Project overview_Performing the city into being

UJ ANTI-PLAGIARISM DECLARATION University of Johannesburg Department Graphic Design Assignment Title: Design essay Full name: Tumelo R. Malatji Student number: 201400419 Course: BArch Lecturer: Alexander Opper Due date: 14 November 2016 1. Plagiarism is to present someone else’s ideas as my own.

2. Where material written by other people has been used (either from a printed source or from the internet), this has been carefully acknowledged and referenced. I have used the Harvard Reference System for citation and referencing. Every contribution to and quotation from the work of other people in this assignment has been acknowledged through citation and reference.

3. I know that plagiarism is wrong. 3.1 I understand what plagiarism is and am aware of the University’s policy in this regard. 3.2 I know that I would plagiarise if I do not give credit to my sources, or if I copy sentences or paragraphs from a book, article or internet source without proper citation. 3.3 I know that even if I only change the wording slightly, I still plagiarise when using someone else’s words without proper citation. 3.4 I declare that I have written my own sentences and paragraphs throughout my essay and I have credited all ideas I have gained from other people’s work.

4. I declare that this assignment is my own original work.

5. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy my work with the intention of passing it off as his or her own work.

SIGNATURE: RT Malatji DATE: 14 November 2016

Performing the city into being The site as an [operatic performance] act 201400419 RT Malatji 2016-11-14 BArch - BAAD

List of figures Figure 1. Model, collage and line drawing (2016)…………………………………………….. 1 Figure 2. Urban design framework for the Chicken farm (2016)………………………….….. 2 Figure 3. A sketch of the proposed design scheme (2016).………………………………...... 3 Figure 4. Urban development framework (2016)…..…………………………………………... 5

Performing the city into being The site as an [operatic performance] act Introduction In this year, the theme has been of different types of (land)scapes. We looked at various city landscapes, both physically and as an act, as seen in the current project theme of the Performance(land)scape.

Taking a look back‌ Vertical studio The first project was a continuation from vertical studio week. It looked at suggesting an alternative way of dealing with the various challenges that came with negotiating the busy Kingsway/Beyers Naude intersection - an intersection right on the doorstep of the University of Johannesburg in Auckland Park. A solution had already been commissioned, but the brief given to us sought a more subtle and well-though-out design as opposed to the one suggested by the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA). The process began with the distilling of material accumulated during vertical week, and using the distilled pieces to help in reinterpreting them towards a “less rational and more intuitive trajectoryâ€? as Jessica Grobbelaar, had mentioned in the brief (2016:1). These are the works I produced, as per brief; a model, a collage and a line drawing, that were catalysts towards my final bridge design.

Figure 1. Model, collage and line drawing by author (2016)

Edge(land)scape The second project dealt with the landscape of the south edge of the city. The design was based on a donated land – a chicken farm, which the client looked to turn into a social ‘gated’ community that was to some degree self-sufficient, but also had some connections to the neighbouring satellite neighbourhoods and essentially to the city. As stated in the brief by Alex, the aim was for “the creation of a cohesive and coherent built environment which [would satisfy] the needs of the new inhabitants and users of this envisaged new town”(2016:1). The project was more of an urban planning exercise; it was about understanding spatial regulations and how towns are formed and what essentially continues their sprawl

.

Figure 2. Urban design framework for the Chicken farm and the surrounding plots. By author (2016)

Play(land)scape The third project dealt with the play aspect of landscape. The focus was a playground design for a village in Malawi called Chimphamba. It was in collaboration with Architecture for a Change (A4AC), an architecture firm familiar with the area of focus, having been working on various projects there. Seeing as the village was quite remote, the design of the playground had to be considerate when it came to the use of materials and their sourcing. The cont of play had to be context-specific, so as not to design something totally alien to the area. My design focussed on incorporating the already existing concepts of play, and the concept of African folk story-telling, which tied back to the connection between the playground and the educational facility in the vicinity as well as community inclusion.

DesBaker brief This last term the projects brought us back into the city. The first brief was the DesBaker competition brief, which dealt with scale. The brief required us to go into the city and identify a problem, and then design multiple small interventions that would be distributed in multiple locations and form a network that is part of an urban strategy to solve that problem. This intervention had to be designed in such a way that it is not permanent where it is placed, but is also not temporary – it must permanently be usable, whether it is in the place where it is to be placed, or it is where it goes when it is not in that place.

Figure 3. A sketch of the proposed design scheme for the problem we identified. Sketch by author (2016)

Performanc(land)scape This last project looks at the performance landscape of the city. The project, as mentioned

by Alex in the brief, is defined by “the way the human body,[… ]acts as a conduit for performing the city into being”(2016:2). The sub-theme for the project is “Heritage as a stage – staging heritage”. This project is in collaboration with the Gauteng Opera, located in Ferrerasdorp, and the task is to design a complex building that is “rooted in and informed” by its surroundings (Opper 2016:3).

Lessons from theoretical text The book I was allocated as my set work text for this project is titled: Johannesburg – the elusive metropolis, authored by Sarah Nuttal and Achille Mbembe, along with a couple of other contributors whose writings are included in the book. In this collection of writings, the contributors reevaluate he classic theories of urbanite modernity, exploring the experiences of city-ness and life in urban Johannesburg post-apartheid. The one piece of writing that intrigued me the most within the collection is a piece titled “Instant City” by African actor, theatre director, poet and journalist, John Matshikiza. In this piece he plots his experiences upon returning to South Africa as an exile – “the tension between belonging and alienation; cosmopolitanism and xenophobia”. He also speaks of the city as an “unfinished movie”(Kruger 2009:[sp]). In his writing submitted to the Open Democracy column, he states, “I pity the current generation of Johannesburg architects, […] for having inherited the most temporary of cities in which to ply their trade.” (2002:[sp], emphasis added) He mentions various times in his writings Johannesburg’s temporal nature. Very often those who live within the city migrate to ‘greener pastures’ and they leave behind the assortment of atrocious, decaying buildings. This is the crisis that Johannesburg architects are forever faced with; buildings and scapes which were never designed to hold their present, multicultural, intra-African population.

The heritage of Johannesburg is elusive. It is too chaotic and complex, and incomprehensible for its present. Its ‘ugliness’ questions whether it should be torn down and rebuilt, or kept. For some, this ‘heritage’ is a reminder of a bad past, one they do not wish to remember, and sometimes even do their best to destroy so their future generations do not get born into it. For others, it is a reminder of a city of great possibilities, one that holds a story of some kind of breakthrough.

My design scheme looks at fusing the two often opposing voices, one of a painful reminder of a blunt past and the other of a celebrated remembrance of the city’s achievements, into one. It attempts to reconcile the two to one another in their future, which contrary to their past brings them together and creates an environment, within the old one, that can be celebrated by both. So heritage is kept and not destroyed, in a manner that makes it celebrated in a new way.

Urban analysis Township folk and suburb folk utilize and sometimes depend mostly on the public transport sector of the city. Seeing that there is a taxi rank and a BRT station not too far from the site, I wanted to look at these as strengthening tools for the purpose of my urban framework. This is how my ‘performers’ will essentially be brought into the site’s vicinity. These ‘performers’ will perform certain acts which I have outlined as principle for my urban development framework. The acts are: the act of observing, the act of impromptu, and the act of spacehopping. In my urban development framework, I have introduced several programmes that will allow for the performance of these acts. In each building, I have incorporated spaces for either one of these acts to take place. For example, for one to be able to observe, I have specified and made provision for various vantage points throughout the site. From balconies, ‘active’ rooftops and various raised and sunken courtyard typologies, the users of the space will always have a view of the next space/place to hop to. Each building will also then have a space for social gathering, either formally or informally – in other words, they allow for rehearsed and unrehearsed performances – the impromptu. The spaces in-between are then designed considerately as routes for hopping from one gathering to the other.

Figure 4. Urban development framework showing the building programmes proposed for the site and the surrounding buildings. By author (2016)

The Gauteng Opera The building design I’ve proposed stays true to the appearance of the context. I haven’t changed much in terms of the materials but have built on the existing, with the exception of the new opera space. Within the block of the existing building footprint, I have opened up an inner courtyard space, which essentially becomes a space to hop to too, as the performers perform it into being. It also acts as an outdoor foyer to the opera as it is right at the entry to the opera space. It can therefore be used as a pre-function space or a post-function space to the opera. Events can happen there leading to the performance in the main opera, or after the opera as the people exit the opera hall refreshments are served in that space.

The main entrance to this ‘foyer’ is on Margaret Mncingana street via the gallery space I’ve proposed along there. This will therefore have an impact on the street edge as it will have to be designed to support the pedestrian activity and funnel users into the space, Margaret Mncingana street essentially becomes a social(land)scape – the actual performance(land)scape of the site in support to the opera performance space. In my UDF I have extended this street to run alongside the Zurich building, keeping it narrow with wider pavements which make it conducive to the hopping acts that will hopefully emerge and start taking place along there as a result of my scheme.

References Grobbelaar, J. 2016. Vertical studio. Brief, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg.

Opper, A. 2016. Edge(land)scape. Brief. University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg.

Opper, A. 2016. Performance(land)scape. University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg.

Nuttal, S & Mbembe, A. 2008. Johannesburg – the elusive metropolis. Duke University Press.

Matshikiza, J. 2002. Johanesburg: shanty city, instant city. Open Democracy, 13 December.

Kruger, L. 2009. Johannesburg – the elusive metropolis (review).[O]. Available, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/364561/summary Accessed 12 November 2016