My Half of the studio – my desk by the window

Our symbol of the Studio Stress, those involved will understand

Our conversion into animalism…

Our lack of clothing boundaries…

The source of my wisdomous quotes

Self explanatory

Read closely…

No explanation required

The Great Koffee Off; it may sound lame – ok it is – but we kept track of how much coffee we drank and made bets as to how much could drink in the year, it got a bit excessive…

The pièce de résistance, our own Darth Laubscher…

Standard issue studio supplies: energy medicine, coffee, sugar, kettle, fridge stacked with unmentionables, emergency escape room signified by dinosaur emblem. The usual.

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Re Rationalisation

The first step was to rationalise the lifting mechanism, and why and how a building should grow.

I looked at the crane, and compared old systems of lifting vs new. Notably, the Shadoof, the Pentapastos and the Capstan stood out as the best systems for non mechanical lifting while the climbing truss used in stage productions.

The next diagram was an exploration of an industrial building vs an organic built warehouse using the Stewart Brand’s breakdown of building to re-order typical industry components.

Lamp posts were the more appropriate choice as they inherently respond to edge.

While exploring an appropriate spatial appropriation scheme, I looked back into the history of space, through line, volume and plane. Comparing international examples with local.

 

Structurally the form needed changes, and after a discussion with various engineers, I arrived at the form. The idea, being that a typical pre-cast concrete lamp post could be slightly modified to become a structural member by providing lifting opportunity with an additional member.

The typical pattern of growth, allowing for incremental and appropriate growth.

The final presentation did not go as well as planned, firstly the roof (the only typical architectural element in the project) was not completed in time, and a simple structure was used in the time left.

Again, I received another question mark for work, not to worried, its now just a task of finishing up in time for the final presentation.

Student:      …mild post punch groan….

(Die Grobbels, 2011)

July offered the brief reprieve of a 2 week break from the Masters Year. I spent the holiday in the Cape, attending the national arts festival and getting some down time with the family in Cape Town.
The break was absolute necessity. After 20 weeks of constant dissertation thought and talks, some ‘human’ time is required.

The first day back we hit the ground running, as Milestone 4 loomed ominously overhead.

This was the last pure design milestone, and was labelled as the decider: if we did not have enough work to the lecture re’s satisfaction, then we would be told to extend to the following year.

No pressure…

I kept the presentation the same for the analysis work, and spent my time resolving the design. Pages and pages of sketch plans, sections and details later I quickly through together a presentation.

The program is now a distribution depot for cement, and later other goods, made up of support infrastructure that provides the necessary elements to allow for a growth of appropriation.

Integral to the organic growth is the identification of agents of Ownership (Users) and Agents of Control (Client). In this case the container retail agents existing in Mamelodi have been chosen based on the previous research.

The methods of structural and spatial appropriation have been documented here as design generators.

The module for growth is the container, the idea that the container is a temporary element of growth (a form work) that allows larger structural and spatial elements to grow from it.

The orange elements represent the structural and spatial appropriation around the container and the support.

A diagram explaining the growth based on a series of negotiated responses between the agents of control (Afrisam Consortium) and the agents of ownership (Retail Elements).

To re-iterate the concept, that the building begins as something small and through a series of negotiated responses ‘grows’ into something much larger that leaves behind a residue that is appropriatable by future generations.

The process explained:

Phase A

A small intervention, a structural support element that provides a loading support to a cement retailer at a key junction between pedestrian, rail and road crossing.

Phase B

The intervention grows as the space is appropriated, while the agents of control add to the infrastructure through discussion of needs.

Phase C-F

As energy increases around intervention more infrastructure is supplied as cement retail increases, the orange blocks represent the sub infill, where the retailers let out the space in between to smaller more temporary retail based on need and accommodation.

Phase1

At this point the development is fully functioning cement and building supply depot, with smaller retail filling in between. The framework development begins with introduction of a serviced tar road linking the site tot he rest of Mamelodi.

The depot itself is made of de-centralised storage (Agents of Ownership) and infrastructural support including loading facilities, training spaces, and office area for Afrisam Consortium (Agent of Control).

Phase 2

Many of the original container have provided the support necessary for the agents of ownership to build there own temporary/permanent structures according to their requirements.

The framework has now developed the intersection and provided a small service road to retail elements against the rail edge, while this develops the front of house (street edge)

Phase3

The zenith of development, the intervention has grown and merged with the existing train station. The storage facility now stretches over the rail, and provides longer term storage for goods in containers across the rail.

The framework development is now almost complete.

Phase 4

The cement depot program has almost faded now, with the residue of this development allowing medium scale industry (carpenters, welders, pre-fab zozo and brick making) to appropriate the spaces against the rail edge with the street edge now a bustling front of house, extending across the road.

Phase 5

The industrial nature f the program is now gone, with the major framework development being completed, the site is now a major high street and retail center with the container gantry that serviced the storage facility becoming a pedestrian bridge over the busy intersections.

The container storage laid the way for the train station that is now serviced y the adjacent transport interchange and industrial yard across the busier road.

Summary

Our presentations were marked by an external local Architect who, during my crit, discussed the ideas of support and infill and the dualities that exist between doing to much and too little.

I was told that there is not enough building on my behalf, and that I should design more.

I don’t feel its an exercise of designing more, as what is presented is the 5th version of on going process that encompasses 11 phases within it.
The process of ‘non-design’ requires more investigation and design and a simple design does. The challenge lies in how to represent and present the work that goes into it correctly without overwhelming the viewer.

The rest of the class was given an indication mark: i.e P=Pass, F=Fail, MP=Medium Pass e.t.c.

I was given a question Mark: ?

With 5 weeks until the half way mark, the dissertation is beginning to fall into place.

Working in studio has been the single most valuable decision I have made since I began post grad.  The atmosphere, the knowledge exchange and communal idea forming that takes place in the seemingly lost and ‘wasted’ hours of coffee break chats and procastinatory pranks have pushed the entire dissertation to a new level of enjoyment and academic calibre.

Strange to say, but I’m actually looking forward to 25 more weeks of studio-madness; 2:30am ephiphany’s and the strange feeling of warped reality that only the bowels of boukunde’s ‘night life’ can bring.

MILESTONE 1  (A- G.1)

“Design, like many things,  is not a linear process…”

(Koning Darth Laubscher,2011)

Only now, in the 13th week of my final year, am I finally feeling like I’m getting into the issue of what I’m really dealing with in my Master’s Dissertation.

Its amazing how much of the time has been spent thinking, writing, discussing and throwing out the multitude of ideas and themes that present themselves in one moment as the salvation of your deadlines worries then quickly become the core of your design thinking struggle.

What has been greatly rewarding is seeing how an idea is formed from the initial spark of interest and through the repetitive process of  moulding, critiquing, reforming it slowly takes shape into something that is worth putting on paper.

*

 

The Year Breakdown

The year has been divided, by our fearless leader – one Koning Darth Laubscher, into several Milestone Deadlines. These deadlines are supported by smaller hand in milestones and have had the class on their toes since we started in February.

Although it feels like the order and requirements for each of these submissions is counter to what one feels like doing at the time, it has been remarkable how this ‘un-linear’ process has worked to push the progress of the work to where it needs to be, the words of our critical co-ordinator sound constantly in my mind:

Milestone A –  Critical Review: Precedent Theses

We began the year with a critical evaluation of previous theses submitted by Pretoria Students and compared them to International Theses that we could find.

The University of Pretoria has an amazing database of theses, that are extremely well organised and freely available to anyone.
This resource has been invaluable so far:

Milestone B – Mapping Exercise – Mamelodi vs Menlyn

This was followed by an exercise in mapping, where we examined and discussed the various academic methods of mapping and presented a small experimental mapping exercise.

The experiment my group choose was to attempt to map perceptions of place between Menlyn and Mamelodi.

We set up the narrative of two different people breaking down in their cars and depicted what they saw and felt from two similar vantage points in BP petrol stations in either point and documented the going ons of the station over a 12 hour period.

This was presented in a short video and followed by a series of questions to the class. These answers were then mapped quickly mapped and discussed.

Milestone C – Theory Overview

We were asked to depict and summarise the theories that we had been taught and explored since first year, again, at first we thought was a mundane exercise, but after completion we realised how much we had actually been exposed to over the course of our careers so far, as well as the theories we were going to explore this year.

I presented Ken Yeang’s theories of biological integration of buildings into the environment and cited Simon Van Der Ryn’s writings of Ecological design around buildings, both theorists covering the topics of Deep Ecology.

I also was looking to explore the themes and principles around Open Building and spoke of the work of Nabeel Hamdi and John Habraken.

Hamdi Poem from Small Change

This became somewhat of a confidence building exercise, I borrowed the graphic concept from an image I found online, I could not find the original author to reference, but adapted it so display my career thus far.

Mapping of my Career thus Far

We were also required to represent a parti-diagram, which I realise now is more a functional process diagram of how I intended to approach the design

Functional Process Diagram of  my intended approach

Milestone D – Chapter 1: Broad Strokes

The submission had us write out our first chapter, which in a thesis document is intended to explain and set up your entire book – a sort of abstract chapter.

Book Cover : Draft x

By this stage I had decided on working in Mamelodi, and I had a vague impression of how I wanted to explain my ideas.

I knew I wanted my project to deal with some of the issues around developing the previously disadvantaged areas in this country and I felt that I wanted to be involved closely with the chosen client.

I had visited an NGO earlier in the year and while I knew that I wouldn’t work with them, I felt the interview I had with them had started some ideas in my mind.

Still unsure of my focus at this point, I found myself writing a very general description of what I intended to do, although the process of writing opened up my thinking and forced me to start thinking more towards a design problem and a building.

Milestone E – Critical Building Review and Group Site Discussions

Critical Review – As part of our pre-scribed work we were required to write a short article in the same style and format as the Architecture South Africa. It was easy for the class to design a template for this, but the difficulty lay in that we could not write about an already published building.

At this stage I was still battling with my site choice and had visited a few sites in the area:

Viva Village is an NGO run by Melonie and Leon Kriel in Mamelodi East. They are very active in aiding the people of this area in developmental aid and several initiatives running at the moment from day care to trade skills training.

Ext 12 was where I discovered a group of guys making bricks with some low cost materials and production methods. This seemed a very interesting place to work and I was quite interested in the idea of brick making and the energies around the production of these bricks.

Eerste Fabriek was a site that another of my group member had chosen, as was well situated in the GAPP framework in terms of future development and contained some very sensitive and beautiful heritage elements.

By now I had been joined by two colleagues in the Mamelodi Labarotory of research and we had been luckily enough to come across GAPP Architecture’s proposed framework for the Mamelodi/Nellmapius area and used that as our basis for the proposal.

We had also decided on some ideas around a group framework, and the themes around the process of manufacture and production emerged as the dominant idea at the time.

Group Concept Diagram

In the end I chose a site adjacent the Pienaarspoort Station, in Mameldoi East after some good advice in regard to working with existing energies and infrastructure, also due to its energy levels around the station, the nature of the housing in the area, and basically a gut feel.

Mamelodi East

 
Milestone 1 – Concept Presentation

Probably the hardest presentation of my career so far, we had to present our concepts to a jury of externals.

At this stage I’d begun to understand that I was really dealing with aspects of community and how they are more defined through the ideas of a network rather than the current notions of ‘community’.

Visual Thesaurus Diagram of Terms around Community

This process of drawing out exactly what we were going to do and present it was extremely difficult, but through this I reached an amazing level of clarity in my own thinking.

Mind Map of thoughts around Community and Vulnerability at the time

Even though what I presented was not exactly what I was going to do, the act of putting my current thinking on paper and defending it allowed me the freedom to start thinking about how I’m going to intervene on site.

I decided after that presentation to focus on the networks around the brick makers I had met earlier in the year.

Milestone F – Framework Presentations


We had to present our ideas for our framework presentation and summarise how we were going to intervene at an urban level. Because the 3 of us working in Mamelodi were so far apart, we agreed on the points of GAPP’s framework we liked and then each responded individually to our own sites.

Milestone G.1 – Chapters 1-3: Broadstrokes

The last submission of the term was the broad strokes submission of chapters 1-3. Again this process of forcing ideas onto paper has brought me to a clearer stage of thinking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moving Forward

Post hand in I’ve begun to start considering the notions of ‘temporal architcture’ for this site.

My gut is telling me that the intervention needs to be designed into many phases with each phase being functionally holistic towards the next:

i.e While working in Slovo Park we designed benches for the mobile clinic, but those benches were designed to support walls later to house the actual clinic e.t.c

So the quick easy phases (required for interventions in economically  vulnerable areas) can be implemented to meet the basic needs while the function remains intricately linked with the space for the next more complex
phase.

Within this idea is that of a temporal architecture; the beauty of aesthetic  beautiful lies in its ‘non completness’ the same way that buildings under construction are more interesting and expressive than the complete product.

And that in an area like Mamelodi, this is crucial in order to allow the building to grow with the people’s development and cultivate ownership and meaning towards the structure.

I feel the programme’s around the brick makers and linked construction activities will serve to enforce this idea as well.