and was an Apartheid project; the city was a
tool used to perpetuate and enforce a system
of economic exclusion which later developed
into social and cultural segregation. Despite its
nearly complete re-population after 1994, the
city today, as dynamic and vibrant as it is, still
poses remnants of the apartheid era. The people
who had not been allowed into the city have
become its primary residents, yet not its owners.
And because the city was never designed for
them, they have had to make, re-make and reconfigure
the city for themselves. Through this
process of making, re-making and re-configuring
innovative solutions to everyday problems are
tried tested and developed to integrate the urban
African into the city. The changing demographics
manifested growth through informal infill to
create the Johannesburg we know today. It is by
the process of negotiation between the formal
and the informal economy that Johannesburg
assumes its identity. The resilience of the
informal economy could be attributed to the
social networks that govern its relationships.
The combination of social networks and the
process of re-making the city suggest the
informal as a strategy for urban regeneration
that heals the city in its entirety by intervening in
sensitive points in the urban fabric. This thesis
investigates the shifting role of the informal in,
the need for a change in approach when dealing
with the informal and looks at the informal as a
skill and form of knowledge. / MT2017
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/22976 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Mhlongo, Siphephelo Njomane Nqaba |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | Online resource (283 pages), application/pdf, application/pdf |
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