Mandela Washington Fellowship

In 2016 I was selected as 1 of 63 South Africans to join the 1000 Young African Leaders of the 2016 Mandela Washington Fellowship. The fellowship is a flagship project of the American State Department and a personal project of former American president Barack Obama.

The fellowship itself is part of the broader Young AfricanLeadership Initiative (YALI) and the focal point centres around a 6-week placement in an American University alongside 25 other Young African Leaders from various countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I was fortunate enough to be placed at the University of California – Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and spent a difficult but rewarding 6 weeks learning the principles and exposure of what African leadership entails.

I was blown away by the achievements and practices of my fellows in the programme and learnt more from the conversations over coffee and long bus trips across San Francisco about my own home country than the 6 weeks of lectures and workshops from Berkeley’s finest – something we were told would happen on day one by our host.

The placement culminated in a 4 day seminar in Washington DC where all 1000 fellows converged into a single hotel conference venue to attempt to meet each other and the promise of ‘ meeting’ then president Barack Obama in the Town Hall. I never the left the hotel, spending most of my time in the lobby meeting and laughing with the 1000 other fellows, sharing stories about the placements, our plans for our return and enjoying our last few days as fellows in the U.S.

On return the fellowship has supported me with mentors, business coaches, many opportunities to apply for funding and practicums, some of which I successfully qualified for (See BackStory and my practicum with the South African Cities Network) and most importantly the most valuable platform in understanding my country – a 500 message a day Whatsapp group governed by 63 other passionate South Africans who have become my guides in personal and professional development.

My fellowship ended this year at a very heart sore conference in Johannesburg this year, but as I was reminded at our goodbyes: once a YALI, always a YALI – or blood in, blood out.

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Facilitation & Engagement Teaching & Training

Colgate University Facilitation in Durban

The Colgate University has a global programme that brings over 20 undergraduate students from their small university to Cape Town and Durban each year. These students are exposed to the soci-cultural complexity of post-1994 South Africa and guided to engage with this difference and layered issues through a reflexive and considered approach by Mark Stern and his colleagues.

Based on my experience with the Harvard group I was asked to assist in arranging their Durban visit and employed the assistance of Adheema Davis and Miguel Juan in arranging the visit.

The highlight for me personally was the speed-ate session between the Durban students and the Colgate, we have hosted exercises like this before and each time the results are amazing: as a former student in Durban, we are plagued by a internalised view of Durban that disconnects us from the rest of the world – these sessions always do big work in making local students feel there are not huge differences between themselves and ‘international students’.

UKZN/DUT Speedate with Colgate Students

Socio-Technical Teaching & Training

Tlhakantsha Colloboration Week 2017

The 2017 Tlhakantsha Collaboration Week was held in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture over the week of February 24 – March 3.

Over 230 3rd third year students collaborated on a project that emanated from the original FADA Green Week, which brought students together around working on real world issues, in groups, through design with real clients.

The difference this year was that the organisation team aimed to simplify the complexity of the week, and focus more on collaboration, group work and design process, with a particular focus on decolonising FADA. This was workshopped with staff and students and through a co-productive research resulting in a new name for the week – Tlhakantsha.

Brief development and aims:

The organisation team wanted students to develop critical skills in understanding complex real world situations while fostering good design process and group work skills. An open ended brief with 1 major theme and 3 sub themes was used to achieve this:

Theme: FADA-ship – What makes us FADA?

Sub-Themes of engagement:

A series of sub-themes were developed to allow students a broader approach to the specific themes the organisatoin team wanted the larger group to tackle.

• Why is FADA? – ‘Accessibility’ of FADA as a student (Design of decolonisation of FADA)

• Where is FADA? – Capacity of the neighbourhood of FADA (Spatial design of/around FADA)

• What is FADA? – Resource use and management of FADA (Resilience in design FADA)

http://www.tlhakantsha.wordpress.com/

Students were encouraged to use tools as a means of research, collaborative techniques and design. They were given a resource developed by the DSD DESIS Lab that outlined several key tools for use in the project. This was shared digitally through a website that was created for the week-long project: https://tlhakantshatoolbox.wordpress.com/ Students were incentivised to design and use their own tools in order to add to this resource for use by future FADA students.

Methodology of engagement:

• Tools/Tool-Sets of engagement – process as the ‘artefact of design’ in the form of methods and strategies that are made visible in the form of tools that support co-design.

“In an age where design has been commoditised to an extent that its value is often only seen in relationship to the ‘product’, a focus on the importance and value of the thinking and reflective processes within design are more imperative than ever.

As young designers in South Africa, you will face this challenge in practice, and in order to equip you with the ability to sell the value of process in your practice, we feel an immersive recognition of tools and toolsets around strategies for design is crucial. Tools in these contexts can be understood as methodologies, methods, techniques or models that facilitate design thinking and practice, but can also give value to the necessary process of design and group work. “

– Rationale for tool/method use from Tlhakantsha Collaboration Week 2017 Brief

Intended Outcomes:

Each group was asked to submit their work in the following categories for the judging:

• The Final Strategy, a group developed strategy that looks holistically at the identified issues and systems in your project. (40%)

• The documentation of the Design Journey which describes the various tools, methods and approaches used as well as a group reflection of on the project. (60%)

Emphasis was placed in the marking around group work, boldness and a specific call for ‘strategies’ – as strategies allow for design students to focus on addressing the identified problems and not just working towards a product within their disciplinary expertise. A sub-set of prizes encouraged

students to focus on good collaboration and design process:

• Best group work tools/methods:

o To the group who demonstrates the best display of co-design and collaborative practice, t his should be seen in discussion/presentation at judging)

• Most innovative & effective strategy/tool:

o To the group who shows the most ‘out of the box’ and innovative strategy to deal with the issue at the hand while demonstrated a grounded and realistic proposal.

• Boldest Proposal:

o To the group who took the biggest ‘chance’ and put themselves out there to achieve their aims.

The Tlhakantsha Week:

The week started on the afternoon of the 24th of February with a briefing session from staff which included an introduction to the brief, a short presentation on the sub themes, and a quick group exercise to get the students mixing outside of their departmental comfort zones.

Over the week long period the students took the brief with lots of energy and colloboration.

Impromptu Fashion from the Architecture Department’s 1st Years

Final Judging Day & Prize-Giving

Next Year…

The week was a great success and we are busy planning for next year. The project student work has been collated and shared across several platforms, the easiest can be seen here on YouTube:

Action Research Facilitation & Engagement Research Teaching & Training

Harvard GSD Research Facilitation in Durban

In 2017 Kunlé Adeyemi brought his African Water Cities Research project to Durban through his teaching post at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Through 1to1 – Agency of Engagement I managed and facilitated the logistics of the trip, and assisted in the guiding of the learning experience of Durban.

“NLÉ is led by Kunlé Adeyemi, an architect, designer and ‘urbanist’ with a track record of conceiving and completing high profile, high quality projects internationally. His recent work includes ‘Makoko Floating School’, an innovative, prototype, floating structure located on the lagoon heart of Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos. This acclaimed project is part of an extensive research project – ‘African Water Cities’ (http://www.nleworks.com/team-member/kunle-adeyemi/)

I was assisted by Adheema Davis and our goal was to expose the students from Harvard to the broad complexities of Durban as an African City while also linking in as many local practitioners, students and organisations as was possible in the 1 week studio visit: UKZN Students, DUT Students, Beset Durban, Cameron Finnie, Mark Bellingan, Doung Jahangeer, Lindsey Busche, Tsidi Moahloli and Asiye eTafuleni to name a few. We planned the events to offer maximum exposure for all students and even arranged an Archi-Speed Date between the different groups. The studio visit was additionally supported by Sumayya Valley and Mpho Matsipha.

A series of meetings, tours and discussions were planned for the week’s engagement.

BUILDING INDUSTRIES IN AFRICAN WATER CITES

“This studio explores the city of Durban to examine the challenges and opportunities presented by the impacts of urbanization in the social, physical, and environmental context of the African continent. The aim is to build industries–to produce a series of new architectural, infrastructural, and urban solutions learning from the local environment with a responsible infusion of relevant global values. Through documentation of international and regional practices, the studio will focus on Durban to investigate the city and its edge conditions, to understand its transformations and adaptations and socio political and economic dynamics.

The studio develops models of small to medium scale infrastructure interventions, scalable through locally managed industrial processes and technologies. In an increasingly globalized world, and particularly in the African context, a pedagogical aim of the studio is to also critically analyze the role of architecture, the architect, and forms of practice that offer sustainable values that shape and stimulate development in African cities and communities.

Starting with urban research, the studio will analyze Durban, South Africa based on seven registers: Demographics, Economy, Socio-politics, Infrastructure, Morphology, Environment and Resources (DESIMER). The studio will draw from NLÉ’s African Water Cities Project (AWC), which explores the impacts of urbanization and climate change in African cities and communities, deducing the fastest growing African cities are also some of the most vulnerable to climate change. Durban, a rapidly urbanizing coastal city, falls within the high to the extreme high-risk zones.

The studio team will visit Durban in the early phase of the research. Throughout the research and design phases, we will engage advisors in various disciplines to guide the DESIMER research and also establish relationships with local organizations, student groups, institutions, and partners in South Africa.

The outcomes of the studio will be presented at the New Solutions of the World Economic Forum on Africa taking place in Durban in May 2017. The goal is to escalate the research and design outcomes into real possibilities of prototyping and industrialization.

Kunlé Adeyemi, Aga Khan Design Critic”

Excerpt taken from www.nleworks.com July 2 2017 at 11:03am

Final Presentation of work for critique from local researchers and practitioners.

I was fortunate enough to secure funding to then attend the Design Crits in Harvard as a guest critic and support the student’s enquiries during my visit through a few desk crits at the Gund Hall as well as faciliate a skype crit between the South African students and the Harvard students.

Intercontinental student skype crit

Action Research Facilitation & Engagement Research Socio-Technical

Lukhanyo Socio-Technical Facilitation

The Lukhanyo Hub project seeks to develop a system of support to residents in marginalised areas of urban South Africa through programmatic and built infrastructure. The newly formed entity RCDC are currently working in the BT section of Khayalitsha by assisting local groups through a small scale farming and early childhood development programmes.

“Lukhanyo Hub in Site C, Khayelitsha is a new ‘catalytic’ model developed by RCDC to deliver affordable housing, high quality education, training, recreation programmes and health services alongside employment opportunities delivered through innovative buildings, energy systems and outdoor spaces in economically under-resourced areas.

The system is supported through public-private partnership creating an economically sustainable system through public-private partnerships. The overall system is being developed to be replicable in multiple contexts whilst being responsive and respectful of its context and adaptive to changing conditions over time.” http://rcdcollective.com/

Through 1to1 , I was requested to support in the socio-technical development of a brief around what the Infrastructural requirements for support in the area should be. 1to1 worked with local planner and socio-technical expert Sizwe Mxobo and Natalia Tofas to host a 1 day workshop in order to co-produce a brief with the different stakeholder groups.

The team employed a facilitation tool developed by 1to1 that used the concept of a timeline as a means to collect valuable information from what has already taken place on site and how the stakeholders see the future of the project.

The time line structure was supported with smaller toolsets that created a common and accessible language format for different types of people and supported visual and design thinking processes.

The tool was successfully used and due to it’s design has become the format from which future workshops, the documentation of the process and the Monitoring and Evaluation process will be used from.

Presented Work Research

Spaces of Urban Change: Public Lecture

During my work with the University of Sheffield’s Master’s in Urban Design teaching, I was fortunate to share a presentation space with Omar Nagati of Cluster .

It was a very enlightening experience and the discussions after were hugely insightful.

“The lecture focuses on the work, ideas, and methodologies of CLUSTER and 1to1 Agency of Engagement, two innovative design and research practices based in Cairo and Johannesburg respectively. Jhono Bennett and Omar Nagati share examples of on-going and recent work within the rapidly shifting urban landscapes where they operate.

Through their presentations, they discuss the new modes of urban practice that might emerge through an active engagement in the processes of urban change, redefining the position of architects and urban designers. They reflect on these new modes of practice by outlining some of the methods and strategies adopted by CLUSTER and 1to1 Agency of Engagement, as well as key projects in Cairo and Johannesburg.

This event was organised by Beatrice De Carli on behalf of the research group Globalisation and Spatial Practice at Sheffield School of Architecture.“

Work with Sheffield University

University of Sheffield – Masters in Urban Design 2016/2017

I was again invited by Dr. Beatrice De Carli to teach in the Urban Design Masters at Sheffield for the 2016/2017 teaching period. This was done as part of a larger network project that has been set up with University of Sheffield (Sheffield, UK), Nanjing University (Nanjing, China), CEPT (Ahmedabad, India) and the University of Johannesburg…

University of Sheffield – Masters in Urban Design 2015/2016

In 2016 I was invited by Dr Beatrice De Carli to assist in the teaching of the Masters in Urban Design at the University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture for the ‘Design from Afar Module”. We set the brief in Johannesburg’s Braamfontein and aimed to create a teaching/research model that would allow students in Sheffield…

Sheffield Mobility: Spatial Design Research

2018 marks the final year of a 3 year mobility exchange between the University of Johannesburg’s DSD Desis Lab and the Sheffield School of Architecture. RAUM #2 Day 1. Rathul sharing the debate on Public Space as a teaching method for CEPT A post shared by Jhono Bennett (@jhonobennett) on May 8, 2017 at 7:12am…

Teaching & Training

University of Sheffield – Masters in Urban Design 2016/2017

All the work from this year’s project is documented here, and has the full outline or all the modules.

www.ssoa-maud.com

Based on the success of the previous module and the growing numbers in the class we planed to change the format for this year’s teaching, communication and research focus.

Previous Studio work, more can be seen here: https://walkbraamfontein.wordpress.com

We chose to look at the economic delineation of Johannesburg’s Urban Development Zone (UDZ) as a research focus. This would allow for an easier research lens for students from Sheffield and give an easier means for this work to speak back to city officials and local practitioners as part of the Design From Afar principles.

UDZ outlined with 3 specific site choices highlighted

We also focused in on 3 specific sites linked to local partners: Braamfontein (Local Studio), Park Station/Hillbrow (ARUP and UrbanWorks) and JeppesTown (Bjala). Each partner supplied unique base information and the students were given several other public sources of inner-city information to start.

The strategy for this year was to get the students to work in groups on each site to process the supplied information and other sources of data they could find about their site through the proposed projected mapping tool. Described below on the Studio Pedagogy Diagram.

Studio Pedagogy Diagram

This tool would consist of a simply built model, that would have information projected onto it from a basic projector. This system would allow for the spatial exploration of the information easier and provide a better teaching system for a context that they cannot visit. The students would use the same tool to propose their interventions and share with the local partners back in South Africa (who have the same model built in their contexts).

The brief proposed to create a system of analysis, feedback, proposition and hand over that the tool would facilitate. On top of the input from Sheffield the students were supported by visiting professors and experts from the continent and Johannesburg specifically.

Simon Mason and Omar Nagati sharing their work with the students.

The challenge was eagerly met by the students who really embraced the process and began building the tool system through their research process and the brief’s requirements.

The models proved to be a great learning and teaching tool, withe each group grappling with valuable group dynamic experience and spatial literacy in the process.

The 3 site: Braamfontein, JeppesTown and Park Station

The tool allows for a multiples styles and forms of visual projection from mapping, to info-graphics or simply adding context to a site.

The tool spatialises the process and give the students an interactive spatial landscape to unpack their findings.

It give the ability for a narrative of space to be given either subjectively or objectively.

Land Use Mapping

Story Telling

Emotional Mapping

Site location and Architectural scale detail.

The tool was supplemented by other projectors and many students used diagrams to explain the more intangible aspects of their designs and research.

Some students used video footage made from Google street view to augment their research.

The tool was a great success as a teaching and learning tool for students of Urban Design. It allowed for the students from a completely foreign context an upper hand in learning together about another city, but also the ability to share that learning with those of the city by simply sharing the raw visual data files.

This tool will be taken back to South Africa as part of an ongoing project to build spatial literacy in South African cities for officials, practitioners and city users.

Published Work Research

Upgrading Informal Settlement Book Chapter

My master’s professor, Dr Carin Combrinck, and I co-authored a book chapter on the role of architects and architecture in the re-development of South Africa for a book project co-ordinated by the Isandla Institute, UCT and the African Centre for Cities.

The book was published in December 2016 and our chapter was titled:

Navigating hostile territory? Where participation and design converge in the upgrade debate

The abstract below:

The South African policy landscape regarding Human Settlement development reflects a progressive approach towards the in-situ upgrading of informal settlements. With the assistance of the World Bank and the Cities Alliance, the National Upgrading Support Programme (NUSP) was established in 2008 to facilitate the implementation of the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) which is further underpinned by the 2009 National Housing Code Part 3 Volume 4: Upgrading Informal Settlements.

The policy intent is aimed at a holistic integration of informal settlements into the urban and socio-economic fabric of the greater metropolitan area with a strong focus on locally appropriate community participation (SA 2009:s 2(1)). Factors such as the careful maintenance of existing community survival networks as well as the harnessing of local knowledge and understanding of particular needs are given high priority in the development process (SA 2009:s 3(9)).

Consideration of these matters is directly translated into the approach to the proposed township layout of a settlement, which must be done in consideration of community needs, current land use and densities and designing to minimize relocation (SA 2009:s 3(10)). Even in terms of the stand sizes and layout, the Housing Code favours an understanding of the existing conditions:

Due to the informal layout of informal settlements it is not desirable to determine uniform or minimum stand sizes. Locally appropriate stand sizes should emerge through a process of dialogue between local authorities and residents. (SA 2009:s3(13))

In terms of the implementation of this process, the Housing Code makes allowance for the primary role players to be the state in its various functions. Resources are then included from the private sector by way of the professional services of engineers, town planning, land surveying, geotechnical services, Environmental Impact assessment (EIA) services and site supervision (SA 2009:s 2(5.3)). Along with the general provision for the housing process, the Act also allows for the establishment of a mediating body (Community Resource Organisations – CRO’s) that can offer a platform for technical assistance to the communities and financial accountability to the state. These can either be the municipalities themselves, Non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) or Community Based Organisations (CBO’s). The prerequisite is that they must be a legal entity through which the community may then apply for this funding.

As can be seen from the short description of the policies relevant to the upgrading of informal settlements, a holistic and progressive context is established where the potential exists for a well-balanced involvement of state, civil society (private sector built environment professionals) and beneficiary communities in the development process. Yet, rising dissatisfaction among the urban poor has resulted in an increased level of service delivery protests (Tissington 2011), indicating an uncomfortable disjuncture between such policies and their implementation.

This chapter focuses on two questions emanating from these policies: Firstly, given the apparently benign and progressive wording of these policies, wherein lies the Navigating hostile territory disjuncture with their implementation? Secondly, do these policies describe a potential role for architecture in this discourse and if so, how? In consideration of these two matters, the chapter will investigate the potential role of young architectural professionals to engage in the context of in-situ upgrading of informal settlements.

Interviews conducted with Prof Marie Huchzermeyer (recognized publisher in the filed of informal settlement upgrade), Mr Steve Topham (director of NUSP), Prof Lone Poulsen (previous Dean of Wits School of Architecture) and Dr Mark Napier (previously of Urban Landmark and currently head researcher in Human Settlements at the CSIR) serve to situate some of the discussion in current discourse. Personal reflection on experiences in particular informal settlements further inform and contextualise the conclusions drawn in the chapter.

Teaching & Training

ASF-UK Challenging Practice in South Africa

ASF Architecture Sans Frontieres International (ASF-Int) has developed the pedagogical system of Challenging Practice as a critical teaching material and workshops that takes participants through an immersive and action-learning based workshop experience. This course aims to teach participants the nature of people-led development practices that engage with complex multiple stakeholder contexts.

http://www.asfint.org/challenging_practice

United Kingdom (ASF-UK) has been developing the teaching arm of this module and run several Challenging Practice workshops, that employ the learnings and case studies of their Change by Design workshops as means to take participants through an action-based learning experience.

In 2016 the Graduate School of Architecture hosted the first South African Challenging Practice workshop within their Alternative Practice teaching module.

Blanca Calvo and Lene Le Roux of Urbanists for Equity assisted in the development and running of the course while I facilitated the workshops with the UJ teaching curriculum.

The workshop was a great success with most students completing the requirements to attain a certificate from ASF-UK that will allow them to proceed through the 3 part process of the ASF-UK Challenging Practice course.

See the summary of the student’s work here:

ASF Challenging Practice – Summaries
//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/platform.js

Design Design Research Facilitation & Engagement Research Socio-Technical

AT: Community Action Plan Hand Book

shared from www.aformalterrainjoburg.wordpress.com

One of the most important outputs for the engagement with the Denver leadership was the Spatial Layout for the Community Action Plan (CAP). The layout was co-developed with residents, leadership and driven by the data and social capital built during the studioATdenver programmes and additional work conducted by AT.

The layout responded to key issues of emergency vehicle access, shared space, social cohesion patterns and green space allocation identified during the studios and larger forum discussions.

The spatial layout, alongside a series of support materials was packaged into an accessible and shareable format. AT conceptualized this in the form of a Hand Book that could be easily distributed and used format as a ‘Toolbox’.

A day-planner format was conceptualsied as a possible structure for this handbook, as many local leaders already used this type of booklet in their work. The idea behind the small format, would allow for the books to be used together to forma a larger layout (A1 size) if brought together.

Published Work Research Socio-Technical

NUSP Incremental Building: Teaching Module

In 2013, through 1to1, I worked with BOOM Architects under Shisaka Development Management Services to write the incremental infrastructure module for the NUSP Socio-Technical Support Manuel for City Officials in Informal Settlement Upgrading for South Africa.

The Section 9 module visually unpacked the variables to consider when allowing for incremental upgrading in informal settlement development as well as requirements for technical allocation.

The full toolkit should be available online at: http://www.upgradingsupport.org

Chapter 9: Building Incrementally Download

Design Research Teaching & Training

GSA Unit 14: Radical Negotiations

In 2016 I began teaching with Thireshan Govender and Tuliza Sindi in the newly launched Unit System Africa from the University of Johannesburg’s Graduate School of Architecture at UJ’s FADA.

Our unit was dubbed Unit 14 and began it’s inquiry through the search for emergent post-1994 spatialities in Johannesburg.

We did through the lens of Architecture’s of Enterprise and took our 14 students across Johannesburg to explore and search for these conditions.

The students had input from a host of outside actors in the field of urbanism, art, music and planning

The students surveyed Johannesburg using a urban cartogrpahic technique the unit developed. We called this a Landscraped Lexicon and was carefully documented and curated.

https://landscrapelexicon.wordpress.com/

Throughout the year the students produced a myriad of design research and explored the Unit’s concepts within their own specific focuses. See the Unit Journals below:

//e.issuu.com/embed.js

//e.issuu.com/embed.js
//e.issuu.com/embed.js