The architecture of scarcity : towards spatial healing in polarising contexts of gated communities and informal settlements in Pretoria East

Abstract

This project is situated within the highly polarised and fragmented landscape of Moreleta Park, where contemporary manifestations of exclusionary apartheid values, in the form of gated communities, are confronted by the emergence of “grass-root disturbances”, in the form of informal settlements. An architecture of abundance meets an architecture of scarcity, or rather, a defensive architecture that fearfully attempts to answer the socially constructed inevitability of scarcity is confronted by an architecture that emerges from physical conditions of scarcity, which are both the direct consequence of, and condoned through, the exploitation and discrimination that emanates through the fear of inevitable scarcity.

Scarcity is seen to limit agency, but what if scarcity could induce agency? Scarcity has already shown the potential to catalyse massive change, and has shown itself to promote the subsequent ingenuity necessary for survival.

By learning from the complex socio-spatial landscape of the past, present and “future” South African city, through a deeply collaborative, agency-kindling process that is grounded in a foundation of critical theory and phenomenology, this architect/facilitator/actor aims to reimagine an architecture of scarcity that embraces ephemerality and sensitively emancipates the potential of boundary beyond that of division. This project gestures towards an architecture that is not a solution-driven answer, but a dialogue-inducing question; scarcity that is not a problem, but an opportunity.

Yielding the benefit of a site favourably located beside a proposed Gautrain/transport node, with close proximity to both a gated community and informal settlement - the programmatic opportunity of domicile, livelihood, and mobility emerged as useful mechanisms for integration, and are manifested in the exploration of a housing typology that rethinks architectural and technical constitution of the traditional gated community.