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[ WORLD DESIGN CAPITAL 2014 ]

43We have, in this bid book, made a case for Cape Town’s diverse and abundant multi-culturalism. How then does a city like Cape Town, once torn apart by the legacies of colonialism and apartheid, and still in the relative infancy of a new democracy, approach its vastly different peoples with a view to inclusivity, reconnection and creating a City for All? First and foremost, it must rebuild its communities.

The large-scale research project Intercultural City1 revealed findings that multi-cultural societies have the potential to be more creative than homogeneous ones, and that “…diversity within such societies, when managed strategically and with strong skills, is highly productive for cities in social, economic and environmental terms…” and that in turn such cities have “… a vast number of intercultural innovators or role models… who transgress cultural and social boundaries.”

Therefore emerging from these intercultural cities you find a unique brand of innovative thinkers who

understand how to address diversity (including socio and economic disparity) and who can then become key connectors and implementers behind community engagement, participatory urban planning and development practices towards the positive transformation of a city such as Cape Town.

In turn, the Provincial Government of the Western Cape (PGWC) – under which Cape Town falls as its capital - is the only institute of its kind in South Africa to recognize the notion of “social capital” as a vehicle of engagement with cultural diversity. Its programmic focus embraces “…developing the potential relationships with people around us: those in our communities, our schools, at the workplace, even with our neighbours.”

The first in our section of case studies therefore looks at three examples of how “rebuilding” is taking place in particular among low-income communities, and how we are using design to alleviate the problems inherent in the demand and spatial issues around social housing.

CASE STUDY 1.1 - 1.3

Communities

1. The Intercultural City: planning for diversity advantage (Phil Woods & Charles landry, Earthscan Publications Ltd 2007), a work based on numerous case studies worldwide that analyses the link between urban change and cultural diversity.

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1.1 The Violence Prevention through Urban

Upgrading (VPUU) Project

1.2 10 X 10 Low–cost Housing Project

1.3 Nested Bunk Beds by Tsai Design Studio

1.1

1.3

1.2

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REBUILDING COMMUNITIES

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ThE VIOLENCE

PREVENTIONThROUGh

URBAN UPGRADING

(VPUU)PROjECT

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CASE STUDY 1.1World Design Capital 2014

1. Crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) is a multi-disciplinary, international approach to deterring criminal behavior through environmental design. CPTED strategies rely upon the ability to influence offender decisions that precede criminal acts. As of 2004, most implementations of CPTED occur solely within the built environment.

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The Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) project is a holistic approach to urban upgrading that is unique in the Cape Town context in the way that it has integrated all forms of development and not only the physical upgrading of urban spaces.

In a community that has been characterised by violent crime, poverty, unemployment, a harsh natural environment and undignified public space this type of development is transforming the township of Khayelitsha into a vibrant, safe, and attractive place but most importantly into a community that is environmentally, economically and socially sustainable.

VPUU is a City of Cape Town project aimed at reducing violent crime and improving social conditions in Cape Town communities across the Cape Flats, of which the Khayelitsha communityis the first. This innovative project was initiated in

2006, in partnership with the German Government, through the German Development Bank (KFW). VPUU aims not only to reduce crime and increase safety levels but to also upgrade neighbourhoods, improve social standards and introduce sustainable community projects to empower local residents. The project has so far focused on the improvement of areas in the Khayelithsa “suburbs” of Harare, Kuyasa, Site C/TR section and Site B to create safe areas for thousands of people.

VPUU has a set of safety principles which are used as guidelines in the upgrading/development process, and are in line with those of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design1. These principles include the following:

Surveillance and visibility (“eyes on the street”) The design of public spaces that have clear lines of sight and good lighting to ensure maximum public visibility.

Territoriality (“owned” spaces)Refers to the sense of ownership a community has over its environment that encourages residents to become involved in reducing crime.

Defined access and movementEasy access and well-defined routes to, and through, a public place help develop a pedestrian’s understanding of the space and perception of safety.

Image and aesthetics (dignity)A positive image of a place can be achieved by ensuring a “human scale”. Using appropriate materials, colours, landscaping and lighting to encourage high levels of public activity.

ThE VIOLENCE

PREVENTIONThROUGh

URBAN UPGRADING

(VPUU)PROjECT

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Physical barriers This relates to the strengthening of building facades and spaces to improve personal safety.

Maintenance and management (pride and ownership)Well-managed and maintained environments encourage a sense of pride and ownership.

The VPUU uses specific design “tools” to implement the safety principles and these include the introduction of a clear signage and wayfinding system, creating visual connections along walking routes, ensuring movement routes are as clear and short as possible, the clustering and integration of public activities and ensuring that the site layout has active edges to increase passive surveillance. These principles and design tools are used in all areas of the upgrading process to ensure that the main challenge – crime prevention – is addressed in the new interventions.

The project is based on a model made up of three “pillars” of development namely: situational crime prevention, social crime prevention and institutional crime prevention.

Situational crime prevention refers to the concept of preventing crime through good environmental design. It is assumed that positive changes in the physical environment will ultimately lead to safer communities. There are many aspects which work together in the Khayelithsa example in situational crime prevention, such as the design of Harare Square which is surrounded by Live-Work Units, a business hub, a multipurpose building, an Active Box and Masibambane Hall. This design ensures that the public space is surrounded by many activities meeting the needs of the surrounding community as well as ensuring the space provides a safe environment due to passive surveillance. Harare Square is an important public area offering

facilities, services, shops and businesses to the 60 000 residents in Harare and Monwabisi Park. Good lighting makes the square a safer space where community members can relax and enjoy the surroundings. The multi-purpose public space caters for the following: the youth, the general public, the business sector and it acted as a public viewing area during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Masibambane Hall was renovated into a Love Life Youth Centre which serves as a community hall as well as providing office space for organisations. The Live-Work Units surrounding Harare Square can be rented by local business owners. Each unit consists of a workshop at ground floor and a flat on the first floor. The owner can live on top of their business and protect both the business and the square during the night.

The business hub has a bulk buying facility for “spaza”2 shops and is operated by the Triple Trust Organisation (a not-for-profit organisation with a mission to eliminate poverty through sustainable economic empowerment). It also incorporates a business support and advice centre, 15 shops for local business, and a boxing gym (something it was determined that the community wanted.)

The multipurpose building provides services to the local residents, and combines a library, Early Childhood Development Resource Centre, an experimental learning facility for children, a caretaker flat, offices for organisations and a small hall. The Active Box is a feature found throughout the VPUU project and is one of the most important components of the project. It is a small three-storey building that provides offices for an organisation, caretaker’s flat and a room for patrollers. It is higher than the surrounding built fabric, painted red, and is therefore an excellent landmark as it can be seen from far away. These Active Boxes, manned 24

2. A spaza shop is an informal convenience shop business in South Africa, usually run from home. They also serve the purpose of supplementing household incomes of the owners, selling everyday small household items. These shops grew as a result of sprawling townships that made travel to formal shopping places more difficult or expensive.

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PARTNERSHIP PROGRAMME

The VPUU programme is a partnership

between the City of Cape Town, the

German Development Bank and the

community of Khayelitsha.

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hours a day, are found along the main pedestrian routes, intersections and public spaces and are set no more than 500m apart. This ensures that if an individual is feeling threatened they can clearly see where they have to go to find help.

The upgrading or introduction of public spaces falls within situational crime prevention as areas which are identified as crime hotspots during a baseline survey are then upgraded. The Urban Park Precinct 3 in Harare is an excellent example of this as it was previously an unsafe open space that attracted thieves who robbed people on their way home, and was identified as one of the worst crime hotspots by community members in 2006. The area also used to be a stormwater pond that captured water after heavy rainfall and prevented flooding in low-lying areas in Harare and Kuyasa. As a result, during the rainy season, pedestrians would have to wade through water on their way home. The site was also used as a dumping ground. Through a collaboration with local leadership and engineers from the City as well as creative design solutions from local professionals, this crime hotspot has now been transformed into a beautiful urban park used by hundreds of residents daily, the majority of which are school children. It has an Active Box, playground, main pedestrian route, a retention pond (which acts as stormwater relief during the winter and an informal sports field during the dry season), the Football for Hope soccer field and Centre (a legacy project from the 2010 FIFA World Cup) as well as benches. Lights are strategically placed to light up the pedestrian route and are left on until late for kids to play. Many of the structures have been made by locals; the skills needed for such design work form part of the social and institutional crime prevention programmes discussed below.

Social crime prevention promotes a culture of lawfulness, respect and tolerance, and links social programmes that support victims or prevent violence and ensures safer spaces are created through the situational crime prevention programme. The main aim of these projects are to prevent and reduce the impact of crime or violence by strengthening relationships between people, drawing vulnerable people into safer conditions and improving the collective capacity of “safe node area” for residents to resist them becoming victims or perpetrators of crime or violence. This programme includes schemes such as Early Childhood Development (ECD), the Social Development Fund (SDF), gender-based violence programmes, the Patrolling Project, legal aid and school-based interventions.

The ECD programme ensures that ECD structures are introduced in new developments, such as the Multipurpose Building at Harare Square, as well as ensuring there are sufficient numbers of crèches within the community. The Social Development Fund (SDF) was established to fund resident-based projects in the four safe node areas of Khayelitsha, including sport development, soup kitchens/food gardens, aftercare school programmes which include IT services, home-based care, arts & drama festivals, skills development, and day-care centres for orphaned and vulnerable children, the elderly and the physically challenged.

An example of a gender based violence programme is Mosaic, a non-profit organisation with the vision of creating a society free of domestic violence. The organisation enables abused youth and adults to heal and empower themselves in dealing with domestic violence through counselling and training programmes.

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The Patrolling Project came about after the violence and crime baseline survey was conducted and identified three top priority types of crime as being murder, rape and robbery. The community decided that civilian patrolling be introduced as a quick-implementation project. The sustainability of the patrols is ensured by the full involvement of local structures and state services. There is also a range of incentives which patrol members can access free of charge in exchange for credits earned patrolling, and include Adult Basic Education modules, driving licence training, business-related skills and life insurance.

The University of the Western Cape’s Legal Aid Clinic partnered with VPUU and opened a satellite clinic in 2008 based at the Khayelitsha Court. A second office recently opened in Site C. This is for persons who cannot afford to pay for an attorney and will therefore fill a big gap by providing access to justice in economically disadvantaged areas.

Lastly, the school-based interventions aim to reduce crime and violence through social development. Three schools in Harare and Kuyasa were identified as crime hotspots and projects were introduced to encourage sport and recreation as an alternative to violence and crime.

The institutional crime prevention programme is made up of an Operations and Management (O&M) programme, and a Local Economic Development (LED) approach facilitating and encouraging local business as well as having a monitoring and evaluation process. The O&M component is led by a community group responsible for running and maintaining facilities on behalf of the municipality. This supports the Community Delivery of Services (CDS)

opportunities created by VPUU and is linked to the development and maintenance of facilities and the creation of basic and higher-skilled labour services. The VPUU’s LED is an area-based approach which aims to build a shared vision, reduce skills gaps, facilitate grass roots/community involvement, improve access to opportunities and mobilize partners. It also strengthens business associations and community organisations to enhance the sustainability of their initiatives. It builds confidence with “quick win” projects, exploring practical ways of linking businesses from the formal and informal economies together, and making it harder for crime to be committed. The LED programme partners with organisations such as the Triple Trust Organisation and Love Life, as well as the Black Umbrella, to name a few. The VPUU is committed to being an effective intervention. Projects are continuously monitored to ensure that delivery is on target and to identify any difficulties or delays so that corrective action can be taken. Project evaluation takes place each year and, where needed, goals are amended. Monitoring and evaluation also provide the necessary information to determine if the VPUU as a whole is achieving its success indicators. Its success was acknowledged through the prestigious Impumelelo Award at the Sustainability Awards in 2010.Further developments have now commenced in Site C, Manenberg, Hanover Park, Lotus Park and Gugulethu – all communities affected by the same hardships. Through intensive media exposure on the success and importance of this project, the German Development Bank took the decision to extend funding by a further three years.

CREATING SAFE NODES

The VPUU’s Safe Node Concept is based on

the notion of creating safe and integrated

neighbourhoods within communities.

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1.2

In 2008, the Cape Town-based Design Indaba Expo held its “10 x 10 Low-cost Housing” competition, inviting combined teams of local and global architects to compete with designs for social housing that required “innovative responses to the urgent need to house the urban poor.”

The vision driving the Design Indaba 10 x 10 Low-Cost Housing project was to find alternative solutions to housing which are affordable, innovative and attractive, creating dignified homes. The project was spearheaded by the Design Indaba Trust, a Not-for-Profit (Section 21) initiative which is dedicated to design education and development in South Africa. South Africa currently has a major challenge in providing low-cost housing to its urban poor and projects like these are addressing the situation with creative alternatives.

The Design Indaba 10 x 10 project brought together the talent, skills and goodwill of the Design Indaba alumni, locally and internationally, to make an

10 X 10 LOW–COST

hOUSING PROjECT

impact in an area where design-thinking may be least anticipated. Ten architectural teams were challenged with this pro bono project.

The winning design came from Cape Town-based MMA architects in partnership with Axis/AKI Engineers (structural engineers) and BTKM (quantity surveyors) whose successful design stayed within budget, made use of local materials, reduced building time and ensured community involvement in the construction.

The materials prescribed for the build needed to be sustainable in that they were to be local materials and readily available on site. The 54m² house was to require no tools or advanced construction knowledge and had to be built for no more than around R65 000, while still presenting a striking, modern design.

Construction of the winning designA noteworthy sustainable aspect that is used in the design of the basic structure of the house, is the Ecobeam System developed by Eco-Build Technologies in Cape Town. It consists of a timber beam with steel inlays that increase the tensile strength of the structure. The sandbags used as in-fill in the walls provide excellent insulation for passive thermal control and have the same temperature control seen in traditional mud and wattle rondavels or stone houses. The sandbags also absorb sound that can often be a problem in areas with high density living.

Another function of the sandbag is that it acts as an effective anchor ensuring protection against the wind, while also preventing water penetration into the interior of the house.

REBUILDING COMMUNITIES

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MORE THAN A HOUSE

The winning design of the

10 x 10 Low-cost Housing

competition strove to create an

attractive structure that could

provide space for a family to

grow into over the years.

CASE STUDY 1.2World Design Capital 2014

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The exterior of the house is designed to be hard and reinforced cement. The sandbags are plastered with the cement that adheres easily to both the sandbags and the chicken wire that cover the walls. The Ecobeam sandbags are made wet before the plastering process. The wet bags behind the plaster enable the plasterwork to “cure” instead of merely drying, as it does in standard construction.

This design brings many benefits to the community. For example, the simple design and construction process allows the community to get involved. Skills development programmes are offered in the building process which can include women as construction is not too labour intensive. There are also major cost benefits: with no bricks being used there is no need for site-clearing before or after construction which is a huge accumulative expense. The use of sand as the major building material results in less material loss due to wastage or theft.

The design itself creates safe spaces for the community with the backyard being private and the front forming a part of the active streetlife, which retains the integrity and notion of community living.

Outcome of the competitionDesign Indaba ultimately constructed ten of these houses in Freedom Park, Mitchells Plain - a township in Cape Town. In 2008 MMA’s design won the international Curry Stone Design Prize, an award given for the best humanitarian design towards “creative solutions to improve our lives and the world in which we live.”

The 10 x 10 Low-cost Housing Project clearly aims to create a better future through the use of design. Not only will some of Cape Town’s most impoverished families benefit directly, but the project seeks to stimulate wider debate and creative thought around the delivery of low-income housing.

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KEEPING COMMUNITY CLOSE

The design of the houses has

incorporated private backyard gardens,

while keeping the frontage directly

onto the street, encouraging a spirit of

community. The innovative Ecobeam

sandbag system (inset) is used in their

construction. 349

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CASE STUDY 1.3World Design Capital 2014

REBUILDING COMMUNITIES

NESTED BUNK BEDS

BY TSAI DESIGN STUDIO

A major challenge facing many low income households in South Africa is a lack of space. Y.Tsai of Tsai Design Studio in Cape Town came up with an innovative design solution to address this issue whilst taking part in a competition involving the design of a 36m² house to be occupied by up to eight people.

Tsai used the concept of the Russian Matriochka dolls that nest inside each other to create a set of stacked beds which retract into the space of a single bed at a height similar to a standard bunk bed. Sections can be pulled out for different functions such as a sofa for a few or even grand stand-style seating for many. When fully extended it sleeps five (one person to a bed) and when fully retracted it creates an open space where children can play during the day. The design allows for 20

children to sleep in an area as small as 50m² whilst at the same time still allowing room for activities during the day.

Each bed is fitted with a standard single mattress, so as the frame of each bed increases in size to allow for the beds to nest under each other, there is extra space then created at the foot of the mattresses (from the second bed from the ground to the top bunk) which serves as storage space. The bed system is manufactured by using local materials and local labour. The manufacturing process is a holistic one that incorporates skills training in woodwork in order to make local manufacturing viable. A later model of the nested beds incorporated a redesign that now allows for the easy self-assemblage of units as it was expensive to transport the fully assembled beds to site.

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ROOM TO SLEEP AND PLAY

In an area the size of 50m2, four

sets of beds can sleep 20 children,

and still retract during the day to

allow area in which to play. This

has made a huge difference to

the overall experience of living in

low-cost housing where space is

a luxury.

Tsai has had huge support for the project from Shoebox Homes, a non-government organisation which was founded by Charles Maisel, a renowned entrepreneur. Y.Tsai and Aram Lello (both architects) are in the process of setting up a factory which will mass-produce the beds, which will in turn be funded by the Ackerman Pick ‘n Pay Foundation and other corporate and private sponsors.

The project has been a huge success and has gained wide media exposure from local television shows and magazines. In 2007, Tsai Design Studio received two awards for the bed: the local Momentum Top Billing Lifestyle Award for the décor category, and the international Red Dot Award in the concept category. In 2008 the Nested Bunk Beds project won the Most Beautiful Object in South Africa award at Design Indaba.

Nested Bunk Beds are a perfect product for orphanages and large households where space is a luxury. The floor area that traditional beds used to take up can now be used as play and living space. It is a simple concept but for these households it’s a life-transforming design.

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DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES

A revised model of the original

nested bunk bed concept now allows

for the beds to be assembled on site,

saving on transportation costs.

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