Abstract:
Braamfontein, Johannesburg is being significantly overhauled. The community can soon reclaim the Egoli Gasworks, where that site will be declared as a brown field site seeking development opportunity and integration with its adjacent surroundings. The treatise explores the opportunities created by the reclaimed lost space of the Gasworks Precinct. The culturally significant industrial heritage of the site serves as starting point for the decision-making. Facilities and communities in direct adjacency to the site guide decision making regarding the function of new edifices in the precinct. The assessed surrounding characters solicited functions geared for a media and film orientated precinct. The Gauteng Film Office, in conjunction with Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa and the MEC for finance and economic affairs, Jabu Moleketi, recently hosted a two-day film indaba at the Johannesburg council chambers in Braamfontein aimed at exploring avenues for making the film industry lucrative to both local and international filmmakers. The indaba addressed the challenges facing Gauteng and South Africa’s film industry, such as encouraging and promoting local filmmakers and actors, upgrading the skills of filmmakers, and marketing South African films so they appeal to an international audience. (Johannesburg News Agency: www.joburg.org.za;) A film centre, comprising of a museum and cinema is the chosen function for the design dissertation. The centre serves as a medium to draw people into the precinct and as a middling to communicate to the public. Both the museum and cinema serve as mediums to promote the South-African film industry locally and internationally. Consequently, the treatise design is a binary response to the influences posed by the cultural significant site of urban-industrial character, and that of an ever-changing world of digital film and video technologies. The investigation for the new architecture for the Film Centre explores the territories of film in the digital age, and its relevance in the making of place. Assessed existing patterns in the architectural landscape form the base of the design regarding form, scale and visual appropriateness.
