“When is urban design architecture? When is architecture urban design?”
Tariq Toffa
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Newtown – Johannesburg
Click HERE to see the Unit 2_A3_Neighborhood Immersion – Brief
Newtown is a potentially unique post-apartheid space. It is a site ideal for exploring a post-apartheid imagination of societal transformation. Put differently, it is a site ideally suited for mixed income, mixed-race, mixed program, & ultimately new ways of being & living in South Africa. This is because it is the only Johannesburg urban area located between South African Indian & immigrant South Asians (Fordsburg, Mayfair, Crosby, etc.) to its west, the largely white suburbs to its north, & the black & African immigrant inner city areas to its east. Moreover, the racial categories also parallel diverse linguistic & economic categories.
The unit built upon the previous two assignment by critically immersing themselves into Newtown and conducting a rigorous and detailed socio-spatial urban analysis. The students were broken into 4 smaller groups with each being assigned the task of developing a neighbourhood level urban framework that was to be negotiated amongst the unit groups to create a larger framework for the greater site area.
Monica Albonico & Marianne De Klerk Christa Van Zyl Shyam Patel, Nhlamulo Ngobeni & Samantha Trask
Unit 2 invited several guests to support the students at strategic points in the project; Monica Albonico & Marianne De Klerk, both highly experienced and learned urban designers and theorists were asked to critique the students on their urban design frameworks and analysis as well as present on their own work. Christa Van Zyl from the University of Johannesburg’s Graphic Design Department kindly spent time with the students discussing presentation. Shyam Patel, Nhlamulo Ngobeni and Samantha Trask, all recently graduated University of Johannesburg Master’s students each presented their thesis work which dealt with the critical balance between urban design and architecture in complex social contexts.
Unit 2 Urban Model
Sibusiso Lwandle Concept Model
Unit members then took their urban studies and frameworks and focussed on developing catalytic interventions that would exemplify the nature of their urban aims through the architectural scale. These explorations were rigorously critiqued between the unit members and coordinators through an intensive 2 week period while students refined and re-addressed their urban frameworks based on their investigations at the urban scale.
The student work – to see more information on the work, click the image:
Simon Ngubeni
David Spratt
Omphile Msindo
Clara Senatore
Andrea Relling
Luke Venter
Mfundo Magongo
Diana Wolny
Darren Van Gool
Ngwato Kekana
Manuel Simon
Jarryd Bates
Assignment 3 proved to be the most challenging project for the Unit, but ultimately the students have made the largest jump in their development as the earlier 2 assignments start to shape and inform their processes of thinking, representation and design.
