The design of an archive and memorial park in South End, Port Elizabeth: an interactive community educational project
- Authors: Struwig, Arno
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Community centers -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- Designs and plans , Community development -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- Designs and plans Parks -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- Planning Municipal archives -- Designs and plans
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MArch
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/23716 , vital:30604
- Description: This treatise addresses the current lack in concern for acknowledging and preserving the memories and historical elements of a once thriving place: South End, Port Elizabeth (fig. 11, p. 20). The Group Areas Act of 19501 (Y. Agherdien, A. C George, S. Hendricks, 1997) resulted in expropriation of land and the demolision of buildings and roads which started to take place in South End during the 1970’s, forcefully removing the residents from their home neighbourhood and home. The treatise focuses on the traces of what is left of South End (fig. 02, in red) and how these elements can be acknowledged and preserved for the future generations. Theories on the discourse of memory, specifically collective memory, are investigated to establish an understanding on different methods to capture, record and preserve these traces and memories of South End. This investigation will be followed by principle explorations to establish how these theories can be implemented and manifested in the historical landscape. It is proposed to design an archive next to St. Peter’s Church, above St. Mary’s Cemetery in South End and a memorial park on the “triangular site” across from the cemetery, addressing the existing conditions of the landscape and the memories of the ex-residents of South End (figs. 16-18, p. 24). The archive will consist of a conventional archive (static element) housing the maps and documentation related to the city of Port Elizabeth, and an oral archive (dynamic element) consisting of a recording studio that collects and records the stories of the ex-residents of South End, constantly changing and adding to the archive. The memorial park will resemble a “living archive” which constantly changes and re-evokes the memories of the original inhabitants of South End. The proposed project is intended to act as an educative catalyst to the visitors, citizens of Nelson Mandela Bay and the future generations.
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- Date Issued: 2018
The design of an urban resources centre in Korsten, Port Elizabeth
- Authors: Boliter, Laura
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Community centers -- South Africa -- Port Elizabeth -- Designs and plans
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MArch
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/23761 , vital:30617
- Description: The adoption of a critical spatial perspective is imperative, if social justice is to be performed in urban environments, according the urban theorist Edward Soja. From this perspective of a socio-spatial dialectic, understood using Lefebvre’s ideas around the social production of space and the right to the city, the current spatial conditions of Port Elizabeth are seen as perpetuating past constructions of inequity. In these constructions of inequity large, systematically oppressed groups of the public are forced to traverse across segregating urban barriers to access the opportunity and advantages of living in an urban system. This condition continues to disadvantage those it was historically set up to undermine, on economic and social terms. This condition subverts these urban nomads, who are those forced into transience to access urban opportunity. Korsten is investigated as a key transition space in the Port Elizabeth area, straddling the impoverished north and wealthy south, as one of the key spaces where the urban nomad moves through to access better resourced parts of the city. The space of Korsten is understood to be a key domain for the urban nomad in Port Elizabeth and is thereby an appropriate place for intervention to intensify the city and improve urban quality, thus dignifying and enriching the lives of citizens and improving equity in the city. The notion of opportunity is focused on as the catalytic vehicle for urban quality to be improved, ultimately resulting in the design of Korsten as an urban resources centre with new educational and economic resources as a central structuring element in a re-scripted field of resources. The architectural design is produced within the paradigm of field conditions. This results in a design product which integrates as a part of a field condition of public resources in Korsten. A qualitative methodology is adopted within the critical research paradigm and will use methods of desktop surveys, literature reviews and participant observation to collect data.
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- Date Issued: 2018