final hand in

please bring the documents to the seminar room at 14:00 on tuesday 09 june 2009.

the group work needs to be binded as a single document and these should be handed to palesa by friday 12 june 2009. we shall discuss this if there is a clash kusasa.

tuesday 02 june 1 2 1 crits

this is the order of the 1 to 1 sessions which will begin at 11:00. you may, amongst yourselves, for logistical reasons swap places, but please respect the times and be there 15 minutes before your allocated time.

time – name
11:00 – geoffrey b
11:15 – mawabo m
11:30 – potsiso p
11:45 – eulenda m
12:00 – yasmin s
12:15 – gontse k
12:30 – abdul a b
12:45 – ofentse m
13:00 – eugene n
13:15 – mitchel h
13:30 – mduduzi n
13:45 – jarred w
14:00 – kabelo m
14:15 – londeka t
14:30 – lerato m
14:45 – siphiwe p
15:00 – richard e

the story so far . . .

monday 11 may

we shall continue with group 1 presentation on tuesday am.
pinup at 8 sharp.
then we will discuss the next phase.
come with questions if things aren't clear.

05 may presentations

just so that there is no confusion re: the presentations next week. all the groups will present their themes as you have done before except that this time it should be concise. no waffle, let the slides speak for themselves and remember that presentations are 5 minutes per theme. the a3's should be presented as sheets of data, landscape orientation with names, legends, theme etc. pinned up on the green wall. these will be compiled and bound as a single booklet.

the next phase are individual collations which are not required for the presentations next week, but will take us to the end of the semester. this individual work constitutes the research report.

DESIGN GUIDANCE

The final component of the process will be an individual synthesis of the themes uncovered during the semester leading to an appraisal of the site with focus on the specific themes and formulating a design guidance employing the following headings:
• Vision Statement – general + theme specific
• Background – Site and context appraisal – general + theme specific
• Policy Review
• Planning and Design Principles – including:
(a) Indicative design concepts, proposals and
(b) Details of the proposed development process
• Phasing

for next week – 05 may 2009

The different groups will present all the collated material relating to their themes to a selected panel in this fashion:
1 powerpoint per theme 5 minutes maximum of an oral presentation
+ a minimum of five A3 sheets per theme and a maximum ten A3 sheets to be pinned up in the lecture room

Group 1: Geoffrey, Mawabo, Putsiso, Eulenda, Yasmin + Gontse
08:00 – 08:05 White City
08:05 – 08:10 Soccer Booster
08:10 – 08:15 Street Life
Group 2: Abdul, Ofentse, Eugene, Mitchel + Mduduzi
08:30 – 08:35 Rooms
08:35 – 08:40 Migrant Neighbours
08:40 – 08:45 Edge Conditions
Group 3: Jarred, Kabelo, Londeka, Lerato, Siphiwe + Richard
09:00 – 09:05 Ponte Tower
09:05 – 09:10 Public Transport
09:10 – 09:15 24h/7 days/ week

Question is why does the JDA not intervene in Ponte’s upgrade?

The JDA is a city agency, their focus is upgrading the public environment. The thinking is often that if investors, developers and communities see investment and care going into the city the JDA will respond and add to that investment. They call it a ripple pond effect. But they have difficulty with a private property. They are not entitled to invest public money and resources into a private development. This is a huge one and the understanding is that there is private investment going in Ponte, so the JDA would support it in certain ways, as they are doing in a lot of work within the vicinity but they wouldn’t directly upgrade Ponte. The other thing to consider is that the city owns a vast amount of properties and it has a responsibility to maintain those – which is their primary mandate. There are 66 000 stands, not individual properties but stands, under city ownership which is a huge maintenance burden. Thus their focus are those stands and properties.

this is a fantastic base map by abdul

i would include ponte + the gateways,
otherwise its a great base

mon 06 april 09 -- VENUE

from now onwards, unless stated otherwise, we shall meet in the seminar room on level 1 @8 o'clock sharp.

Tuesday 16 March 2009

Presentations will continue to previously posted schedule.
Change of venue: We meet in the seminar room on level 1.

Precedent – Studio Basel

For precedent and concepts as to how to consolidate and present the material, especially to assist in the presentations next week look at Studio Basel

http://www.studio-basel.arch.ethz.ch/
click on Projects
click on Nairobi
click on Students Work
and you’ll find the following themes:

• A City without a Masterplan
• Architectural Legacy of the 70s
• The Industrial Area
• Waste Network
• Pentecostal Churches
• The Identity of Kibera
• Slum Upgrading
• Somalian Community in Eastleigh
• UN & NGOs in Nairobi
• Matatu Culture
• Green Nairobi: Urban Nature

which, if you download the pdf’s, they might help in structuring your arguments. below i have set up what themes, that you are exploring, might help with the themes articulated in Studio Basel

whitecity | masterplan/ architectural legacy. A useful catalyst is also South Africa’s Group Areas Act and post 1994 urban projects development

soccer booster | take a look at UN & NGO's in Nairobi as foreign entity. Focus on the before and after, what has been done, why and for whom. Explore the following:
• infrastructure
• public space
• accommodation
• destruction
• removals
take Mphethi Morojele’s presentation + the reality of what you saw on site and continue to see and make comparisons

streetlife | Greening the city in the sun/ waste network

rooms | spatial economies, no specific reference, but you may explore the subrenting of spaces, growing densities close to migrant neighbours and also look at slum upgrading in kibera/ structure/ themes/ graphics

migrant neighbours | Somali refugees as Urban Catalyst
edge conditions | industrial area and kibera as a city (informal versus formal)

ponte tower | no precedent, but scan the architectural legacy, since it concerns the history of the building – ultimately what ponte will be about

public transport | Matatu culture

the atlas is also helpful in unpacking issues relating to urbanity
to summarise:
# Colonial History of Africa – white city
# Kenya and its History – white city, migrant neighbours
# Kenya and its Demography – white city, migrant neighbours
# Kenya and its Political History – white city
# History-of-Urban-Planning of Nairobi – white city, streetlife
# Population Growth and Housing in Nairobi – rooms
# Informal Settlements in Nairobi – rooms
# The Transport System and Infrastructures – public transport
# Tourism and International Events – soccer booster
# Sport Recreation and Leisure – soccer booster

paper sizes

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/A_size_illustration2_with_letter_and_legal.svg

Tues 10.15-12 and Wed 12.30-1.15,

are the times i wil see you next week after our lesson at 08:00
on wednesday 04.03.09 all groups shall prepare a 10 minute (2 -- 5 minute) powerpoint presentation to present to the class. a 5 minute discussion will follow each presentation

presentations
12:30 -- 12:45 group 1: white city + soccer booster
12:50 -- 13:05 group 2: migrant neighbours + edge conditions
13:10 -- 13:25 group 3: ponte tower + public transport

i suggest that you read dewar and uytenbogaardt's creating vibrant urban spaces to live -- cape town 1995, which i am sure is available in the library

template

i have set up the following template. the end result will result in all the data collected and wire bound for research and precedent purposes. each group will be expected to submit a minimum of 10 pages. come up with proposals next week for the outcome | result. please let me know where your problems| shortcomings are in terms of production. my suggestion would be that you make a stab at it before consulting me.

we have 3 lessons next week. 2 on tuesday and 1 on wednesday. so we should be able to take a slight giant leap.

the storyboard may appear like this with text

blacklinesonwhitepaper@gmail.com

do not forget to drop me a mail so i may forward you material.
groups are:

whitecity | soccer booster | streetlife
geoffrey -- collator
mawabo
putsiso
eulenda
yasmin

rooms | migrant neighbours | edge conditions
abdul -- collator
ofentse
eugene
mitchel

ponte tower | public transport | 24h/ 7days/ week
jarred -- collator
kabelo
londeka
lerato
siphiwe
richard

i suggest you collate your images, set up a storyboard and start drawing. you may also do this with pencils on paper. i will sit with you after the seminar next week and help with the graphics. but i will need to see something. gather any information (of value) you can around your themes.

they might need different kinds of research,
some themes have a very rich history which is documented in numerous articles and books. some themes are linked to recent developments (transport for example) which you get from offices, jda etc.
some themes might need some fieldwork, bottom up research: walking the streets (24h/7days/week).

do not get confused, divide the work into parts for each of you and just do it. good luck!

land ownership

study area

Please read the following text and we will discuss it in the 24 February Seminar Presentation 2

CITY SYNTHESIS
Dennis Crompton – A Guide to Archigram 1961 - 74

The city is a living organism – pulsating – expanding and contracting, diving and multiplying.
The complex functioning of the city is integrated by its natural computer mechanism. This mechanism is at once digital and biological, producing rational and random actions, reactions and counter-reactions. The computer programme is a conglomeration of logical reasoning, intuitive assumption, personal preference, chance, sentiment and bloody-mindedness which is assimilated and interpreted. The solutions follow automatically.

The trigger to the computer programme is social man. He creates the City Scene at conscious and subconscious reaction levels by his own complexity. He is identified with the natural computer and is an integral part of its dataprocessing operation – but they are NOT ONE -- each has an individual nature which functions independently. At its logical (or illogical?) limit this division of nature causes the DEATH of both. The city is ascendant when they are in unison, in decay when they divide.

The feed-in for city synthesis has three stages:
1. Primary information about population: birth rate, death rate, unit size and habits. Also city site data: location, topography, geological and geographical conditions, the inter-relation with other urban complexes. The overall network is formed from this information and then absorbs it, processes it, and throws out the subsequent stages.
2. Secondary information: health, housing, marriages, fertility rate, crime rate, journey to work, wages and salaries. Rates of development and obsolescence, density, communications, land values. At this stage the network is modified and amplified, and the substance of the city created.
3. Trends, conditioning of the city and population caused by problems and solutions resulting from stages 1 and 2. Movement within the complex; personal action, shopping, entertainment (personal and mass), recreation, market survey, bus timetables, etc.

The last stage is a continuing feed-back in which every facet of city life is relevant to the whole, values are relative to the observer. The absolute ceases to exist after stage 1. The expansion and contraction of centres and suburbs, the dead ends, the exciting and the mundane – all are now an integral part of the city scene, enveloped in a net of inter-relationships ultimately controlled by the Natural Computer.

SITUATION
This thing we call Living City contains many associative ideas and emotions and can mean many things to many people: liking it or not liking it, understanding it or no understanding it, depends on these personal associations. There is no desire to communicate with everybody, only with those whose thoughts and feelings are related to our own. What we feel and think about the city is not new in the sense that it was unthought of before, but only in that the idea of the Living City has not been acted upon before by our generation. In the second half of the 20th century, the old idols are crumbling, the old precepts strangely irrelevant, the old dogmas no longer valid. We are in pursuit of an idea, a new vernacular, something to stand alongside the space capsules, computers and throw-away packages of an atomic/electronic age. Situation concerns the state of change within the city environment caused by the fluctuating come/go of people and things over a time scale. All of us find the Living City in Situation. An awareness of the city is necessary before we can move forward.

Situation is concerned with environment changes and activity within the Living City context, giving characteristics to defined areas. Important in this is the precept of Situation as an ideas-generator in creating the Living City. Cities should generate, reflect and activate life, their environment organized to precipitate life and movement. Situation – the happenings within spaces in the city, the transient throw-away objects, the passing presence of cars and people – is as important, possibly more important, than built demarcation of space. Situation can be caused by a single individual, by groups or a crowd. Situation can be traffic, its speed, direction, classification. Situation may occur with a change of weather, the time of day or night. As the spectator changes, the moving eye sees. Situation is related to individual perception, and the place of the individual in the environment. This time/movement/situation thing is important in determining our whole future attitude to the visualization and realization of city; it can give a clue, a key, in our effort to escape the brittle ingratiating world of the architect/aesthete, to break away into the real world and take in the scene