FLATS OF DU NOON

A study of owner developed rentable housing

Du Noon, Cape Town 2010
Privately initiated and funded research by H. Wolff
Assisted by V. Loseby, M. Willemse, A. van Wyk and E. Gericke

Over the past decade, a new type of privately developed, rentable housing started emerging in Du Noon, Cape Town. As an economic model it is similar to the renting of backyard shacks, but the rentals are three times higher on average. The extraordinary income-generating potential of the flats in Du Noon and their morphological innovation is what sparked interest in this study.

Du Noon is a Post-Apartheid settlement that owes its origins to a Provincial Governmental housing roll-out that started in 1996. Typically a 38m' RDP house would be built in the centre of a 115m' property. As an area for social housing, Du Noon is uncharacteristically well located near industrial, manufacturing, agricultural and residential job opportunities. The intensity of economic opportunity has resulted in rapid informal densification of Du Noon and the possibility to develop more permanently constructed, rentable apartments.

The Du Noon flats have developed a typical morphology that consists of a series of single room flats off a central corridor with shared ablutions. The flat sizes range between 6 and 13m2, with an average flat size of 8m'. The rentals for these flats range between R 400 - R 1030 per flat, with all flats being occupied in reasonably similar ways. Because of the consistent flat sizes, the content of each flat is typically a double bed, cupboard, couch or chairs, television , microwave, two plate stove and sometimes a fridge . The flats are occupied by between 1 and 4 people.

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The development of these flats was financed in a variety of ways , but never with a bank loan. Some were financed with profits from vegetable or alcohol trade and others through stokvels. A common method of financing was to develop incrementaliy- completed flats were rented out while the remainder were still under construction.

All of the buildings in the study were constructed from masonry, with roofs made of timber beams and covered with roof sheeting. The internal floors were either timber beams and plywood boards or various forms of concrete floors. In general the buildings were built fairly well however, there are some violations of the National Building Regulations, most notably the fire regulations. The most common problems being a lack of a second means of escape and non-conformity with the stair designs. Most of these problems could have been overcome if the owners had access to professional advice.

Du Noon is zoned as 'Informal Residential'. This zoning has facilitated the development of rentable housing, due to it placing unlimited restrictions on the number of units per erf, provided that the primary use is for residential purposes. Many of the flat buildings have a shop on ground floor, one building even provides rentable office space. The mix of functions in these buildings, and the extreme density of flats per erf, has resulted in buildings that push right up to the road edge and therefore participates in the spatial definition of the street.

Due to Reception Area’s complex and dense urban fabric, the strategy is realized in three scales: an existing toilet upgrade, a medium-sized toilet and shower facility, and a large service centre with toilets, comfortable bathrooms, laundry and community services.

The large units are arranged around semi-private courtyards. Besides regular bathrooms, they contain retail spaces which could be used by a hairdresser, internet cafe, laundry, tuck-shop, crèche, gym, etc. The two roof terraces can be used for drying clothes and by the gym as outdoor exercising spaces respectively.

Through incorporating lessons learnt from the dynamic urban and architectural character of the Reception Area, the facilities are cross-programmed to offer multiple services and income streams. All typologies would provide business opportunities for local caretakers and operators.

Continued on Panel 2.

HEINRICH WOLFF

 
 
 

LEARNING FROM OUR OWN BACKYARD

Informal provision of affordable rental stock

Research conducted into backyard rental since 2002 for amongst others the GDoH and the NDoH
Lone Poulsen and Melinda Silverman

At the back of almost every formal house in South Africa is an additional building. This might be a servant's quarter, a granny flat, 'a room for rent', an informal shop, a spaza or a hairdressing salon . In many instances these backyard rooms have been informally developed built by the owners of the formal house in an attempt to derive income from their properties. Backyard rooms are a notable feature of the South African urban landscape and have a long history in South African cities:

Over a hundred years residents of Alexandra built clusters of rental rooms on their large peri-urban plots. This gave rise to the "Alex yard" which remains the primary social entity in Alexandra. In the townships developed by Apartheid government in the 1950s, residents gradually added backyard rooms in spite of state efforts to curb African urbanisation. New rooms were often disguised as "a garage and two stores" when such additions were illegal.

Today the pattern of building backyard rooms remains popular. Beneficiaries of the RDP housing programme rolled out by the post-Apartheid state have also been adding rooms at the backs of their plots. During the 1990s more new tenancies were created in the informal than the formal sector, most often in the form of backyard rooms. The 2001 census counted 460 000 households, or about 2.3 million people, living in backyard rooms. Until recently "backyard shacks" have been viewed in a negative light by the authorities - largely because the increase in density has placed significant strain on existing infrastructural services.

Although the quality of backyard rooms is often poor, this form of accommodation - built entirely without government help - offers potential solutions to a number of South African housing problems.

1. The addition of backyard rooms helps to increase housing density, which means that urban land is used more efficiently. The same amount of road space and the same length of pipe runs can be used to serve additional households. Increased urban densities also generate higher thresholds for public transport, retail and social services making these amenities more viable. Additional rooms on the plot often help to define better outdoor space, creating courtyards where children can play and residents can socialise.

2. The addition of backyard rooms allows the owner of the primary dwelling to derive income from his/her property in the form of rental rooms or home enterprises. This means that a house provides more than shelter and also functions as an economic generator. This increases the asset value of the property.

3. The addition of backyard rooms provides accommodation that is more responsive to diverse household arrangements where families are rarely nuclear - mom, pop and 2.5 kids - but more likely to comprise grannies looking after AIDs orphans, extended families , women headed households, and multiple households.

4. The addition of backyard rooms improves the supply of much-needed affordable rental accommodation, fulfilling the needs of an estimated 80% of the population who cannot afford formal rental housing. Cheap rental options are necessary in the context ongoing migrancy where work in cities, but maintain links with families elsewhere and in the context of increasing labour mobility where urban residents are forced to move in search of jobs.

5. From a municipal perspective backyard rooms are a far less alarming manifestation of informality than freestanding shacks which are often erected on inappropriate or unsafe land. Backyard rooms are built on land that has already been zoned as residential.

It is for these reasons that backyard rooms are increasing being seen as a solution to South Africa's housing shortage rather than a problem.

Continued on Panel 2

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LONE POULSEN: ACG ARCHITECTS & DEVELOPMENT PLANNERS
MELINDA SILVERMAN: DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE: UJ

INTEGRATED NEIGHBOURHOOD - SLOVO PARK

Johannesburg 2011
Design Consultant: Michael Hart Architects. Urban Designers
Client: Gauteng Local Government and Housing / City of Johannebsurg

The Study Area

The informal housing settlement of Slovo Park is located within the township of Coronationville. The settlement is flanked by open space to the north within Coronationville and open ground to the east within the township of Crosby.The study area is located in western Johannesburg within Administration Region B and within the city's east west development corridor.

Design Analysis :Status Quo

The acquired land to the north and the east of the settlement offer the opportunity to extend the development over a larger area offering a Greenfields element to the proposed development. The larger development offers the opportunity to link with surrounding road networks.The southern edge is bounded by the railway reserve , forming a hard boundary edge. Connectivity shall encourage opportunities of mixed use retail and commercial activities. The direct linkages from neighbouring areas will inform a wider consumer catchment allowing the future economic sustainability of the study area.

Urban Design Approach: Connectivity with neighbouring suburbs.

This is beneficial on many levels. Lines of movement shall be direct and convenient; this will improve the routing of public transportation, direct movement for private vehicles wil open up access for pedestrians and bicycles in an east west direction, up to date the sites have been an obstacle for movement and therefore the decline of growth.
Continuity of the urban fabric, improving desire lines and introducing varying built typologies and uses shall achieve a positive and dynamic neighbourhood.

Pedestrian Orientated Design (POD)

This approach aims to create an equitable use between Vehicle and Pedestrians. POD leads to a clear definition of road hierarchies, public transportation , vehicular collector roads, neighbourhood roads and pedestrian / private vehicular roads with integrated street courts.
Fine grain block layout, an open street network with variations shall create a walkable neighbourhood. The inclusion of mid block pedestrian "right of way" paths have been inluded to link the high level public transport route with mixed use nodes of community / retail and recreational facilities . The pedestrian right of way is flanked on either side with activity generating uses such as retail shops, informal and formal trading opportunities.
Safety of pedestrians is paramount to the success of creating a walkable neighbourhood. Landscaping, paving, lighting and street furniture and long term maintenance must be part of the development budget.
Socio -economic functions and relevant infrastructure shall be invested in within the public realm to ensure the attraction for business opportunities.

Economic Development opportunities for small scale economic activity.

Economic activity shall be a planned component of the development of Slovo Park to ensure an economic and socially sustainable settlement. The development shall offer a hierarchy of economic activity. The range of zoning opportunities shall allow for a mix of business opportunities.

Hierarchies of business zoning:

High order formal Retail/Office / light manufacturing: supermarket, butchery, fruit &vegetable traders, furniture sales and repairs, clothing chains, curtain manufacturers etc;
Second level formal retail: such as small shops, restaurants, take away foods, service orientated shops: hardware, locksmith, laundromat, chemists etc
Third level informal traders and small micro stalls:such as clothing, fresh and cooked food, bags and phone stalls etc
Employment generation is a major objective of the developmental process. It is proposed that the initial infrastructure
investment be directed to road networks and trading related sites and services. This shall enable people to create a foothold on an economic basis assisting them to afford an improved lifestyle. The majority of low income or unemployed beneficiaries who will be attracted to this new neighbourhood form part of the "informal sector". It is therefore important to align 'Urban Markets' with public spaces; pedestrian movement routes and public transportation, pick up and drop off points, allowing entrepreneurs to respond appropriately to urban structuring . The implementation of Urban Markets should remain the responsibility of the Local Authority.

Advantages of promoting markets by means of public actions:

i. Creating urban markets enables small traders to gain access to viable locations.
ii. The physical concentration of traders increases their drawing capacity and enables competition .
iii. Markets in low-income areas can provide a service to consumers. Offering variety, choice of goods, convenience at a localised scale.
The urban markets is linked by the pedestrian route to other forms of public infrastructure, such as the community hall, creche, clinic, public square, parks and religious gathering points reinforcing the importance of public investment and social return.

Continued on Panel 2 | Panel 3 | Panel 4.

MICHAEL HART ARCHITECTS URBAN DESIGNERS

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SAPS RETREAT RAILWAY POLICE STATION

Location: Retreat Cape Town (2007)

Clients: South African Rail Commuter Corporation / South African Police Service

MOKENA MOKEKA / HOLGER DEPPE
MAKEKA DESIGN LAB

The Retreat Railway Police Station acknowledges that a better public engagement can be fostered by fashioning spaces and environments that promote transparency and visibility, which are open and welcoming, and most importantly are safe and accessible. The building plays its part in the narrative of a better, more efficient and more connected South African Police Service to be used and accessed by the citizens it serves.

The client SARCC (today: PRASA) has chosen strategic locations at major junctions within the Western Cape Rail network for four new Railway Police Stations in order to improve safety and security for railway customers. One of these is Retreat, a low income suburb in the Cape Flats.

The police station provides the northern edge to an existing square in front of the railway station. The square is largely occupied by a taxi rank. The surrounds consist mostly of low scale commercial and light industrial development. Low income housing stretches from the other side of the railway line onwards.

During Apartheid, Institutions were entrenched for the use and protection of a limited minority group. After 1994 the country has been faced with the challenge of the reconstruction of institutions to serve the needs of a greater majority – such as the Constitutional Court. Retreat Police Station makes a valuable contribution to an approach that redefines the police station building typology of South Africa.

Police stations need to represent safety and security instead of the historic representation of a force of fear and oppression. This is achieved through a design language of transparency, identity of service and well-being. The building has a strong presence flanking the station square with its entrance marked by a screen wall and a glazed entrance foyer. The entrance and foyer with its service desk are directly visible to the taxi rank and other public zones and invite rather than repel. Through its openness and choice of material the design response fosters a sense of pride and encourages dignity and self respect.

The building’s simple rectangular form provides a strong, well-scaled edge to the square while the articulation of its ends provides formal interest. The building achieved a high degree in cost effectiveness through a minimalist approach to construction and material. This is reflected in the timber structure under use of SA pine and carefully designed connecting elements in steel. A transparent multiwall product was used for all clerestory glazing. From inside the foyer, SAPS operations are visible and sensible through the lowered screen behind the service desk.

The mystery of light is explored both in an effort to create a design that excites the imagination and that changed with the changing light of the day. It is a civic structure that is delicate at the human scale.

The environment created by this police station is that of openness and provision of service to the people. The sense of dignity reflects itself by the high acceptance of the building in the public and within the police force. The sense of identity and value of the work of the police is welcomed by the individuals working at this station.

The importance of rail as backbone of public transport for all people but specifically for those with lower incomes is emphasized by the provision of a safe and secure environment, for which this building is one piece in the puzzle.

Awards:
CIFA Award of Merit 2007 - Inaugural recipient of the Gold Loerie Award for Three Dimensional & Environmental Design-Architecture.

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THE AESTHETICS OF SAFETY

Location: Cape Town (2007)

Clients: Intersite / South African Rail Commuter Corporation / Metrorail.

SITUATION:

Rail is the accepted backbone of public transport in the Western Cape, contributing almost 59% of the total public transport profile, which in turn is responsible for 29% of the total transport profile in the city. The railway police force were disbanded during the late 1980’s after enduring allegations of acting as an enforcer for the apartheid regime, stricken by rumours of state sanctioned torture and other human rights abuses. The dissolution of this specialised police unit later proved to be a liability post 1994 with escalating crime on trains and at various train station stations, including vandalism, aggravated robbery, and violent assaults etc.

INTERVENTION:

The reintroduction of the Railway police was deemed necessary after a series of brutal incidents, but had two distinct social challenges facing its renaissance; countering the stigma of the past which still resided within living memory of many, and secondly using their reintroduction to connect different parts of the city and its different socio economic conditions and peculiar needs.

Four stations were identified, a new central hub at Cape Town station, and three satellite facilities, dealing with different degrees of social informality and contradictions, namely Philippi, Bellville and Retreat. All three satellites were located on the doorstep of taxi ranks and informal markets and meant to project a sense of the presence of the state apparatus in addressing safety for commuters. The police would be allocated to trains along various routes and thus connect the periphery to the core through a new web of security and visible policing.

Bellville taxi rank remains one of the largest taxi ranks in the Cape peninsula exposed to increased levels of vulnerability to unrest, and protests from the taxi community, and informal sector. Philippi station was located close to a well known meat market, with various health and security challenges relating to food production, high levels of unemployment. Cape Town station as the nexus of the railway police stations had to engage with its role in the heart of the CBD and the largest informal market- which was responsible for 70% of the crimes reported in the city.

Unlike other development processes in which public participation would form an integral component of the delivery of public infrastructure, security processes precluded this. What rather followed was an intense engagement and education of various security experts in the art of environmental design as an enabler of safer communities and to re-instill pride within the police service.

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HYPOTHESIS:

Can a ‘re-imagination,’ of the aesthetic of the police station shift behavioural patterns and ‘re-brand,’ the police? The design strategy undertaken involved re-imagining the architectural expression of the police station as typology into an opportunity to shift the social brand of the police; for the public and police persons. Ensuring the architecture heralded the transition from a police force to a service presented the space for a new logic for the interface of the architecture with place, culture and perception patterns. Every intervention was unique to its place and setting and offered a different exposure to context in all areas, crime reduction was significant and the public perception of the police improved.

Retreat station is well located from a rail perspective with a lower to middle class surrounding environment, with retail center and light industrial activity in the vicinity.

The building frames and completes the urban square which in turn contains the Retreat taxi rank, and the entrance to the railway station. It gives edge definition and mediates scale from its civic aspect and abutting residential fabric.

The project has met with great success from the user perspective, and substantiates the necessity for humanist discourse in the making of civic infrastructure. It has received an award from the Cape Institute of Architecture and received a gold medal in the category Communication Design at the 33rd Annual Loerie Awards in 2011.

The community has experienced heightened safety levels, the building is one of the most popular destinations for police staff, and has brought a renewed sense of civic purpose and pride. It re-establishes a role for architecture as a key component of urban clarity and performance.

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MOKENA MOKEKA / HOLGER DEPPE
MAKEKA DESIGN LAB

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URBAN ACUPUNCTURE

‘The Needle and the (W)Hole.’

Location: Khayelitsha Cape Town (2007)
Design Consultants (phase two): City Think Space, ACG Architects and Development Planners
Clients: City of Cape Town and Khayelitsha community Trust

Khayelitsha is the largest and last township to be formally established in the Western Cape. Located at the heart of the Cape Flats and abutting Mitchel’s Plain, its narrative of dislocation, hope, and unequal access to resources, amenity and infrastructure positions the area as an exemplar of Apartheid informed informality. President Thabo Mbeki identified it as one of twenty national urban renewal nodes with a specific role to play in terms of social cohesion, upliftment and integration across the fractured cultural divide. The central business district was conceived to create a new urban room, an inspirational public realm for a devastated and desolate community lacking any resilient hierarchy of formalised ‘publicness.’

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With competing voices of legitimacy, delivery of projects was hampered through indecision and lack of accountability between the state and social organisations. In a sense the informal landscape was mirrored by turbulent informal forces squabbling over the gaunt carcass of available resources. The noble intention of creating complementary CBD’s for each community (So called colored and Black African) has not been achieved despite the presence of catalytic interventions which anticipate and provoke the spontaneous creation of convivial environments through strategic urban design interventions. The informal condition in this instance could be described as a coded void or ‘hole,’ in the socio spatial geography of place.

Within this process, multi-purpose centers were identified as key urban markers for urban development, and encompass four components, a sports and recreation aspect, municipal offices and service point, heath and service clinic, and a library/arts and culture aspect. These later evolved into Thusong Service Centres.

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As an outcome of a two year public participation process held by the City of Cape of Town to identify hierarchies of need for the community, the necessity for the sports component was identified as a priority and Makeka design Lab was commissioned to execute. The creation of a civic catalytic architecture in a context where the civic imperative is not a normative priority of the state presented challenges for officialdom, and the project seeks to relocate the discourse of architecture in informal conditions as part of a transformative act shaping township into town through bold design- architectural and urban. How does the needle stitch the (w)hole?

BESTER'S CAMP

eThekwini | 1990-current

Harber Masson & Associates
The Urban Foundation | Durban City Council

ORIGINS

To appreciate ‘Bester’s Camp’ one has to revert back to the terrible race riots that erupted in Durban during January 1949. Africans and Indians were at loggerheads, mainly in Cato Manor, a mixed race, dense settlement of shacks behind Berea and only a few kilometres from the colonial CBD.

These upheavals gave the freshly installed National government a chance to systematically implement Apartheid planning. Africans were relocated to a new township, Kwa Mashu, to the north and Indians to Chatsworth in the south of the city. During the mid 70’s another Indian township, Phoenix was located further to the north. The wide space between these towns was left vacant, an empty condone sanitaire separating different race groups.

A Pretoria based construction company, Bester Construction, were the main contractors for Phoenix. They set up a blockyard on this vacant land, on the city boundary. As the spatial control of Apartheid began to diminish in the 80’s the steep hillside behind became settled by a dense informal settlement of makeshift shacks known as ’Bester’s Camp’.

This is an account of how a problem has been transformed into an opportunity!

TAKING STOCK

The Informal Settlement Division of the Urban Foundation was encouraged by the Durban City Council to resolve the situation during the late 80’s. Harber Masson and Associates were commissioned to unravel the situation. In total contrast to contemporary township delivery with their modernist approach, focussed on delivery at volume, efficiency and minimal liaison with the future inhabitants, Bester’s Camp involved an on-going negotiation with residents that were already established, right on the edge of the city. Residents valued the advantage of being relatively well located on a springboard into the controlled city. To insert services it was initially recommended that ten per cent of the houses would have to be relocated elsewhere. They refused.

This presented an enormous challenge. The high densities and lack of adequate funding meant that an incremental approach had to be taken – a process and not a product. In-situ upgrading was the only viable approach. To convey this approach, large models were made to demonstrate the process, to demonstrate commitment and to engender communal ‘ownership’ of the proposal. The first entitled ‘NOW’ accurately recorded the existing situation on a large portion of the site to the extent that residents could identify their shelters. The next titled ‘SOON’ illustrated the ‘quick wins’ or envisaged short term interventions to consolidate the situation – public water kiosks, roadways, hardening of paths, steps and especially the storm water drainage lines. The final model ’EVENTUALLY’ illustrated a dense, multi storey settlement on steep cross falls to provide a vision of the future. Amalfi in Italy was provided as precedent!

The next step was to undertake a detailed survey of a sample of about seven per cent of the stock of informal structures to reveal prevalent problems and opportunities in the construction and to document how these may have been resolved within local cost and availability constraints.

Inappropriate detailing causing damp in mud walls was the most serious shortcoming. Guidelines were issued on the importance of overhangs, raising the internal floor level and digging away the rear banks, all gleaned for excellent local examples of tyre retaining walls, use of vegetation to stabilise banks, recycled components such as windows and various shuttering systems to form walls filled with inorganic waste. Jap panels, the local name for the plywood sides to crates from the Toyota assembly plant, were particularly revealing. Double storey houses were recorded built entirely of these, including the roofing. Here an acute awareness of the properties of materials was evident because plastic sheeting was draped over the top with a final sacrificial layer of Jap panels to protect it from deterioration from the sunlight.

It is remarkable how informative indigenous solutions can be. To this day Harber’s home in Durban has ceilings of Jap panels, recycled waste, at a fraction of the cost of a conventional solution.

Continued on Panel 2

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RODNEY HARBER

HOME IMPROVEMENTS

One Brick at a Time | Findings from the Visible Investment Survey

Finmark Trust

As soon as a subsidy beneficiary moves into their new house, thoughts turn to how to make it home. Cashbuild estimates that 60% of new units are upgraded within 18 months of the household moving in. In some cases, it’s a new window, or a fence; in others the entire house may be engulfed in a new structure. This building is incremental, step-by-step, financed with savings, microloans and sometimes even formal bank finance. In situ upgrading of the government subsidised house.

In 2010, the FinMark Trust, with support from Urban LandMark, the National Department of Human Settlements, the South African Cities Network, the Western Cape Department of Human Settlements and the FB Heron Foundation, undertook a study into the performance of government subsidised housing units. The study included a visual investment survey, in which the process and extent of home improvements was explored in three governmentsubsidised housing settlements: Slovoville, in Soweto, Gauteng; Emaplazini, in Inanda, KwaZulu Natal; and Thembalethu, in George, Western Cape. All of these settlements are more than ten years old.

The settlements

Slovoville (Soweto, Gauteng) was one of the first subsidy developments in Soweto and was built in the late 1990’s. It has approximately 1600 subsidy houses. Most beneficiaries came from Soweto and went through a long politically driven process of attending weekly meetings until they secured their subsidy houses. The area was officially opened by Mr Nelson Mandela.

Emaplazini (Inanda, Kwazulu Natal) is a subsidy development built in Inanda on a mountainous area. It has approximately 1000 houses. Beneficiaries squatted on farmland for many years and government bought the land from the farmers in the late 1990’s. A community organization was formed to negotiate a people’s housing process development. Interested community members participated in the organization by contributing 50 cents per day to a savings plan – over time, this led to their being able to build 4-bedroomed houses, which they paid for over a 5-year period. Those community members that did not participate in the community savings plan received subsidy houses.

Thembalethu (George, Western Cape) was developed in the late 1990’s, early 2000’s in a township close to George. It has approximately 5000 houses. The allocation of subsidy houses focused on informal settlement dwellers in Thembalethu. Other beneficiaries moved from the Eastern Cape and other rural areas in the Western Cape to try and find work in George or surrounding areas.

Findings

The majority of houses in the three settlements had been improved upon. More than 95% of houses in Slovoville and Thembalethu showed some form of investment. In Emaplazini, 77% showed some form of investment.

The majority of houses had a small investment in the form of plaster, paint, porch, burglar bars, shack or wire fence. The estimated value of this investment is less than the value of the original subsidy house. A significant number of houses had investments that looked as though they would have doubled, or more than doubled the value of the original subsidy house. The extent of this varied across the areas but it is most significant in Slovoville where over half (52%) had medium, big or very big investments. This is lower in Thembalethu (27%) and Emaplazini (28%). In all the areas there was some indication that investment is planned, with stockpiled building materials visible from the street.

The study found that investments seemed to be independent of the surrounding environment, and not as a result of state or private sector investment in the area. Respondents suggested that their motivation for making investments arose from the scarcity of other, more suitable housing. In the absence of a formal housing market catering for their specific needs, they needed to improve their housing incrementally. In some ways, therefore, home improvements are an informal response to housing supply constraints – households opt to extend or otherwise improve their housing because the market is not supplying any other form of affordable housing. In each of the neighbourhoods studied, and indeed across South Africa, the once uniform neighbourhoods of RDP housing side-by-side are now showing tremendous diversity in house type and form. A well-invested 4-bedroom house can be found in between two original subsidy houses that have been left untouched. Subsidy houses with no investment can be found on tarred roads, and subsidised houses transformed into mansions can be found on gravel roads. There is no format or pattern. There are no ‘wealthy streets’ and ‘poor streets’.

Continued on Panel 2

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FINMARK TRUST

KLIPTOWN EXPLORED

Evolving realities for Infill and In-situ Upgrading Kliptown . Soweto . Johannesburg. 2010 I 2011

Consultants: Albonico Sack Metacity (ASM) Architects & Urban Designers; ACG Architects & Development Planners
Research Project

Urban Design exists as the intersectional point between architecture , planning, urban geography, art and city management. Edgar Pieterse challenges urban practioners with the idea that, "a crucial focus of democratic practice should be spatially framed arguments for what the right to the city means".

In applying this concept and its relevance to the South African context, we argue that the commonality in terms of the language of urban design, must be able to be interpreted and understood by those who are engaging in the process. However, to add "quality to both process and producf, the outcomes, Pieterse indicates, has to "emerge out of a skillful articulation of urban struggles" for which "a broader repertoire of strategies and tactics are needed" that are unique to context and place. It is thus in our interest to explore and unpack the techniques and methodologies that make urban design a more relevant practice to unleash the potential benefits of urbanity.

Distribution of resources, growing economies and the hope of a better life draw more and more people to the cities every year. As a result of the shortage of adequate and available shelter, people occupy vacant land and erect shacks in areas without sanitation, infrastructure or any social amenities. In order to move forward , and provide the much needed housing and services to these millions of people, a new and innovative design approach must be adopted. Housing programmes which provide a diverse number of solutions, each specific to context and needs and the promotion of integration at city and neighbourhood scale, are critical. An emphasis on upgrading, with a focus on sustainable development as opposed to eradication, is a means of providing people with the services and shelter that is needed.

Upgrading is to be looked at as a process towards the delivery of appropriate housing, and an opportunity to transform informal settlements into liveable communities. The principals of informal settlement upgrading are based in integration and innovation, and an urban design framework which emphasises quality and sustainable living environments.

There is currently a programme engaging in the upgrade of informal settlements. It poses a challenge as to how to engage in a constructive and innovative way to incorporate , integrate, improve and engage in forward planning to assist in bettering the conditions of about 17% of our urban population.

Our proposition is an inquiry into how to develop appropriate techniques in responding to the particular environments and expectations of communities living within a condition of informality. The aim is to create more liveable , sustainable and resilient cities that can respond to the changing needs of a growing urban population, as well as developing a more bottom-up approach to urban governance and decision making.

To build an alternative future we need to free ourselves from preconceived ideas and move decisively towards multiple innovative possibilities.

Kliptown has long fallen between administrative zones and official concerns as an interstitial space in which natural buffers, dissecting railway lines and wide arterial roads have form barriers dividing the district, offering few safe pedestrian routes and isolated blocks of neglected land.

Kliptown was deliberately chosen as the site for the signing of The Freedom Charter in 1956 because it fell between jurisdictions and different designated Group Areas, which consequently enabled a diverse gathering of "the people”.

The exhibition work explores an urban design framework for Kliptown which consolidates existing development with catalytic projects, alternative designs for medium density housing and in-situ informal settlement upgrading into one coherent neighbourhood. The framework acknowledges and builds upon the history and heritage of the area, to ensure that each development enhances and contributes to build a coherent whole , and anticipates the future.

Urban design translates the process into spatial interventions that facilitate traditional practices, current livelihoods, and future aspirations. The product is an urban design framework that guides development decisions, frames interventions, is supportive of the everyday and the celebratory but is flexible enough to enable future change.

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MONICA ALBONICO AND LONE POULSEN

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LION PARK

Integrated Mixed-Use Housing Development, Johannesburg 2009

Design Consultant: Michael Hart Architects . Urban Designers
Client: Gauteng Local Government and Housing

Locality

The location of the site is within the Municipal District of the City of Johannesburg (Region Al. The site is situated north of Randburg and approximately 40 km North West of the Johannesburg CBD. The site is 39 Ha in extent and is bounded by the K29, Malibongwe Drive to the west, the N14 Freeway 10 the north, the R28 to the south and 6th road to the east.

Contextual Analysis

The people of Lion Park live a rural lifestyle. Makeshift shacks crammed orderly into urban blocks that are separated and shaped by eroded paths. Service infrastructure is limited 10 ventilated pit latrines and shared water sources. Residents currently grow a limited amount of vegetables and herd cattle. In order to Cleate meaningful change the urban environment must facilitate for lifestyle change, access to facilities, infrastructure, economic development and healthy environments.

An Urban Design Approach

The Urban Design methodology proposes a multi-pronged approach where the Social, Economic, Environmental , Design and Engineering (SEEDE) criteria are managed within a parallel process of analysis, review, consultation , and implementation. The outcome is to create an Integrated City. This is fundamental in achieving the aims of rectifying the inefficiencies that have plagued housing developments for low income communities.

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Identified communities shall benefit from the social and public investment through being able to access economic opportunities. This shall enable mixed-use residential districts to develop over time into socially and economically sustainable neighbourhoods.

The development shall create environments that are liveable, vibrant, secure and affordable. Lion Park shall create access for private and public transportation with comfortable, safe pedestrian routes. The development approach favours public transportation and non-motorised transport as opposed to a vehicle-based approach .

The framework strives for an Integrated Compact City form that will enhance positive public spaces, essential services including; health , education, emergency services and safety.

Residential densities shall be achieved through the implementation of a variety of housing typologies. These typologies shall take into consideration the mobile and incremental nature of communities. The demographic make-up of new and existing families moving into urban areas will present differing needs. Family size and levels of affordability shall be catered for within various forms of tenure. This may require the need for a flexible design approach.

Points of Departure

• Common agreement in decision making
• Principles to guide decision making
• Statement of priorities
• Programme of design, planning, approvals, specialist studies and implementation and phasing
• Channels of communication and Accountability

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Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Livelihoods

The task of developing physical frameworks as a methodology to improving lifestyles requires a strategy for poverty alleviation through economic development. The methodology shall include education and training , financial and social resources.

Economic Development

• Economic development of the local community must be assessed in terms of current economic activity , skills and entrepreneurship
• The inability to compete with the formal economy means that other forms of economies shall be identified.
• Lack of appropriate business faci lities. technology, communication and knowledge must be made available.
• The location of the development could offer competitive advantages of being located in close proximity to the Kya Sands Industrial node and the Lanseria Airport Development.
• The major transport arterials flank the site with direct access for passing trade and direct linkages to major centres.
• The proposed development will offer commercial, retail and trading facilities for traders within the formal and informal sectors.
• The opportunities of waste to energy business practices are available as start up businesses. (Waste collection and sorting, recycling, crafts, composting, urban agriculture and building material manufacture.)

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MICHAEL HART ARCHITECTS URBAN DESIGNERS

ETHEKWINI MUNICIPALITY: INTERIM SERVICES PROGRAMME

Overview

Approximately a quarter of the eThekwini Municipality’s total population of roughly 3.5 million reside in informal settlements. Whilst the City can pride itself on a successful and large scale mass housing delivery programme, not all settlements can be provided with full services and low income housing in the short term due to funding and other constraints. Yet informal settlements face a range of basic challenges such as access to adequate sanitation, clean and safe energy and roads. As a result, a pro-active and broad based programme to provide a range of basic interim services to prioritized informal settlements within the Municipality was developed with a view to addressing a range of basic health and safety issues and delivering rapidly to as many settlements as possible instead of providing a high level of service to only a select few.

The interim services provided consist mainly of: a basic road and footpath network with storm-water controls, communal sanitation blocks (or urine diversion units where bulk sewers are unavailable), and electrical connections to shacks. Basic water supply has mostly already been addressed through the provision of standpipes. Livelihoods initiatives, local economic development and the provision of key social facilities are addressed through parallel programmes.

Ablution Facilities
The installation of ablution facilities to informal settlements was initiated by eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS) in January 2009, with the aim of providing basic waterborne sanitation to Informal Settlements, thereby addressing EWS’ backlog of sanitation for all as per the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Each communal facility consists of two converted containers (one for males and one for females with showers, toilets, hand-basins and an external wash trough.

The settlements are located throughout eThekwini which covers an area of approximately 2300km2. One facility is provided for approximately every 75 informal dwellings within a 250m radius, ensuring, where possible, that the facilities can be incorporated into the eThekwini Unit’s future formalisation of reticulation within the InformalSettlement and surrounding catchment areas. Phase one is a three year programme from January 2009 to end December 2011.

In support of the principles of eThekwini Municipality’s Targeted Procurement Policy and the principles of Broad Based Economic Empowerment, a similar selection process to that of the Main Contractors was followed in respect of the selection of Emerging Contractors, via the advertisement of Expressions of Interest, to work in conjunction with the large Contractors thus completing the team, with Aurecon as the Programme Manager. As this project was aligned with the Expanded Public Works Programme, all necessary reporting was administered on a monthly basis and the employment opportunities are tabulated below:

As at October 2010, in excess of 180 container sites have been constructed and approximately 100 more are expected to be complete by December 2011. Phase two of the Sanitation Project was advertised for public tender in October 2010 and the newly selected teams are expected to begin in January 2012 to address the outstanding informal settlements. The proposed budget to complete this work is approximately R900 million, the funding coming from EWS and Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG). This would fund approximately 3,000 more ablution sites.

Caretakers are identified from the local community and routine maintenance is carried out by EWS. In addition to Informal Settlements, the project has now expanded to include the provision of sanitation facilities to Transit Facilities in eThekwini with an approximate 100 sites selected for completion in 16 Transit Facilities by the end of December 2011.

EWS is also acting as an Implementing Agent for the Department of Education (DOE), providing water and sanitation facilities to schools in the Umlazi and Pinetown District areas including capital and maintenance projects. As at October 2010, this project addressed the needs of 35 schools, with further schools to be addressed as budget is provided by the DOE.

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ETHEKWINI MUNICIPALITY, AURECON AND PROJECT PREPARATION TRUST

BROOK STREET MARKET, DURBAN

Area based contribution towards managing the informal economy for iTRUMP (inner Thekwini Regeneration and Urban Management Programme), eThekwini Municipality Durban 2001-2010

Project Architects: Architects Collaborative cc
Narrative: Richard Dobson, Asiye eTafuleni

BACKGROUND The project illustrates the phased development of an urban scale, roofed informal economy trading “mall” that was initiated as a joint venture with the Local Authority, through iTRUMP. The approach was by the Badsha Peer Mazaar Society, who proposed the erection of a permanent roof structure over the portion of Brook Street Central adjacent to their Saint’s Mazaar [shrine] for the dual use of their veneration ceremonies and the daily informal trade already existent in the same space. The initial project has subsequently extended to eight, almost annual, development phases where the roof has been extended to now shelter the entire length of Brook Street Central [approximately 200 m] to which traders’ specific infrastructure has been added. The Project concept has evolved interactively from phase to phase, so is also demonstrative of the attributes of an area based presence in translating daily observation into responsive design and ultimately, infrastructure. The area based presence has also contributed to the maintenance of a strong vision which is necessary to “carry” phased development.

LOCATION The Project is located in Brook Street Central, directly between the West Street Cemetery and the eastern edge of the Berea Station. The area is a melting pot of cultural history: The cemetery is the oldest in Durban [opened in 1850] and contains Christian, Muslim and Jewish graves. The Muslim section is currently the most actively used. The Berea Station was relocated in the apartheid era and was conceived as a segregated facility ie. with racially exclusive platforms and dedicated circulation routes. The construction of the new Station deliberately managed the access of Black people into the inner city, as it was the only elevated crossing over the rail corridor connecting the inner city with metro wide public transport routes. This reinforced the circulatory significance of Brook Street as the pedestrian distribution point into the inner city districts. The presence of informal traders was a consequence of this heavy pedestrian traffic. Periodically, Muslim funeral processions pass through the area en route from the Grey Street Mosque to the cemetery.

INTERVENTION In its infancy the Project represented a unique joint venture between the Local Authority [iTRUMP] and the Badsha Peeer Mazaar Society, supporting a long standing cultural and religious practice. The Mazaar Society’s approach to iTRUMP gave credence to the possibility of extending the roof along the full extent of Brook Street Central. Although there was no initial financial commitment from either party to fund any subsequent phases [beyond the Society’s first phase] the architectural concept and urban scale anticipated this possibility, hence the now appropriate architectural expression and the functioning of the space as an informal economy trading “mall”. Equally, the urban space and roof has facilitated the unconstrained expansion of the Badsha Peer veneration and provides responsive accommodation for the celebration’s programme.

PROCESS Until the Society’s formal approach to iTRUMP with the proposal to roof a portion of Brook Street
Central, the interaction between the Society and the informal traders’ street committee was based on customary understandings and public spirited co-operation. As the veneration function expanded, along with the density of trading, this interaction became harder to manage and progressively the ITSBO [Informal trade and Small Business Opportunity] area manager was approached to assist with the Society / trader preparatory arrangements. A form of social, economic and spatial threshold had been reached

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ARCHITECTS COLLABORATIVE cc

EKHAYA NEIGHBOURHOOD PROJECT + UPGRADES OF EXISTING BUILDINGS

Upgrades of existing building and development of neighbourhood framework, Hillbrow Johannesburg, 2002

Project Architects: Savage + Dodd Architects
Client: Johannesburg Housing Company | eKhaya Neighbourhood

In 2002, Savage+Dodd Architects undertook a first upgrade of a so-called 'bad building' in Hillbrow for the Johannesburg Housing Company (JHC). Our involvement architecturally was quite limited. Bad buildings are those which have become degraded through lack of maintenance and service provision over years, most have absentee landlords and have been hijacked or been invaded by illegal tenants. Since then we have undertaken many projects of this nature and our involvement has become more intense.

Each building that is recycled poses its own challenges. Most buildings were in a severe state of decay. In recycling a building, certain key questions were posed as to whether it was sustainable in its current configuration, how it would contribute to the housing stock of the company and what other functions could feasibly be included to make the project socially sustainable. Within a series of buildings, all located along Pietersen Street, a variety of challenges were addressed, from converting an existing residential hotel into rooms with shared facilities – a sought after typology to rehabilitating an iconic 1950's Modernist building. The key sustainable concepts were recycling and repurposing buildings.

In 2004, having analysed their progress, the client decided that there was now enough critical mass of 'good
buildings' and buildings either owned by themselves or under good management, in a specific area of Hillbrow centred on Pietersen Street, to start thinking strategically in terms of a neighbourhood. This was the realisation of the so called 'ripple pond' theory of development. It therefore focused not on the building but on the context.

The eKhaya Neighbourhood Improvement Programme (eKhaya) was the first of its kind to envisage forming a residential neighbourhood community in a degenerated low income, high density “no-go” area in the inner city. It was initiated by JHC at a time when they owned three buildings in the neighbourhood, all on Pietersen Street. eKhaya set out to organise property owners, their housing managers and caretakers and residents to co-operate between themselves to create and maintain a safe, clean, healthy and well managed environment, for the benefit of the people who live and/or work in the area, the property owners, and all in the city.

An extensive mapping process was undertaken locating all the buildings – 'good' and 'bad' and public amenities in the vicinity. This formed the basis for discussions concerning common interests with neighbourhood property owners.

One of the first initiatives was to clean up the existing sanitary lanes which were filthy, neglected and dangerous areas where no-one took responsibility for their upkeep. The first manifestations of the eKhaya project were not always focused on the physical environment, but slowly the process of building urban governance, has resulted in people driven changes to the environment, from the carving out of public space and play areas from the streets to the reclamation of urban open space.

We had seen that previous 'urban design' interventions in the late 80's had actually resulted in very dangerous street areas, especially on Quartz Street. We had also realised that urban space requires urban management, otherwise one makes nice space for drug dealers. Hence, our first urban interventions were not interventions in the physical environment, those interventions had to come out of a people driven process. The first physical interventions were to co-operatively clean and repair the lanes between buildings. This began to establish collaborative relationships between various roleplayers. Out of this, small physical interventions in the street were able to be made. Firstly the area at the eastern end of Pietersen Street was re-structured and repaved to make a playground and ball court area. This has been the site of several very successful community sportsday events organised by eKhaya. This has been the start of physical placemaking. Recently, the eKhaya Park project by Ikemeleng Architects has managed to reclaim an existing neglected and overgrown open space. These interventions are only sustainable within the urban management framework set up by eKhaya. Whilst the physical manifestations of the project were initially upgraded buildings providing a variety of quality accommodation, the most important aspect to this project is that it is a process and not a product. The most important outcomes of the overall project are about building people and building urban citizenship and not about buildings per se.

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SAVAGE + DODD ARCHITECTS

INNER CITY MOVEMENT FRAMEWORK

Reading and Re-writing, Johannesburg Inner City, 2011

Consultants: Arcus Gibb Engineering, Albonico Sack Metacity (ASM) Architects & Urban Designers with Solam Mkhabela and Marcel Zimmermann.
Funders: The Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), The Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) and The City of Johannesburg Department of Transport, Planning & Urban Management

The city is an amalgamation of complex layers of people, trade, movement, ever changing requirements and functions, the formal and the informal. All these layers are overlapped and entangled, making them, at times, indistinguishable from one another.

At the core of the city are its networks. These complex connections are played out on the canvas of the modernist city grid, structuring sets of relations, defining the activities and interactions between the formal and informal and shaping the "ordinary", everyday contested spaces.

The inner city is a place of convergence; where the city finds its voice through the people who engage and dwell in it. It is estimated that 1.5 million people arrive everyday at Park Station and associated taxi facilities, from far away destinations, coming to the area for work, shopping, or leisure. This congested and multi-layered part of the city is also home to about 400.000 residents.

The study conducted as part of the research and analysis phase of the "Johannesburg Inner-city Traffic and Transportation Study", commissioned by the City of Johannesburg, and coordinated by the JDA, engages with the "pulse of the city" at its most revealing point- its heart. It traces the main activities located around transport facilities whilst recording pedestrian movement patterns, places of friction, conflict and coexistence between the formal and the informal. The study looks at the voids- the streets and spaces between buildings which constitute for more than 20% of the urban fabric.

These "shared spaces" are the resource that supports the local trading patterns and allows for a fluid exchange of goods, information, transactions and social interactions, creating multiple opportunities for the new comers and the already entrenched networks.

This study presented the opportunity to observe the city with multiple eyes:
Recording + mapping + counting + tracing + mixing + engaging + enquiring + spontaneous place making + simulating + planning...
By using different techniques assisted by film makers, such as the video recording of critical spaces over 12hr slots, the accurate mapping of movement patterns and spaces of conflict and extensive photographic records of various conditions, unfolded the narrative of the everyday and became readable to the untrained eye of the observer.

The ever evolving purpose and life of a city was one of the key design informants in this research. The development of a framework that is to be successful, must allow for the inevitable interruptions of spaces by its users, and the subsequent growth of the city, whilst still providing a flexible enough base/framework to allow for future requirements.

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MONICA ALBONICO AND LONE POULSEN

JEPPE: 'THE CHAOS PRECINCT'

Johannesburg Inner City I 2011

Urbanists who have encountered the area of the city centre roughly bounded by Van Weilligh, Pritchard, Troye and Bree Streets have coined various names for it: The Ethiopian Quarter, Little Ethiopia and Little Addis references 'otherness' and emphasises the association of the area with an 'away' place - an exoticising of our city. But no formal planning framework addresses this area's land use as distinctive in the central business district. In fact municipal officials speak informally of the area as the CHAOS PRECINCT.

The traders in the area call it by the hallmark road - Jeppe. It is significant that a movement route is the selected label for this part of town, for its energy and life force is about converting motorists and pedestrians into shoppers. The 'Jeppe' trading quarter has no fixed boundaries , neither physical nor figurative. It is a place where public and private space is ill defined and the transitions between these are opaque. It is a loud, brash, booming consumer frenzy - an area where the worst of late capitalist, global consumerism combines with the best of migrant entrepreneurial ism. And it operates in ways that defy conventional divisions of formality and informality, of retail and wholesale, of the functions and tasks that support retail hubs, of land use and of the division between public and private space. Each of these elements is blurred in Jeppe. The result is a very distinctive urban form and functionality.

In the early 2000s, the gap for retail in the inner city was captured and in the last 5 years this use has intensified at an extraordinary pace. New shops open daily as retail rapidly appropriates more vertical and street level space. The insatiable consumer hunger of sub-Saharan Africa is now being catered to by hundreds of traders located with enormous precision in the heart of this global transportation hub in Johannesburg's city centre . The area is a shopping receptacle for a great movement of local commuters and cross border shoppers being vomited out and re-ingested into Noord Street taxis and Park Station trains, the Faraday taxi rank and several informal bus and taxi ranks on Jeppe and Delvers Streets. Jeppe captures the footfall of people using taxis and trains from surrounding townships, and from rural South Africa , as well as from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, DRC, Mozambique and beyond.

Not only does Jeppe invite foreign shoppers, but it a hub of almost exclusively Ethiopian traders occupying compact, pocket-sized shops.

It is unsurprising that retail captures the attention of new migrants to Johannesburg. The barriers to entry are low and the prospects seem good. As Solomon, a trader operating from a shop the size of a doorway said,

" In my country, it is hard to sell anything. I have to work very hard to get someone to buy any goods, but in South Africa, if I put a toothbrush on the pavement, someone will buy it. "

Jeppe succeeds in a context where there is an undersupply of retail in Africa. Statistics indicate that the ratio of retail space in Africa is O.01m2 per person, compared with 2.9m2 in the US, O.5m2 in Latin America , 0.4m2 in Europe and O.2m2 in Asia. Added to this is the pent up demand for shopping space in post apartheid Johannesburg, in surrounding townships , in rural areas and in SADC countries (Chung, CJ; Inaba, J; Koolhaas, R; Leong ST, 2001 : 53).

High-rise buildings in Jeppe bear the labels Johannesburg Wholesale 1 and 2, and Majesty, and are interspersed with names like Abyssinia , Joburg Mall, and Nadibas. They sport signage that beckons consumers to enter compact buildings that have "more than 69 shops" to buy, belts , shoes, gold, silver, cosmetics, curtains, clothing.

The retail typology here is neither conventional street level inner city shopping, nor is it shopping mall. Rather it is a hybrid typology that combines the elements of each of these retail types.

Conventional inner city retail trade focuses retail activity on the ground floor, and shops face outwards onto the street. In this typology the upper floors are generally reserved for commercial or residential use; parking occurs in the basements. And road reserves are dedicated to walking: goods are transported by delivery vehicles.

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DR TANYA ZACK AND ROBYN ARNOT

RECYCLE CHANGE

Trolley pushers in Johannesburg

Location: Johannesburg
Contributors: Tanya Zack | Sarah Charlton | Bronwyn Kotzen

The label 'homeless' is often applied in a largely undifferentiated manner to a wide spectrum of living circumstances. These conditions are often assumed to result from particular personal and most often, economic circumstances. The limitations of this conflation of living conditions with personal circumstances are shown in the lives of informal recyclers in Johannesburg.

Informal recyclers comb the dustbins and sidewalks of residential and commercial neighbourhoods for selected solid waste items with resale value, which they load onto makeshift trolleys. On foot and with sheer muscle power they pull their loaded carts for many kilometers through the streets to privately owned buy-back centres where the waste material is weighed and sold.

Recyclers operate independently of labour regulations and protection, without employee benefits, using improvised transport, and frequently - inadvertently - contravening by-laws and city rules in their living and working activities. But they are intimately entwined with the formal, recognized systems of urban life: essential suppliers to registered recycling businesses, intense users of city roads, sidewalks and public spaces, specialised reclaimers competing daily with the crude appetite of Pikitup trucks.

The lives of recyclers reflect a wide variety of circumstances. Many are 'sleeping rough' or 'informally' on a regular basis, but are engaged in regular productive work. Informal recyclers in Johannesburg contest conventional notions of homelessness in at least three ways: the diverse reasons for their nightly sleeping arrangements, the range of alternative accommodation they make use of, and in their personal circumstances.

Recyclers choose to spend work nights in Johannesburg to save on transport costs, to be ready to start their outbound journeys to suburbs very early in the mornings. They choose spaces where their accommodation may be cramped but they are able to store their goods. Recycling work involves gathering and then sorting the load prior to having it weighed at the depot. Recyclers need space and time for separating and sorting items. They also need place to stockpile until they have amassed enough of a particular material to make exchange at the depot worthwhile.

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DR. TANYA ZACK/ SARAH CHARLTON/ BRONWYN KOTZEN

WARWICK BRIDGE

Warwick Triangle, Durban 1996

designworkshop : sa
Ethekwini Muncipality

context, objective and brief

By 1996, when the project was commissioned, the main Railway Station had long been moved from the center of the City to the Warwick Triangle area at it’s western edge. Black commuters were the primary commuter rail users and, under apartheid, the motivation was to remove them from the city.

The consequence was that the area around the station rapidly became a hub of commercial activity, primarily trading from the city sidewalks, public open spaces, and any other viable location where there was opportunity to do so. Trading was unstructured and unregulated and rapid growth put infrastructural services under pressure for which they were not designed.

Sidewalks were unwalkable, refuse was generated quicker than it could be collected, drains continuously blocked, and pedestrians were knocked down as they tried to cross increasingly busy streets. Much of this was happening in the area of and between the new Berea Station, the Early Morning and Fresh Produce City Markets, the emerging 16-seater mini-taxi ranks, and adjacent bus terminuses.

At the same time, influx of people from rural areas was increasing rapidly. The city was being evacuated by its previous predominantly white business and residential population and the void was being filled by the newly urbanising. The urban economy, society and culture was transforming.

On the one hand there was a vacuum. On the other, pressure. This is a condition of great opportunity.

One of many examples of the newly legitimised urban economy, culture and society was the prescription and trading of traditional medicines; traditional equivalents of doctors and pharmacists. Without a defined location, this growing specialist industry was rapidly occupying sidewalks in the area and, because of market demand, blocking pedestrian through-movement and contributing to the clogging of the pedestrian environment.

Stretching up from the city side, in the location of the Victoria Street Market, were two incomplete and abandoned freeway splines; their radii apparently too tight for their purpose which was to reduce in and out bound traffic from the Warwick area by bridging over it.

iTrump [Inner City eThekwini Regeneration and Urban Management Programme], an entity of the eThekwini Municipality, saw the opportunity of extending an existing piece of abandoned infrastructure to create an above-ground pedestrian linkage from the Berea Station, across Market Road and drop it down at the busy on-grade pedestrian intersection at the entrance to the Early Morning Market.

In this single move, unviable, unsafe and unsustainable volumes of pedestrian movement at ground level would be relieved; the specialist prescription and trading of traditional medicine would be consolidated, from which would emerge a location and product based identity for the sector; a cultural practice would be assertively validated; and another piece of a unique emerging urban society would be added.

Bottom up management structures were put in place so that this community was organised, could formally relate to and engage with the city authorities, supportive infrastructural services provided, and self-organised safety and security could be achieved.

‘Ecology’ means the mutually beneficial relationship between different organisms and their environment. With minimal intervention, intimate integration of and between all stakeholders, and an inherent respect for the validity of traditional cultural practice, the conditions for a sustainable urban ecology were to be provided. With very little resource, city government was catalysing a powerful urban evolution.

The brief to designworkshop : sa was to design consulting rooms for the Izinyanga [traditional doctors], trading spaces for the Izangoma [traditional healers and traders], and the bridge and stair connection from the end of the abandoned freeway to the ground at the entrance to the Early Morning Market.

The process required a degree of understanding of, and feel for, the traditional medicine ‘industry’, its heritage and cultural context; the relationship between the Izinyanga and Izangoma and their customers; and the physical environment that would enable these relationships.

There was also an up-front understanding that, if they are not going to end up as extended corporate shopping malls that serve only to further concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, the inherent attribute of ‘city as an accessible market’ was going to be a fundamental driver for the project.

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designworkshop: sa

INFORMAL CITY: DIEPSLOOT

Diepsloot Reception Area, Johannesburg, 2009

First Fix - Autodesk Open Think Box Competition 2009 - Winner of Professional Category
26’10 Team: Thorsten Deckler & Anne Graupner (principals), Tahira Toffah, Guy Trangoš, Shameemah Davids

This competition entry suggests an alternative approach to the provision of services in the upgrading of informal settlements. Whilst formal upgrading approaches concerned with defining ownership, security of tenure and eventually housing delivery are long and arduous processes, something can be done in the interim to improve inhabitants’ quality of life as well as stimulate the local economy through the provision of basic services. In fact, the failure of services that plagues informal settlements presents obvious opportunities for employment and development. Phase 2 of the Expanded Public Works Community Programme even makes provision for this.

In Diepsloot’s Reception Area, the failing sanitation system comprising communal toilets and water points results in 7.2 km of daylight sewage affecting the health of its approximate 25 000 inhabitants. The state is in the process of upgrading (reinstating) this failing system without addressing any of the factors which have contributed to its failure in the first place. This scenario forms the basis for a ‘First Fix’ strategy developed for the competition.

When considering growth over time (in the form of self-constructed rental rooms or backyard shacks), the RDP type in fact performs as well as the much touted row-house and delivers densities approximating those of Reception Area. However, the siting of the RDP house in the middle of its plot results in poor in-between spaces when rental rooms are added over time.

Simultaneously, the existing settlement infrastructure and social amenities are often overburdened by the increased occupation. Interestingly, Chitungwiza on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe presents an effective alternative in which two freestanding houses are joined along a shared boundary leaving enough space for rental rooms to define a quality semi-private communal space. The row-house type, promoted as the alternative to the free-standing RDP, starts out with higher initial densities, but has limited growth potential over time due to the inconvenience of tenants passing through the main house to access their accommodation. Units with passages on one side or access lanes at the back of stands may alleviate this to a degree. Whilst BNG (‘Breaking New Ground’) principles have been developed to render houses ‘safe’ as collateral for bank loans, current densities are not particularly efficient in the use of land and infrastructure. The banks furthermore frown upon self-constructed additions.

Due to Reception Area’s complex and dense urban fabric, the strategy is realized in three scales: an existing toilet upgrade, a medium-sized toilet and shower facility, and a large service centre with toilets, comfortable bathrooms, laundry and community services.

The large units are arranged around semi-private courtyards. Besides regular bathrooms, they contain retail spaces which could be used by a hairdresser, internet cafe, laundry, tuck-shop, crèche, gym, etc. The two roof terraces can be used for drying clothes and by the gym as outdoor exercising spaces respectively.

Through incorporating lessons learnt from the dynamic urban and architectural character of the Reception Area, the facilities are cross-programmed to offer multiple services and income streams. All typologies would provide business opportunities for local caretakers and operators.

An environmentally sustainable approach is advocated in that the medium and large units employ a biogas digester, which will assist with the revival of river ecologies and improvement of water quality. Most large units are thus located near the river edge and can promote the revitalizing of this space as natural amenity. Methane, another by-product, can be used as fuel for public lighting and heating. Hot water can be sold for nominally less than what it costs to heat it with traditional fuels.

This proposal posits the notion that just as a multitude of services are offered in the informal city, so public infrastructure can become a service offered to residents. This requires a lateral shift in thinking beyond the confines of specialised civil engineering and back into time, when the early industrialising cities’ bathhouses and serviced rooms in boarding houses catered to the needs of its migrant and temporary workforces attracted to jobs and opportunities. Providing dignified amenities in informal settlements hitherto suspended in an illegal, temporary limbo may be the first step in the slow process of formalising the many informal cities as legitimate parts of the city. As such, this project conceptually outlines an unexplored role for professionals of the built environment to work more creatively in multidisciplinary developmental teams considering some of the more pressing needs of a rapidly urbanizing society through embracing, rather than eschewing complexity.

26’10 SOUTH ARCHITECTS

HOUSING & THE INFORMAL CITY RESEARCH PROJECT

Diepsloot Reception Area Johannesburg, 2008

Project partner: Goethe-Institut, Johannesburg
Collaborator: Prof. Lone Poulsen
26’10 Team: Thorsten Deckler & Anne Graupner (principals), Tahira Toffah, Guy Trangoš, Shameemah Davids, Claire Lubelll

In this research inquiry, Diepsloot’s Reception Area has been used as a basis against which to ‘test’ existing formal housing typologies and to develop alternative strategies which respond to and learn from the dynamics of the Informal City. Diepsloot is a predominantly informal settlement located 40km north of Johannesburg’s city centre. As a post-apartheid township it acutely represents the challenges facing the South African state on matters of housing, service delivery and effective local governance. Based on detailed mappings of Reception Area produced by 26’10 south Architects, a master class involving various architects and housing specialists was held exploring the complex relationship between housing density, occupation density, built form and customisations such as rental rooms, small businesses and the delineation of communal and public spaces.

In South Africa, density is generally accepted to be low at less than 40 units/ha, medium at between 40 and 100 units/ha and high at more than 100 units/ha. Reception Area’s existing density at 300 units/ha (predominantly one storey), its quality of spaces and diversity of functions point to the potential for low rise, high-density solutions which may be freehold and offer opportunities for sub-letting and small scale enterprise. A one hectare piece of land situated along a busy street of Reception Area was used to compare different formal housing approaches measured in terms of the displacement or additional accommodation each settlement type achieves.

When considering growth over time (in the form of self-constructed rental rooms or backyard shacks), the RDP type in fact performs as well as the much touted row-house and delivers densities approximating those of Reception Area. However, the siting of the RDP house in the middle of its plot results in poor in-between spaces when rental rooms are added over time.

Simultaneously, the existing settlement infrastructure and social amenities are often overburdened by the increased occupation. Interestingly, Chitungwiza on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe presents an effective alternative in which two freestanding houses are joined along a shared boundary leaving enough space for rental rooms to define a quality semi-private communal space. The row-house type, promoted as the alternative to the free-standing RDP, starts out with higher initial densities, but has limited growth potential over time due to the inconvenience of tenants passing through the main house to access their accommodation. Units with passages on one side or access lanes at the back of stands may alleviate this to a degree. Whilst BNG (‘Breaking New Ground’) principles have been developed to render houses ‘safe’ as collateral for bank loans, current densities are not particularly efficient in the use of land and infrastructure. The banks furthermore frown upon self-constructed additions.

The housing types proposed during the master class for the Diepsloot context attempt to achieve a much higher stand and occupational density from the outset in order to achieve the minimum displacement of existing residents. In addition, the housing types enable eligible beneficiaries to become small scale landlords who rent habitable rooms to non-eligible residents. The flexible design of the proposed housing types therefore incorporates future growth for income generation through accommodating rental rooms, retail and small business enterprise. The unit types are located close to the street boundary to create a sense of urbanity, natural surveillance, ease of trading and to limit the amount of unusable space between units. Micro-loans, in addition to a basic starter unit (funded by means of the subsidy), can assist owners to construct quality rental rooms as per various pre-defined options. Part of the resultant rental income would go towards repaying the loan. Both the Vertical Yard type and the 14x7m Row House type offer two approaches to achieving high density and growth over time.

Both unit types move away from the ‘shrunken mansion’ syndrome satisfying a perceived aspiration towards a dynamic flexibility which can deliver subsidised housing in which the unit becomes an asset for income generation. Whilst the proposed starter types are bigger than the standard RDP type, they can, through savings made (due to higher density), on land cost, infrastructure and service provision, be imminently achievable. In addition, the availability of micro loans should offer even further choice to beneficiaries to customise their dwellings to suit their specific needs. The increased densities also achieve the necessary thresholds for the efficient provision of public transport and economic opportunities.

WEBSITE: http://www.housinginformalcity.co.za

26’10 SOUTH ARCHITECTS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE GOETHE-INSTITUT SA AND PROF. LONE POULSEN

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INFORMAL STUDIO: RUIMSIG

Ruimsig Johanneburg, 2011

Project Partners: 26’10 South Architects, Goethe-Institut Johannesburg and the University of Johannesburg
Lecturers: Thorsten Deckler, Prof. Lone Poulsen, Alexander Opper (UJ), Melinda Silverman (UJ)

The INFORMAL STUDIO: R U I M S I G has been carried out in partnership with the Goethe-Institut and the University of Johannesburg as an in-situ course on informal settlement upgrading. Sixteen masters students, together with residents of Ruimsig (an informal settlement on the western periphery of Johannesburg), have produced a detailed mapping and re-blocking study. The course was run partially from a studio within the settlement were students and teachers worked with local community architects in a process guided by NGOs and grass-roots organisations. This in-situ interaction formed a vital component linking theory and practice, ‘clients’ (residents), and service providers (students and teachers). The collaborative output of the studio is the first version of a reblocking map showing how minimal shifts and adjustments in what is ostensibly a ‘temporary’ urban condition and fabric can lead to a more equitable distribution of space, the undoing of exploitative rental conditions, the creation of legal road reserve widths (for more effective circulation including emergency services) and future provision of sanitation, water and electricity supply. In addition, the re-blocking facilitates the process of awarding tenure and can ‘bracket’ space for future social amenities. Working with the ISN (Informal Settlement Network) has made possible a meaningful engagement in a people’s process for change and points to new ways of practice for architects and more fundamentally a shift away from the obsession with the single formal house constructed (at great expense) for and not by people.

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Questions the studio raised revolved around the ‘perceived’ backlog of 2.5 million formal houses. To students it became clear that the informal city in this case does what the formal system cannot: it provides affordable shelter and a foothold closer to opportunities of employment and advancement. The informal city, constructed by inhabitants themselves with little input from the state or professionals, offers flexible and affordable access to shelter.

In some instances, it displays spatial and programmatic richness sorely lacking from the housing landscapes constructed by teams of professionals. Yet the lack of services, security of tenure, repeated threats of ‘eradication’ and the promise of eventual housing delivery have locked the informal city into an illegal limbo in which mounting tension and frustration are becoming increasingly evident.

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Encouragingly, but not surprising, the state’s previous ambition to eradicate informal settlements by 2014 has been redefi ned and refocused (courtesy of the National Delivery Agreement targets) to the upgrading of 400 000 units in well-located informal settlements by 2014. To this effect the National Upgrade Support Programme (NUSP) has been established to assist the state and communities in realising this target. For South Africa this demands a major shift in thinking about housing and how it has been delivered in the past. It acknowledges the efforts people have made in building their own homes and communities. No matter how defi cient, tenuous or exploitative the informal city may be – it directly mirrors the ever increasing backlog in formal housing. Considering that just about 60% of all urban inhabitants in Africa live in informal conditions, it is time for a mode of professional practice which embraces housing as a process rather than a product. The INFORMAL STUDIO: R U I M S I G thus positions itself to educate professionals in becoming skilled in engaging with a process of housing that is not about houses as finished, professionally executed products but about a people-driven process towards improved living environments.

26’10 SOUTH ARCHITECTS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE GOETHE-INSTITUT SA,
THE UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG AND PROF. LONE POULSEN

SANS SOUCI CINEMA PROJECT

Kliptown Soweto, 2003-2008

Collaborator: Lindsay Bremner
26’10 Team: Anne Graupner, Thorsten Deckler, Gavin Armstrong, Kiran Paras, Nicola Wessels, Rogan Rich, Robert Rich, Sue Groenewald
Client: Kliptown Our Town Trust

In the absence of a budget and local capacity to re-build the famous Sans Souci Cinema in Soweto, Johannesburg, the content rather than the container was realised. Through harnessing informal networks and local talent, the dramatic ruin of an old cinema formed the armature for a series of cultural events in one of Johannesburg’s poorest communities. The project set out to demonstrate that cultural production need not be limited to formal institutions and that relevant, rich and hybrid cultural identities and practices emerge from the perceived margins and interstices of the city.

Kliptown, a historic, but dilapidated township on the edge of Soweto, is the site of this project to rebuild the Sans Souci, a community cinema and theatre that burnt down in 1994. The Sans Souci, which translates literally to ‘without a care’ from the French, was established in 1948 in a building that had previously been a dance hall and a stable. It hosted many of South Africa’s eminent performers, including Miriam Makeba, Kippie Moketzi and Abdullah Ibrahim and was one of the few cinemas where black Africans could view films during the apartheid period. After falling into disrepair in the early 1990’s, it was scavenged and disassembled by squatters looking for materials for housing.

The redevelopment of the cinema as a public, cultural and performance venue was one of the projects in a wider renewal of Kliptown as an ‘Eco Museum’ - a radical re-thinking of the traditional western museum concept in which interaction between visitors and the local community is maximised. In conceptualising the cinema, we realised that the ‘idea’ of the cinema needed to be given new meaning over time through events and incremental architectural interventions involving local people and visitors. This would be followed by a phased building process as funding became available and the community’s capacity to manage the project developed.

The project was driven by the Kliptown Our Town Trust, a community development organisation of Kliptown
residents and the Vuyani Dance Theatre Company. In Phase 1 of the project, fi lm screenings, fi lm and dance festivals, audience development, dance training and fi lm production allowed residents and visitors to actively participate in excavating and remembering the history of Kliptown and the Sans Souci and constructing its future.

We engaged in this process both as facilitators and as designers. We feel that direct social engagement by professionals has great relevance to the creation of urbanity in conditions of scarce resources. Top down planning has often resulted in obsolete cultural institutions and unused buildings, while viable, small scale cultural organisations struggle to survive. In our view, consolidating and developing creative social networks and practices in public space is as important as building buildings.

The notion of public space in Johannesburg, as in many other cities, is becoming increasingly franchised and controlled on the one hand and neglected on the other. This abandonment of public space offered us ground to experiment. By harnessing the directness and immediacy of grassroots cultural networks into the design and implementation of an architectural project, we found new ways to make positive and interactive public spaces. In so doing we were able to set the conceptual foundation for the growth of the Sans Souci into a new institution.

This approach may ultimately lead to a lighter, more flexible and responsive form of urbanism which accommodates local desires, narratives and initiatives. Rather than abandoning our clients in the light of limited budgets we have pooled human resources through combined networks in order to realise our mandate of creating a public space for cultural programme.

26’10 SOUTH ARCHITECTS WITH LINDSAY BREMNER

SUBSIDISED HOUSING ASSETS

Exploring the Performance of Government Subsidised Housing in South Africa

Finmark Trust

South Africa’s national housing subsidy programme, which was introduced with the advent of the first democratically elected government in 1994, has been lauded internationally as a highly significant and ultimately successful housing intervention. The programme provides qualifying beneficiaries (households who earn a monthly income of less than R3500 per month and satisfy other criteria) with freehold tenure over a 40m2 house on a 250m2 plot of serviced land. It is highly likely that the significant increase in the number of South African households living in formal dwellings between 1996 and 2007 – from 64.4% to over 70% - is primarily as a result of this national subsidy programme. The National Department of Human Settlements reports that between 1994 and 2009, a total of 2.94 million subsidy houses were either delivered or still under construction. Of these, 1.44 million (51%) have been formally registered in the Deeds Registry. These registered subsidy houses comprise just under one quarter (24%) of all registered residential properties in South Africa – clearly a significant proportion of South Africa’s property market.

In 2010, the FinMark Trust, with support from Urban LandMark, the National Department of Human Settlements, the South African Cities Network, the Western Cape Department of Human Settlements and the FB Heron Foundation, undertook a study into the performance of government subsidised housing units. The study involved an analysis of how subsidised properties were trading formally, on the deeds registry, and then a series of household interviews with a small sample of respondents from three settlements. As a first step, the study fed the database of all subsidy applicants who had been approved for a subsidy between 1994 and September 2010 into the Deeds Registry. By matching applicants with properties, a total of 1,7m subsidy applicants were identified as the property owners of 1,44 million properties. Half of these properties (49%) were found to be located in the eight metropolitan cities, with Ekurhuleni (141,104 properties), Cape Town (130,300) and the City of Johannesburg (130,121) having the highest number of registered subsidy houses. The highest number of registrations across the provinces was found in Gauteng (395,765), the Eastern Cape (238,682) and the Western Cape (208,852).

Invisible Informality

Assuming that all the 2.94 million houses had been developed by September 2010, this implies that almost one and a half million subsidy beneficiaries had received a subsidy house without the registration of formal title. This creates a sort of ‘invisible’ informality: households who have received a formal housing unit, but who have not yet received a title deed. While they may feel themselves as owners, their legal status is informal.

From 2005 there has been a consistent decrease in the percentage of subsidy houses that are being registered and this trend is continuing. The removal of the requirement that registration is required before the release of a significant portion of the subsidy payments in April 2004 appears to be a key contributor to this trend.

The obvious value of a title deed is that it protects rights to a property and records changes in ownership. Title deeds also provide individuals with an address, recognising the owner as being part of the municipality, and enabling the owner to secure loans. The house can then be inherited – this is an especially important aspect of the house as described by respondents. The failure to provide Title Deeds to subsidy beneficiaries means that they are being denied a critical (and promised) point of entry into the formal property market.

Also, not having a registered title means that beneficiaries are not able to sell their houses formally, using the
Deeds Registry system (which requires the seller to have a Title Deed). As a result informal transactions are
occurring, creating a second generation of invisible informality. These transactions undermine individual property owners’ security and more generally the integrity of the Deeds Registry system in South Africa.

Continued on Panel 2

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FINMARK TRUST