Looking Through the “Other” City: How to activate the socio-spatial connection within an heterotopic framework looking through the case of Durban’s Warwick Junction

Looking Through the “Other” City: How to activate the socio-spatial connection within an heterotopic framework looking through the case of Durban’s Warwick Junction

Silaj, J.

Colombo, F. (mentor)
Calabrese, L.M. (mentor)

Architecture and The Built Environment

Urbanism

Complex Cities

2014-07-04

The specific context of Durban touches global issues like the crowded, inconvenient shanty towns, the degradation of the suburbs and the implications of the urban sprawl in the cities. The same situations when neighborhoods turn upside down, city centers get abandoned or even the constant shifts of the social functions are happening everywhere in countries all around the world under the new rule of Globalization and fast urbanization. The emerging societies and economies can create informalities in all the scales but also as we see in the particular case of South Africa and Durban, the roles can be easily shifted. The social and spatial boarders are flexible and social integration is a process that goes through the complexity of our cities. It is, I believe, the model of connectivity and flows which may improve the quality of life for the future’s South African communities. Its dynamics challenges the predetermined patterns of urban life and conventional planning, it offers opportunity for architects and urbanists to rethink alternative approaches and solutions to facilitate the people to make collective choices dealing with the complex urban conflicts. Durban gives me an excellent chance to explore design and equality between formal and informal, past and future. Instead of trying to change the space of the city - or to design a better one - I try to influence the spatial relations and networks through which they are connected.

heterotopias
infrastructure
informal market
urban identity & diversity

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:279ad7d9-3018-404b-9d40-7e5f69f4b6cd

2014-10-23

29.52, 31.00

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2014 Silaj, J.