The act of refuge : facilitating spatial practices of mobile dweller in the city of Pretoria

Abstract

In the inner city of Pretoria, the mobile urban dweller is confined to the sidewalk - a space of transition that promotes anonymity, indifference and transience. The mobile urban dweller has a desire for a place of refuge - a place to dwell, a place to call their own, a place to escape the disorder of the street. The intention of this dissertation is to explore how a place of urban refuge can be created by facilitating temporary acts of refuge for the mobile urban dweller. The contemporary built environment in the city have fallen victim to a function-, form- and aesthetic - driven approach to space-making. This approach neglects people’s everyday lived experiences, and creates a disjunction between how space is conceived and how it is used. An alternative approach to space-making were developed to explore how architecture can facilitate everyday spatial practices, in order to mediate between the lived and conceived spatial dimensions.