Abstract
This chapter presents both the premises and the general outcomes of an International Planning and Design workshop held in Johannesburg from September 12–26, 2015. The workshop was organized as a partnership between the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies—DAStU from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the Wits City Institute and the Centre for Built Environment Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). Starting from an existing engagement between scholars from the University of the Witwatersrand, and the Kya Sands Community in Johannesburg, the two universities decided to mobilize resources and expertise and organize a two-week collaborative upgrading workshop in Johannesburg. The workshop, framed as a laboratory for technical and social learning, was open to international postgraduate students and young professionals willing to challenge their knowledge in a trans- and multidisciplinary setting. By framing design both as an exploratory and exemplification tool—able to foster negotiations and collaborations while triggering creativity—the workshop aimed at responsively rooting and contextualizing solutions in the community. Through the exploration of experimental collaborative design and planning methodologies, the workshop explored a holistic, incremental, and integrative development strategy for the settlement.
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Notes
- 1.
Professional Mobile Mapping, 2009.
- 2.
Personal interview to Carla Lee Kamp, CEO of Life Tree NGO (previously Judah Africa NPO), 18/09/2015.
- 3.
Short-term interventions sought to respond to poor living conditions and included some service provision and “emergency relocations”. Services delivered included communal standpipes, ventilated pit latrines, scattered mast-lighting, a cleanup of rubbish and rubble in the area, and the implementation of a regular refuse removal service (City of Johannesburg 2007).
- 4.
The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is a South African socio-economic policy framework implemented by the African National Congress (ANC) government of Nelson Mandela in 1994. Critics of the RDP point to poor housing quality as the chief problem being faced. Critics also note that new housing schemes are often dreary in their planning and layout—to the extent that they often strongly resemble the en masse bleak building programmes of the Apartheid government during the 1950s and 1960s.
- 5.
Personal conversation with Nkosiyezwe Lafulela, officer at City Transformation Department, City of Johannesburg, 25/05/2017.
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La Mantia, C. (2018). The International Workshop “Transforming Johannesburg: Reshaping Socio-Ecological Landscapes Through Collaborative Practices”. In: Petrillo, A., Bellaviti, P. (eds) Sustainable Urban Development and Globalization. Research for Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61988-0_32
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