Project Location: Pretoria 

Project Focus Area: Memory, Legacy, Identity 

Supervisor(s): Cobus Bothma

Project Description: 

This dissertation stands to explore the validity of introducing a headquarters for technological innovation and emergence for South Africa’s built environment that makes deliberate connections with existing greenspaces and the surrounding social fabric. 

South Africa’s built environment has become slow in its technological development due to: the lack of required skills, existing research on the matter having a global focus, and an overall separation of design and construction processes. South Africa’s built environment also seems to be becoming placeless and homogenized due to the lack of identity portrayal in correspondence with its places. With limited research on how the South African built environment could benefit from solving both problems simultaneously, the intention is for the proposed headquarters for technological innovation and emergence to become an alleyway for a possible solution. This dissertation aims to investigate what aspects of hybrid high-tech and low-tech emerging building technologies could become a catalyst for revitalizing the South African built environment while prioritizing the instantiation of a relevant local identity in accordance with its places. 

With spheres of industry, ecology, and social fabric all being simultaneously present, Silvertondale presents an ideal opportunity for the development  of a place that actively considers the integration of greenspaces, and the social realm within a mono-focused  industrial setting. The intended headquarters for technological innovation and emergence focuses on generating a strong economic contribution through industrial processes similar to those within the surrounding context, however, its economic contributions will be heavily determined by how well social and ecological elements are integrated and utilized. 

From a tectonic point of view, the final architectural intervention explores the realm of flexible and interchangeable spaces where each architectural element of the final intervention can be perceived and understood as a single entity. The collection of designed counterparts work together in order to create a system that allows for an array of programs to take place. The culmination of patterns and systems designed for are not entirely revolutionary and can sometimes be seen within the existing buildings surrounding the new intervention. The innovation comes through in the reconsideration for these single entities, and how reorganizing system patterns can result in a more pleasant environment for participants. Therefore, the final intervention becomes a collection of interchangeable processes and systems that work together to create a synergized architectural experience that simultaneously considers the industrial realm, as well as social and ecological integration.