Associated typologies - modes of engagement in collective urban environments

Abstract

The dissertation ‘associative typologies,’ reflects on the social disconnection observed amongst urban participants in 21st Century urban environments. Exclusionary planning policies combined with the preferential socio-economic environment have created atomized urban networks that impair the social performance within cosmopolitan landscapes such as South African city centers. With new integration imperatives defined in the Tshwane 2055 vision, which aims to integrate the city’s development potential region by region, the once ‘uncommon’ peripheral zones such as Mamelodi East, are yet to find new collective importance that is described by spatial association. The research topic focuses on the concept of ‘collective commons’ that represent themselves as urban modes of engagement between Pretoria CBD and Mamelodi east. These components will be used to recreate/ support contemporary participation levels found in and around the case study areas today. This study will encourage the development of a conceptual framework that identifies a spatial pallet that accounts for the interactive potential of the targeted participants and attempts to improve the psychological condition of the urban dwellers from individual to collective. The developmental outcome is intended to represent a destination of collective consumption that is informed by real-time urban modes. This methodology may enable the sustainable scaling of project phasing and stakeholder participation in neighborhood development projects that are branded by collective interest/ identity.