The City's Soul-Force: Connecting People as Infrastructural Networks

The City’s

Soul Force

Connecting People as Infrastructural Networks

inspired from Gandhi’s Satyagraha Satya – “truth to one’s self, or soul” Graha – “insistence, or strength of force”

Christine Doherty MArch + MUD 2019 Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts MUD 713 Global Urbanism Studio Johannesburg, ZA Summer 2018

“Social space is a product conceived not as a completed reality or an abstract totality, but as a set of possibilities in the process of being realized.�

HENRI LEFEBVRE

CONTENTS PRETEXT

1

RESISTANCE

15

SPATIALITY

21

WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT

29

WHAT THE CITY NEEDS

35

CIRCUITS

41

NEIGHBORHOOD LIVABILITY

53

SECURED ACCESS

61

SOURCES

67

PRETEXT

A CITY OF CONTRADICTION Johannesburg as a city has become a collection of contradictory spaces which has led to creative appropriation by its citizens. While the city has provided one reality over its progression, a reality layered with governance and separation, the people have integrated the city to the point of constant discordance of its urban elements.

2

ECONOMIC BEARINGS

TRANSPORTATION

Commercial buildings bordering left-over spaces are often left vacant, while economic activity thrives at a much smaller scale--the individual entrepreneur at the street level.

CBD streets designed for cars and the Rea Vaya BRT are congested with mini bus taxis and pedestrians. Despite nearly 45% of the city’s reliance on the informal taxi system, the city does little to provide for their infrastructure.

PUBLIC LIFE

Vacant buildings are left open for those seeking shelter which have become known as “hijacked buildings”. These buildings may or may not be structurally stable, be protected against fire or crime, and are often raided by the city’s private eviction service, the Red Ants.

Oriental Plaza is a shopping mall in Fordsburg with a controversial history. It is surrounded by four blocks of parking a fence, despite the lively activity and diversity inside the 300 individually-owned shops.

SOUL - FORCE | PRETEXT

HOUSING

3

DISSONANT ELEMENTS

4

Identified contradictions throughout the city and their potential.

By calling out the contradictions in particular, the issue of city versus people became apparent. Clearly the city was not providing sufficient infrastructure in a way the people required. However, the forms of appropriation th people use insinuate the potential of the city, that the citizens are becoming an infrastructural component themselves. Appropriation of a city is a means of survival, with or without the required resources for quality living.

SOUL - FORCE | PRETEXT 5

CORPUSCULAR SPACE

Enclosed and fragmented spaces around M1 / M2 exchange.

M1

NEWTOWN JUNCTION MALL ORIENTAL PLAZA

NEWTOWN ZIMBABWE BUS TERMINUS

JOHN VORSTER POLICE STATION

STANDARD BANK

M2 6

The definition of corpuscular is an unattached and isolated cell within a body. Throughout our exploration of the given site, which is central to the M1 / M2 exchange, a series of fragmented spaces emerged.

Oriental Plaza: Public mall enclosed with several blacks of surface parking and gated entrances.

Newtown Zimbabwe Bus Terminus: International bus station enclosed with 3-meter wall.

John Vorster Police Station: 12-story Modernist building with negative past and heavy presence.

Newtown Junction Mall: Recent commercial mall development with high-end shops and privatized public space.

SOUL - FORCE | PRETEXT 7

CONTINUED SEPARATION

A fragmented city based on residential neighborhoods and institutions.

PARK SPACE MINE DUMPS

FORMAL BOUNDARIES

INDUSTRIAL BELT

8

Analyzing the city as a collective, the formal boundaries were apparent even at the human scale.

Newtown, the municipal neighborhood, expands across M1, reaching Fordsburg. However, the west side of the highway is packed with leftover industrial spaces and minimal residential, mean public life non-existent. Newtown becomes identifies by the failing attempt at an arts district, and Fordsburg is left to revolve around Oriental Plaza.

Similar moments of isolation occur in Braamfontien, around University of Witwatersrand, and the industry separating Jeppestown from Maboneng.

SOUL - FORCE | PRETEXT 9

CONTINUED SEPARATION

REA VAYA BRT ROUTE

Transportation systems as a means of separation.

BREE TAXI RANK

GAUTRAIN STATION NOORD TAXI RANK DOORNFONTEIN TAXI RANK

FARADAY TAXI RANK WESTGATE TAXI RANK

10

Even as Johannesburg developed and rebuilt itself over the decades, the city’s circuitry was seemingly cut through its transportation system. While the topography of the city (that being on a plateau) the transit designed for the city was never intended to be fully laced throughout the entire city.

The most recent addition, the city’s Rea Vaya BRT, clearly ends its access just east of M1, not reaching any resident in the west. Even current plans for expansion intend to draw the route further north, into the suburbs of the city where a higher population owns private vehicles.

SOUL - FORCE | PRETEXT 11

CONTESTED HISTORY

12

A city designed as separatist from its origin.

Beginning shortly after the city’s official establishments, Johannesburg grew as a segregated city. Neighborhoods where minorities and natives found homes for themselves were soon identified as “slum settlements” and in need of relocation to the newly-created South West Townships, or Soweto.

The named relocated neighborhoods were then re-developed into Newtown, Fordsburg, and Pageview.

Currently these neighborhoods still hold a diverse population and a home for recent immigrants coming from Pakistan, India, Somalia, Bangladesh, and regional South Africa, but still lack an infrastructure system connecting them to the CBD and economic sector of the city.

SOUL - FORCE | PRETEXT

Despite resistance from those who were being removed, the government portrayed the relocation as temporary, and with good intention since many of the residents were mine workers living in poor-quality conditions given they were so close to the mines.

13

RESISTANCE

PERSISTENCE FOR JUSTICE

The named heroes of Johannesburg.

Soul - Force as a project began not from the formal infrastructure of the city, but the people who have resisted time after time for the equity they deserved. Joburg’s success lies in this production of the city—the people who have resisted and remained fluid despite formal fragmentation. As such, the people of Joburg need a connecting infrastructure, that is systems of accessibility for autonomous urban citizenship. Once the city understands the power of its people as infrastructure, the potential of Joburg forever lies in deploying theses energies of collective individuals.

The fiver people on the opposite page are by no means the limit to those that have joined the fight for justice.

Among many others, publicized or not, hundreds if not thousands of beings made Johannesburg the city it is today. Using Gandhi’s words, if a person is the product of their thoughts, then the power of a city filled with individuals fighting for equity are begging to be connected, to utilize their strength in coalition.

“A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.”

MAHATMA GANDHI

16

In 1893 Gandhi came to South Africa as a young lawyer.

After the Boer War, the Transvaal government promulgated a new act requiring all Indian and Chinese populations to carry a pass book. Here is when the activist developed his Satyagraha, or devotion to truth.

MARY FITZGERALD 1882 - 1960

Born in Ireland, Mary Fitzgerald immigrated to South Africa to become a typist for the Mine Workers Union. Fitzgerald quickly became an activist for the miners and their poor working conditions.

LILIAN NGOYI 1911 - 1980

Lilian Ngoyi was the first woman to be elected to the executive committee of the African National Congress and helped launch the Federation of South African Women.

STEVE BIKO 1946 - 1977

Steve Biko was a South African anti-apartheid activist.

He was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s, before his assassination in 1977.

WALTER SISULU 1912 - 2003

Walter Sisulu was an anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress. He was jailed at Robben Island, where he served more than 25 years imprisonment for his contribution to the Defiance Campaign.

SOUL - FORCE | RESISTANCE

MAHATMA GANDHI 1869 - 1948

17

CONTINUING THE TIMELINE

Youth as organized resistors.

The conflict within Johannesburg did not begin in 1908 with Gandhi’s pass book burning at Hamidia Mosque, and it did not end in 1994 at the end of Apartheid Government. The fight equity continues in many forms, in many scales, and will continue to do so. Johannesburg may the most inequitable city in the world in terms of income, but its people, even its youth, know to take to the streets and use their voice.

1976 SOWETO UPRISING The Soweto uprising was a series of demonstrations and protests led by nearly 20,000 black school children in South Africa that began on the morning of June 16th1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in local schools. They were met with fierce police brutality--with as many deaths as 176 students. In remembrance of these events, June 16th is now a public holiday in South Africa, named Youth Day.

18

#FeesMustFall is a student-led protest movement that began in Mid October 2015 in South Africa. The goals of the movement were to stop increases in student fees as well as to increase government funding of universities.

The 2015 protest ended when it was announced by the South African government that there would be no tuition fee increases for 2016. The protest in 2016 began when the South African Minister of Higher Education announced that there would be fee increases capped at 8% for 2017; however, each institution was given the freedom to decide by how much their tuition would increase. The fight for affordable education continues.

SOUL - FORCE | RESISTANCE

2015 #FEESMUSTFALL

19

SPATIALITY

THE SEAT OF RESISTANCE

OVERLAID HISTORICAL MOMENTS OF RESISTANCE.

The passive resistance within the city occurs not only in and out the municipal limits, but most intensely has located itself just to the west of the M1 highway, in space where Newtown collides with Fordsburg and creates a negative space of sorts, a section of the city bordered with industry, immigrant enclaves, former mining land, and a failed attempted arts district.

22

GAUTRAIN STATION METRO BUS STOP METRO BUS ROUTE

TAXI RANK

SOUL - FORCE | SPATIALITY 23

INTENTION

DESIGN PARTI FOR LINKING HISTORICAL MOMENTS WITH PERFORMANCE.

The primary intention of the site is to spatially connect the key moments of passive resistance which align: the 14th Street March to Oriental Plaza, Hamidia Mosque, and Mary Fitzgerald Square. This connection must be interlaced into a Rea Vaya extension in the westward neighborhoods of Mayfair and Pageview. As a means of storm water management, the Klips River will be opened to meet the corridor of passive resistance.

24

REA VAYA EXTENSION PASSIVE RESISTANCE CORRIDOR PERFORMATIVE PUBLIC SPACE

SOUL - FORCE | SPATIALITY 25

VISION

THE PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO THE CITY.

The Soul-Force of Johannesburg is the people who have creativity appropriated the city for themselves, without the resources owed to them by the municipality. The empowerment of the collective residents comes through the dignity in which they require their own resources: economic gain, transportation, housing, and public space.

To intervene spatially in a city as contested as Johannesburg requires an understanding of the appropriation, the dignity, and the lacking resources. The site in particular was chosen for its myriad scales of ownership, the diversity of migrants and natives alike, and the various activities which occur in and between the infrastructure.

By threading the enclaves of relentless empowerment through systems of connectivity, the city can remain eclectic as an experience while facilitating the lacking resources to its people. Already the city is a layered fabric of networks--Johannesburg must finally recognize its people are a powerful infrastructural component who construct the city every day.

For Johannesburg or any place, the right to the city is only as accessible as the people—or the Soul-Force—demand it to be.

26

WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT

30

SOUL - FORCE | WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT 31

DESIGN METHODOLOGY

32

Programmatic implementation of design strategies.

SOUL - FORCE | WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT 33

WHAT THE CITY NEEDS

CITY POPULATION

36

Growth in an unequal world.

2018 POPULATION

2050 POPULATION

4.9 MILLION

6.6 MILLION

41%

52%

18%

26%

HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA

EMPLOYMENT RATE

LIVE IN INFORMAL HOUSING

SUB-STANDARD SANITATION

Yet the city is also known as the most unequal city in the world--with a Palma score of 13.4. The Palma ratio takes the richest 10% of the population’s share of gross national income divided by the poorest 40%’s share. A high level of income inequality often suggest poor middle-class development as more income disproportionately flows to the richest households.

Johannesburg cannot continue to grow with this ratio. The city must re-evaluate its infrastructure and resource accessibility to bridge the gap of inequality.

SOUL - FORCE | WHAT THE CITY NEEDS

Johannesburg has been an arrival city since its era of the gold mining, and continues to become the home for the hundreds who enter the city every day. The inner city in particular has also developed into the primary Sub-Saharan trading hub and metropolitan retail center. People are drawn to Johannesburg for the opportunity that awaits.

37

TRANSIT NEED

Current figures based on Johannesburg Development Agency Traffic Study.

REA VAYA BRT ROUTE GAUTRAIN STATION

38

TAXI RANK

1.4 MILLION DAILY MOTORIZED TRIPS

58 REA VAYA STATIONS

23%

2015

BUS, BRT, RAIL

7 METRO BUS STOPS

45%

5800

TAXI

TAXIS IN OPERATION

32%

TAXI RANKS

PEOPLE W/OUT BRT ACCESS

1800

2050

5

35%

NEW BRT STATIONS

BUS, BRT, RAIL

10%

PRIVATE CAR

SHORTFALL OF TAXI BAYS

55%

3

TAXI

NEW TAXI RANKS

SOUL - FORCE | WHAT THE CITY NEEDS

9310

5

PRIVATE CAR

39

CIRCUITS

PART A

Reveal moments of passive resistance. .

1

4 2 3

42

INVERT 1 Pedestrian connection from Fordsburg Primary School to Mary Fitzgerald Square.

2 Oriental Plaza opened into 3 buildings to expose Red Square.

3 Re-block industrial sector west of M1.

4 Space to memorialize passive resistance.

SOUL - FORCE | CIRCUITS 43

PART B

Systems of public transit, pedestrian and ecological performative corridors.

1 3

2 4

44

SERVICE ACCESSIBILITY 1 Rea Vaya BRT to Pageview, Mayfair, Fordsburg, and back into Westgate.

2 Fordsburg Taxi Rank and Newtown Zimbabwe Bus Terminus.

3 Performative pedestrian corridor to serve as storm water filter.

4 Klips River Chanel opened as primary storm water management.

SOUL - FORCE | CIRCUITS 45

PART B

Install life-long educational components relative to service corridors.

1 2

3

46

4

EDUCATION 1 Vocational Training School 2 After-school programs adjacent to existing schools.

3 Early childhood education near transit stations.

4 Youth Center

SOUL - FORCE | CIRCUITS 147

PART B

Plazas of light and public space secured for women.

2

4

3 1

48

WOMEN’S RIGHTS 1 Female masjid next to established mosques.

2 Enclosed market space near transit stations.

3 Scalar park space in residential neighborhoods.

4 Plazas of light for memorial and security.

SOUL - FORCE | CIRCUITS 49

PART C

50

Framework of systems and distributed program.

SYSTEMS OF CONNECTIVITY Once Johannesburg understands its people as a major infrastructural component, its potential is limitless. The people who come to the city, who make the city their own, righteously demand equity. For a goal of 2050, the city can provide equity through systems of connectivity.

Public transit is a fundamental to a connected city, and by extending the city’s current public transit system (Rea Vaya BRT), the city is making a statement that all are included and relevant to economic gain--the purpose of public transportation.

By implementing the programmatic elements around the new circuits of transit. basic and necessary resources become localized and intimate.

SOUL - FORCE | CIRCUITS 51

NEIGHBORHOOD LIVABILITY

PART D

District of localized resources.

The district plan focuses on the intensities of transit systems, performative corridors, an supplemental programs to the particular location at the intersection of Soul Force (the pedestrian lane) and the Klips River corridor.

Here a resident can pass through Oriental Plaza’s new divided space to access any time of day or night. This route leads to Satyagraha Park, and eventually Mary Fitzgerald Square.

In the newly reconfigured blocks which were previously Oriental Plaza’s surface parking, a new courtyard block typology emerges with two owners per block.

To the south of Albertina Sisulu Road, the Newtown Zimbabwe Bus Terminus has been relocated to accommodate one of the new taxi ranks to serve the city.

54

SOUL - FORCE | NEIGHBORHOOD LIVABILITY 55

CONTEXTUAL PAIRINGS HAMIDIA MOSQUE + SATYAGRAHA SQUARE

56

REMADE RECYCLE + VOCATIONAL SCHOOL

SOUL - FORCE | NEIGHBORHOOD LIVABILITY 57

CONTEXTUAL PAIRINGS ORIENTAL PLAZA + TRADER STALLS

58

NEWTOWN ZIMBABWE BUS TERMINUS + TAXI RANK + TRADERS

SOUL - FORCE | NEIGHBORHOOD LIVABILITY 59

SECURED ACCESS CONTINUED RIGHT TO THE CITY

INCLUSIVITY OF ACTORS 17:37 MAGRHIB PRAYER

62

Same time, different intensities.

17:37 RUSH HOUR

SOUL - FORCE | SECURED ACCESS 63

PEOPLE AS INFRASTRUCTURE

Continued right to the city.

Johannesburg’s potential is limitless once the city understands its people as a powerful infrastructural component. Its people deserve the dignity of access to public transit and localized resources. The city can finally utilize the geo-historical moments of passive resistance not only as a memorial, but a continuous means of security for even its most vulnerable citizens.

For the right to the city is only as accessible as the people—or the SoulForce—demand it to be.

64

66

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