Memory and decay : the augmented landscape of hatherley landfill

Abstract

The dissertation looks at our technological environment that become so complex and independents that it is best perceived as a nature of its own. The short life cycle of technological devices leave them to be discarded when they become obsolete, introducing materials into an ecosystem that cannot process it. Very few waste management strategies currently exist within the city of Tshwane and it is largely left to informal waste pickers or reclaimers who sort and gather this so-called waste and sell it third-party recycling companies. The dissertation thus aims to look at paradigm shift through which these obsolete objects are not seen as waste, but rather as anthropological relics than can become a commodity in our future society. A commodity that can be mined for its material, energy, nostalgic and narrative value and even the data it contains. The site of investigation is Hatherley landfill where the landfill has become the livelihood of hundreds of informal workers who live on the landfill and in the neighbouring informal settlement, Phumolong. Methods used to keep the landfill contained and out of site, now make the daily movement of these workers a dangerous process and work conditions are hazardous. The intention is to change the nature of the current edge condition of the landfill and establish a porous quality connecting it to the neighbouring community with architecture mediating daily exchanges. The intention is thus to investigate architecture as a device, to augment such landscapes, for the mining of everyday objects as though they have become anthropological relics, and the re-processing of these commodities for re-consumption; brining together issues of man, nature and technology.