It works because it has to Time flows in one direction. The past is part of the present and will be part of the future. However one has to choose how to interpret the past, as a picture to reflect on, or as a map to follow. When it comes to space making, reference to the past is essential. The only empirical reference to plan for the future is the past. My main question is how we relate the past into our present and future. In order to illustrate the different approaches towards referring to the past I will compare Gugas’thebe (Langa – Cape Town, by CS Studio Architects – 1999), and Harare Library (Khayelitsha – Cape Town, by Charlotte Chamberlain and Nicola Irving Architects, CCNIA – 2011). Gugas’thebe “This is clearly a post Apartheid building. In the first place it deals with the community’s needs as principle guide to the design, and secondly the response is rooted on the site.” (1)
The quote above by CS Studio Architects describes how the design process started. South Africa had just become a democracy, and there was a prevailing national sense of a fresh start. The designers decided to use the human as the dominant aspect of the design; human scale, pathways, memory and local references. The site had significant historical baggage, as in 1954 it was where many burnt their hated pass books and marched towards Cape Town as a protest against apartheid. It remained undeveloped for many years. Aerial photographs showed various pathways on the site indicating the intuitive movement through this space. The Gugas’thebe project represents a community that should not be organized around imposed external constraints, but by local intuitive living. “The design therefore consists of various ‘separate’ building components forming a ‘village’. The building spaces are arranged around these main circulation paths with courtyards forming external rooms nestled in between the internal spaces.” (2)
Image 1 illustrates how the fragments of buildings were articulated around the existing circulation scheme.
(1 and 2): Design process by CS Studio Architects: http://csstudio.co.za/PDF/Guga.pdf