Landfill urbanism : recovering resources ? cultivating community at hatherley landfill, Mamelodi

Abstract

This dissertation considers the lives and rituals of a community of informal waste reclaimers living on an active landfill site just outside Mamelodi, Pretoria. Their living conditions are poor and yet they deliver an important service by reducing the amount of garbage buried and recycling otherwise wasted resources. The intention is to acknowledge the importance of the informal waste reclaiming community that has evolved into a network of intricate exchanges and trading which in turn provides economic opportunity in a country that has a large percentage of unemployed people. Due to the evolving nature and scale of the project, the design approach considers a series of interventions that can be implemented during the various phases of the lifecycle of the landfill. The proposal utilises landscape architecture as an intrinsic component to initiate the fundamental infrastructure that can establish the foundation for a habitable environment and future public spaces. The initial phase considers an area where recycled materials can be processed and transformed after their extraction from the landfill. This creates an important node that supplements economic opportunities. It is here where a market space provides a platform for interactions and transactions between a variety of people passing through and working on the landfill site. In conjunction with the economic upliftment proposed, the project needs to address the access to basic human rights of clean water and dignified sanitation. The design of a 'water node' provides the core around which daily rituals are organised. To create a safe, stable environment where habitation may organically evolve, the strategy is to reorganise the way waste is buried at this landfill so that building rubble, demolition waste and inert materials are structured into platforms on a portion of the landfill site. Here waste reclaimers may construct their dwellings away from the dangers of earthmoving machinery, elevated out of the garbage whilst still maintaining surveillance over the incoming waste. The intention is to utilise principals of landscape architecture to harness natural resources whilst addressing the by-products of habitation in the structuring of the new terrain. The design seeks to achieve a pragmatic resolution with the intent of creating poetic moments within this harsh unforgiving landscape.