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URBAN CONTINUUM
URBAN VISION
An exploration of a new cultural district that proposes to integrate the spatial fabric of Fordsburg with Newtown, Chinatown, and Mayfair, building on the analysis of existing energies, contextual conditions and architectural potential. Three proposed frameworks of different scales consequently generate the parameters within which the proposed intervention [designed for my Masters of Architecture Dissertation - 2015] will sit.
The vision is to create a unique enclave in the city that:
-Reveals the richness in character of the local community by celebrating the diversity created through layered patterns of social involvement and histories in the area;
portrays the qualities of the local community by creating improved and quality spaces, and;
supports the passions of the community through appropriate development and sustained maintenance of the place.
anchor points and institutions within and around the sites being explored
improved
character
improved
space
improved
development
A collaborative urban framework has been extablished by the University of Pretoria and the University of the Witwatersrand which defines pedestrian routes from the cultural enclaves of Chinatown, through rehabilitated Newtown, towards Fordsburg. The proposed interventions [Masters Dissertations] are aimed to act as catalysts for the regeneration and revitalisation of the entire precinct.
In addition, the two projects operate together within the same business cycle where urban waste is collected from junkyards and other surrounding areas, are then recycled to produce raw materials which are then transformed into products creating publicized industrial areas, lastly distributed and sold within the designed interventions.
The business model assists in urban waste management and provides potential for site rehabilitation and land reclamation within a larger cultural area in order to break down the barrier of the M1 highway.
Walkable core
“ The lack of pedestrian contact – both formally and informally – leads to the destruction of social intercourse. Conversely, the more chances people have to meet as pedestrians, the more opportunities they have to develop relationships” (Lockerbie, 2014).
The central core of Fordsburg should build on the abundance of historic fabric within the area creating a vertical mixed-use character in order to promote 24 hour usage. The functional walkable core will link anchor points such as mint road, Fordsburg Square, and the Oriental Plaza whereby a maximum of 500 metre walking distances with defined boundaries are established. The core should facilitate the erection of formal and informal retail and service shops in oder to contribute to the existing vibrant shopping spaces unique to the area. This includes the streets and shop-fronts designed as ‘active facades’ in order to promote retail and eyes on the street during all times. The walkable core should have safe and convenient sidewalks in order to link activity anchor points, and to allow for informal pop-up shops to exist on the sidewalk.
Social and physical stitching
The physical incorporation and assimilation of secular space with that of religious space by the use of urban elements such as movement corridors, circulation routes, shared courtyard spaces, urban squares, street furniture and flooring textures are intended to blur boundaries between these poles in order to not only stitch the existing fabric of Fordsburg with that of the islandified Oriental Plaza, but to also create key opportunities for formal and informal retail and service opportunities to formulate within liminal and unoccupied spaces within a bustling urban core. These opportunities are intended to create new-found relationships between a community of varied ethnicity who unknowingly share similar aspirations and ambitions.
The intervention [Masters Architecture Dissertation] mediates between the monumentalized Oriental Plaza and the dynamic urban core of Fordsburg. Its edges allow for permeable pedestrianized connection between the opposing architectural conditions.
