Design Better | Design Forward

Every year the AIA Chicago Foundation grants one architecture student the Martin Roche Travel Scholarship to conduct independent architectural research abroad. Selection is based on individual merit as evidenced by strength and relevance of study plan, faculty recommendation, academic background, personal and professional development, and general indication of future promise in the profession. This year, I was fortunate enough to be chosen as that student.

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Presenting Design Better/Design Forward, my research as 2013 AIA Chicago's Martin Roche Travel Fellow At PechaKucha Chicago Volume 31 @ Martrys on September 9, 2014. Such an amazing night full of great presenters with ideas and passions galore. 

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5 posts! Yeah buddy!

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The Austrians

I sat with Marlene Wagner, co-founder of the non-profit organization buildCollective, on a Friday morning in the Maboneng district of Johannesburg.

Marlene and Elias---in South Africa and in Austria, respectively---describe themselves as researchers in action in alternative building solutions, urban spatial strategies, and collective process. Since the founding of their organization in 2010, they have already engaged universities, other non-profit organizations, companies, artists, and South African communities to complete projects ranging from preschools to temporary exhibitions in taxi ranks centered around the question: "How does a space someone inhabits become a home?"

Their work is beautifully modern---single pitched roofs, corrugated aluminum, timber trusses, and awesome neon painted window and door frames. It is pretty cool to see a design aesthetic consistent in their built projects and the quality of the construction is apparent even in photographs.

As with the other practitioners I interviewed, I had a set list of questions that I attempted to guide our conversation with, but per usual I was prepared to listen to the aspects of her practice that she wanted to discuss, regardless of whether I was able to ask all of my questions.

One question, however,  that I did get to ask Marlene was to describe any failures or challenges that she wished could have turned out differently. She responded with describing an informal community center that was a spin off to a primary school upgrade in partnership with Ithuba Community College. After buildCollective had engaged in multiple projects from 2009 to 2013in the same community, the question of creating a community center was raised but an over abundance of desperate needs of the various community stakeholders coupled with the local government not providing a building site meant that the project was lost. 

Or was it?

A pre-owned with low miles shipping container  was transformed into a informal community meeting space with an office and a kitchen and became a programmed space as it took on the role of exhibition gallery for the school's dance troupe as well as the classroom for welding workshops.

"This was a failure?" I asked, skeptically and trying to hide my disbelief.

"Well ya, it wasn't a real building." She smiles and with a little further coaxing I get her to agree that their failure of a makeshift-shipping container-community center was in fact not a failure at all.

Browse through buildCollective's projects on their website:

http://www.buildcollective.net/

Marlene in her pineapple shirt.

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The Lion Park. Half an hour from Johannesburg. You must go there if you can. Pet lion cubs. PET LION CUBS! And it’s not that hard to drive yourself, even if you have a German urban planner as your navigator ;)

http://www.lion-park.com

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Additional Models of Practice --- Meaningful Engagement

It is a rare and unique—and maybe even spectacular—-moment when an architectural design-build studio produces something greater than the culmination of a built project, like a school or community center.

What it takes to produce more than a building through this in-depth, hands on, experiential form of learning about architecture is a group of driven, talented, like-minded students who are concerned about their roles as architects in society.

1:1 - Agency of Engagement is the result of such a group of students; now practitioners, advocates, lecturers…builders.

In 2010, architecture post-graduate students at the University of Pretoria partnered with Community Organisation Resource Center (CORC) of Slum Dwellers International (SDI) and the Slovo Park Community Development Forum (SPCDF) to utilize research and participatory design practices to create a multi-use public hall in Slovo, a township settlement south of Johannesburg of 4000 residents.

This co-built project was the beginning of 1:1, a non profit organization concerned with critical engagement, student exposure and education, and the return of spatial agency to marginalized populations in the context of their home, South Africa. The non profit is also actively concerned with the documentation and dissemination of additional modes of architectural practice centered around socio-technical spatial design—-or iKasi.

Since 2010 the original students/ founders of 1:1 have returned to Slovo (actually, they have never really left) in leadership roles to bring about two more phases of projects with additional community partners/non-profit organizations and students from the University of Pretoria as well as the University of Johannesburg. This past month they began the installation of Slovo Park—a playground and communal space for children and anyone with a penchant for the creative reuse of car tires.

The story of 1:1 is one that I admire and am grateful to have learned about because it began with the telltale model of architectural education, the design studio, but became a movement for educating future architects, advocating for access to institutional resources and recognition, and meaningful engagement.

Educate yourself—go to their website  : http://www.1to1.org.za/p/home.html

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If anyone in South Africa had advice for me before I arrived in Johannesburg, it started with, “You should probably rent a car” and ended with “Did I tell you to rent a car?!”.

Yet, when I arrived I was persuaded to attempt to experience Jo’burg without zipping past sights and smells in the safety and seclusion of a car. An American expat and fellow Wellesley alumn said, “You don’t need a car! There’s the Rea Vaya bus, Tuk Tuks, private taxis, and public taxis and all you need for those is the hand signals—-and if you use the hand signals you will earn some serious street cred.” I’m sure I don’t have to explain that I was sold at the opportunity to earn some real Jozi street cred.

Caitlin showed me what I would need to get to my guest house in Melville and showed me what I would need to go all the way to one of the city’s main transport hubs, the Bree Taxi Rank.

The next day I spent the equivalent of $15 to get to the Apartheid Museum but decided to try my luck at a public taxi to get back because it would only cost me the equivalent of $.80. I love a deal and I had no trouble getting a taxi—-in fact I did not even have my index fully extended before a white, eleven person van was pulling to the side of the road to let me in. Everyone inside I’m sure was surprised to see me, obviously a foreigner, hailing their city’s unofficial form of public transportation. I even gave them all a little comedic relief when I tried to get into the van on the wrong side. Yes, when the steering wheel moves to the right side of the car, the sliding passenger door moves to the left side of the car. An incredibly helpful young man studying “IT” promised to help me switch taxis at Bree so that I could continue on to Melville. But Bree was something like a brick shell of a building with people and vendors everywhere. Honking and chicken feet frying galore. There was no way without his help I would have known where to go or even how to get inside of the building. The taxis were located in the basement and had no system of parking or directionality from my first glance but we did what I was told,we asked who was going towards Auckland Park or Melville. Twenty minutes later I was walking on the Jacaranda lined streets that I have been calling home for a week.

But—and there’s always a but—there aren’t always public taxis around. I definitely wouldn’t ride one at night. And if you don’t know what the area you’re traveling to looks like, the bus driver is not going to tell you…err I take that back, he might in Zulu.

"Most South African white city characters drive a lot" -Ena Jensen

The following day I opted for foot travel to the Johannesburg Botanical Garden at Emmarentia Dam (absolutely beautiful, btw—and it never makes it on the Jo’burg to do lists for some reason) and half of the time I didn’t have a sidewalk and the entire time I was the only caucasian I saw on foot. That’s two hours of walking through upper middle-class/upper-class neighborhoods whose residents are 100% white and not a single one was spotted walking. I realized that this trend is not specific to the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, as every time I tell a South African I have plans to walk somewhere they tell me to call a cab.

The simple fact is that Johannesburg stinks to get around.

I’d even go as far to agree with locals who have said, “If you’re trying to go more than one place in a day, you need a car.” But this is not new to this town, everyone knows it’s a nightmare to get around, so they band together. They help each other out. People carpool all the time. There’s a DD every time people go out for drinks, and no one ever asks for gas money. It’s just what has to be done. And it’s pretty rad.

I’m proud to say I made it around Jo’burg for six days without a car. But today I gave up the good fight. And I am heading to Avis tomorrow morning because, put simply, I’ve got you know what to do.

Also, It should be noted that Tuk Tuk drivers have responded to my ride requests with “ehhh I don’t start working until 3pm” (Are you for real!?) And that renting a car costs about $25 a day.

Here’s a public taxi or kombi in Soweto and also Li and myself showing you how to get around!

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And so it Begins...

Design Better | Design Forward is a study of architects, designers, planners, students and non-profit organizations practicing public interest design in South Africa and Zambia. While I am here I plan to find a method to assess how these initiatives can, when successful, provide long-term civic and infrastructural development, engage communities, and challenge the notions of traditional architectural practice.

Come along to learn about not just the architecture of South Africa but the people, culture, and sights that make this country one in a million.