email: mission accomplished?

Hi Tom--

Nadeem and I just had a great meeting with Shamiel Jacobs and Denzel Fortuin, the registered architect with whom Shamiel has worked for many years. I brought a full set of drawings and some of the images of the building, all of which Denzel now has taken with him to go over more closely so that he can make the necessary adjustments (particularly in the foundation and structural framing drawings) before he submits them for approval with the municipality. Essentially, Denzel is ready to jump in as architect of record by overseeing the process of submitting the drawings for approval and getting any departures we may need. He seemed like a great guy, soft spoken but friendly and obviously experienced, and I feel extremely positive about he and Nadeem working together in the pre-tender process.

Shamiel also made it to the meeting, and while he won't be very involved until after the approval phase, he certainly had input toward some of the issues Denzel brought up while looking through the drawings and again was able to give us a good sense of what it will take to get the building started.

In terms of a timeline then, both stressed the fact that timing is highly dependent upon the municipality. Very generally speaking, they will take about a month to approve a new building/set of drawings, regardless of size, if there are no departures. If there are certain departures necessary ( i.e. building out to the lot line on all sides) we're looking at something closer to two months. Shamiel still holds that the building should take about three months in construction--barring any major holdups--and so the building could in theory be completed by the end of the year. Given that obstacles inevitably pop up, March still sounds like a good goal.

In terms of design issues, Denzel was most curious about the use of the one container. He wants to make sure that it (and the other instances of corrugated metal) are being used in a way that progresses concepts about where and how people live in the townships, rather than simply corroborating existing shack/container culture. We assured him that with an edible roof garden, new use of the corrugation's pattern in creating openings, and well-painted murals, it will.

Overall it was a productive meeting, and particularly satisfying for me as it now feels like we have completed another stage of the building, and capable hands will be taking it into the next. I will forward you the drawing set shortly, and updated images and brochure will be soon to follow (Denzel was quite interested in the images as a strong selling point to the municipality, hopefully enticing them to pass approval more quickly). I won't be able to update the 3d model until I am back in Cambridge with the right software, but I can definitely photoshop a bit this afternoon and tomorrow.

Cheers
--Ashley

whales for company

Monday night, I have to admit, I was a bit depressed with no Stephanie. No anyone left at the b&b. I even started feeling a little homesick, like I had overstayed my own time.

Today I can’t even imagine how I’m going to leave South Africa and return to not-so-real real life.

Today was probably my last visit to Khayelitsha, mostly taking place at Makatiso’s house for the tri-weekly Monkeybiz market day. I walked around our site and realized that (even though the only physical change we’ve seen on it is that someone recently stole the side door of the existing building) our project has come a long way in the eight weeks since I’ve been here. In the midst of finishing what looks to be the final drawing set for a consultant/contractor meeting on Friday, I see how important it was for us as a group and each individually to allow life here to soak in and affect our entire strategy. I’ll come back and articulate this better when I’m less tired.

I do know that returning to Khayelitsha after our ‘holiday week,’ I have a greater appreciation for its physical and cultural setting within this vast country. Joburg, Cape Aghalus (southern-most point of Africa), Aquila Game Reserve (safari), Stellenbosch (wine country), Cape of Good Hope, Fish Hoek caves behind our house…every place we traveled we were met with an incredible landscape, but moreover a completely different perspective and total way of life. A shabeen in Soweto with laid-back tour guides was more fun than a few bars with a jaded American in Melville; we’re still foreigners and we can still be giddy with other tourists when we see the two oceans meet (wait til you see Steph’s pictures); looking at animals was twenty times better because of how much our ranger loves her job and its location, but it still didn’t compare to sitting in the new Constitutional Court built with the remnants of a former political prison; Stellenbosch really could make you forget that anything else exists outside that little oasis of gorgeous country and beautiful young people; Cape Point reminds you that most tourists really don’t get to see much else outside these lovely bubbles; and—in contrast to all the understanding we’ve gained about the long struggle for equality of opportunity shared by the vast majority of the country—a dinner in Fish Hoek fully opened my eyes to the sudden difficulty, almost terror, people have had with forever losing their old way of life…even if that way of life was dependent on suppressing the basic human rights of other people. As a 21-year-old born and raised in Fish Hoek said, the townships simply didn’t exist in our world.

After breakfast today, before the rest of us headed to Khayelitsha, Barbara asked me as she got out of the car at the clinic if my time here has been a life-changing experience. I’m not sure exactly what I said in response, but I know the end answer was, yes. And I am looking forward to soaking up every last minute, even if and especially when watching the whales play off our shoreline from my desk.

questions of implementation

Packing up tonight for a weekend trip to Jo’burg—our first adventure beyond the Western Cape—and I’ve been gathering things that I can take with me to continue working on (must be analog, cause my new machine will not be making the trip). Redlining the current drawing set is a given…I think we can have some fun with the new container elevations, as well as all the windows on the courtyard… But after working on a brochure describing the building’s intentions and role both in education and economic development, I can spend some time now reevaluating the program of the building and its role in the community. We recently met with Sipho Puwani, an inspirational community organizer who has been pushing social development programs for the last 15 years (and whose organization Ikamva Labantu will be a part of some 19 community centers in the townships over the next six years). In his experience, long-term sustainability is dependent upon having a broad base of organized programs that together address the social problems of the specific community in a holistic way. For example, an educational program for younger children combined with training programs for the adults can expand incrementally from a few core classes to an established series that allows all members of the community to continue learning, which ensures the survival of the building and its use. His main point was that we don’t provide the solutions—the community already has them. We just provide and critical strategy and vision that will enable their implementation and ensure a sense of community ownership. eKhaya eKasi is well on its way, as the women of MonkeyBiz and their craftwork will no doubt be the heart of the building, and many holistic efforts are planned…but can we further pursue a building framework that will help maintain the relevance of this center to the changing lives of those who will use it..?

Stephanie and I also spent a day with a UCT student from Fish Hoek who will be traveling through America for his own summer break in 6 months. While enjoying some down time and the “essential” family restaurant experience at Spurs, we covered many of the questions facing South Africans right now—seems that, at least in our experience, there are no taboo topics here. People want to discuss, how can a country be properly informed and motivated to take advantage of upcoming opportunities and plan for the future, beyond making unrealistic goals for 2010 (like providing homes rather than just slum clearance, slowing the ‘brain drain’ and keeping new next generation minds focused on the challenges their home country..).

There are so many challenges, and it can be overwhelming to try to place ourselves amongst them. At MonkeyBiz on Friday we are recognized and asked about the building as we greet the artisans and work on documenting their stories. Later that night we enjoy some vino and wizard hats at a Harry Potter release party in Kalk Bay. So many different facets of one rewarding trip..

carin...market day...'africa' vs 'the rest of the world'

After a solid week of drawing out our building, we're back to a more active schedule. Not that climbing Table Mountain last Friday wasn't active in the best way (and totally gorgeous every giant-boulder step of the way), but in terms of moving the project closer to manifestation in real space it is now time for us to get busy with meetings. We started off with an excellent one: another conversation with broadly experienced architect Carin Smuts. She gave us an hour of her time that again had great implications for the building design as well as its representation in drawings (which she felt are quite adequate for sending out to bid, given we track down that site survey..). Some notes from the discussion:
----drainage--we have already accounted for the fact that water needs to get out to the street. however, carin recommends having a manhole or other drainage point in the back of the site, in the outdoor courtyard, and then running a pipe under the container and out, allowing for easy access at the front and back of the site in case of blockages--which, apparently, are inevitable because in her experience every single drain in a township gets clogged at some point with rice and porridge. this is not something we can change, just something we can design for in order to make the problem easier to fix.
----on the drainage note, she says nix the porous pavement in front and just use another gutter to take water from the entry over to the green roof. says it's not worth the trouble.
----water supply in--be aware that we will need a stop cock and meter at the point of the supply, which is going to be at the front of the site where the toilet is currently located. this poses an issue for container placement, as our container currently rides the site boundary, but we need to have a place on that boundary to at least locate this meter for easy reading. this could mean moving the container off the line slightly, or modifying it somehow.
----lighting--carin gave us a heads up on finding someone to make our electrical drawings, which will be immensely helpful. we also discussed effective daylighting strategies in order to minimize the need for compact fluorescent lights. specifically, she felt that having such a large translucent roof, even with the bamboo to filter, would be too much light and heat in the multipurpose room. rather, sh suggested, keep the transparency to a meter at each side and allow the walls to do the work of bouncing light into the rest of the room. (we have in fact already seen that this works quite successfully at one of her own buildings, Guga S'Thebe)
----perimeter windows--a bigger problem is our design's reliance on windows on the site boundary line. even on the upper level, she feels this is a no-go because they could in theory be built against. this means we have, at the moment, a couple of very dark rooms.
----ventilation--even more than daylighting, the need to move the windows requires a new ventilation strategy. whirlybirds are one option for the upper level rooms, but through our discussion a new idea evolved: make the courtyard central. we can remove the need for walls that are 'just walls' or a corridor that is just circulation if we use the back program to form the perimeter of the site, making it particularly secure and allowing all rooms opening doors/windows onto a small central courtyard. this requires a bit of refiguring in plan...but the more we spoke about it, the more it seemed like a perfect solution.
----storage--in her experience, the kitchen needs the most storage space because that is actually one area where you might receive a surplus in terms of donations (canned food and such). moving it to the other side of a central courtyard would allow the kitchen to utilize the allocated storage space in the back end of the container. also, we should make sure the kitchen gets a nice strong roller shutter because this is where people are most likely to steal things.

Design continues to evolve, and happily we have the opportunity to keep our real clients, the women of MonkeyBiz, informed as much as possible. Today we attended the monthly Khayelitsha market day for MonkeyBiz at Makatiso's house and the Boat. While market day is by now a familiar but still captivating experience, it is always exciting to see and speak to the women at the site of our project, where we can see right in front of us the many uses their new building will serve. We even got the chance to put our craft skills to work, making new tags when Makatiso had run out. Though we were unable to do any more with the cameras or storytelling (projects we've been working on for artaidsart at the Friday clinics), we will be back in three weeks to do that.

Finally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MANDELA! '90 minutes for Mandela' was our chance, for only a few dollars, to watch two full teams of soccer legends come together on the Newland Rugby Stadium field for a charity game. It was a good cause--and it was fantastic! We hung around the bars and kiosks outside the stadium for plenty of time before we ran inside to our bleacher seats with a crazy loud croud. 90 minutes later...Africa and The Rest of the World tied. Just for Mandela perhaps (who I kept trying to find with my video zoom but alas, he was either well hidden or not there). Anyway, next time we're learning to blow a vuvusela.

Patrick is headed back on Friday, and our home here will be sadly quieter for it. However, his attention to and exploration of details in the last week has been invaluable to clarifying and moving forward with the project, and I won't let him lose touch with me that easily...I'll miss my roommate man. But I gotta feel for him because he'll be missing it here bad after getting spoiled with bunny chow, the best fish n chips ever, and TWO delicious ballpark sausages (with onions and chili sauce) all in one day...

Photographs (2)

In contrast to Laura's last blog, which so adequately captured many of the thoughts and feelings we've shared in our time here, I just wanted to let everyone know that I finally have a working computer and can now upload and edit some of my own documentation.

http://picasaweb.google.com/anheeren


[africa is everywhere]

on the way to the airport...

looking out the window on my ride into the cape town airport and seeing the extent of informal settlements, i thought again about the hopes for 2010 and the staggering reality of the level of need. i also began to think about the last day i spent with the other pKers in guguletu and khayelitsha. loyiso brought us to the cemeteries and as we took in the vast size he commented quite simply "people are dying of AIDS." it was the physical representation of such an overwhelming crisis. and an image that will stay with me. but that image will also be contrasted by the hope that the women of MonkeyBiz, many of whom are HIV positive, emanated with their tireless creativity and collective determintaion. these 450 women have begun the process of change in their community, and though the problems are overwhelming the accumulation of small progressive steps can potentially have a powerful effect. we hope the building of the eKhaya eKasi center will be one of these steps as a further catalyst for economic empowerment and community wellness. the time spent in khayelitsha has and will continue to strengthen pK's commitment to helping the process forward to the best of our known and expanded abilities as designers and community advocates.

green roof test

Yesterday was Gena's last day in South Africa and that girl worked full force until Nadeem dragged her away for her 11pm flight. We spent the day putting together a test plot for the green roof that will be installed on top of the container, a framework allowing us to test three different combinations of soil and sand from Khayelitsha and different planting schemes.

The start was a little slow, as we had to do a little door-to-door soliciting for extension cords in order to work up in the garden. Then, though electricity was working, the drill was not...in fact it started smoking and smelling like burnt rubber after all of a minute.


So we ditched the drill in favor of some analog work, grabbing 2 hammers and all 19 nails we could find in the garage. Thanks to Patrick and our friendly cab driver Toyer (who knows us well by now), we got a fresh supply of nails delivered quickly and the rest of the afternoon/evening went pretty smoothly. Stephanie's pizza and beer delivery helped as well.

The test consists of three bays for planting. We attached all the boards to a base, lifting one of the sides about an inch to allow for drainage.

Next we attached the waterproof membrane across all the bays, which were then filled with about 2 inches of gravel, a water filter, and the different mixtures of soil and sand. And then we gardened.

In the end the project looks something like the picture below, though we'll hopefully be cleaning up the edges for better water protection and sunlight. The plot closest to the camera is all sand from Khayelitsha, planted with small grasses seedums and a few herbs. The middle plot is half sand and half soil, the design most likely to grow grasses and edible plants well without costing too much money. The furthest part, and deepest plot, is all soil, and is planted with vegetables like lettuce cabbage and cauliflower.

We learned that Gena has an admirable and genuine love of plants, and knows a ton about them. I enjoyed gardening 101, and am just hoping not to mess up these lovely plantings. Finally, Stephanie made a great statue of liberty as the night drew to a close.

monkey biz model work

Stayed up last night to construct a model of the eKhaya eKasi center~ amazing what can happen with a little bit of chip, a stencil, and some meticulous architects! We felt that it was important to continue the community involvement that began with the blessing ceremony, and brought the model to the weekly wellness clinic to get additional design input from the women at Monkeybiz. The model was well-received, and many of the women brought up important considerations and ideas -- a concern for adequate children's play space, allowing the option of bed space for the sick, and some great ideas about finish and stamping of the facade. It appears as if this informal presentation would work best as a weekly event-- keeping the Monkeybiz women updated on the latest design developments, and involved in the project's evolution.

a face to the community

these are latest collages of the building. we will be bringing a model and updated drawings to the wellness clinic tomorrow for an informal presentation and input. our immediate question is the nature of the north facade of ekhaya ekasi. material, color, translucency versus solidity, mosaics metal relief or mural etc. . .

0702-0705

prisoner artifacts - robben island

watchtower - robben island

nadeem standing on the street where his family lived and was subsequently removed from in district six - district six museum

former street signs - district six museum

kuwait, informal settlement khayelitsha

RR section, informal settlement khayelitsha: this area as well as many informal settlements along the major road, the N2, are scheduled for clearance for the World Cup in 2010. the residents are planned to be relocated to another area of khayelitsha farther from public transport, while improved infrastructure is installed and new homes constructed. there are several large scale and perhaps overreaching goals and expectations for 2010 proposed by the government and expected by the people. though 2010 is only two and a half years from now, it has become a year of tranformation and hope in public opinion.

Upgrade

today in khayelitsha we witnessed upgrades on three very different scales. The first involved the construction of improved rail infrastructure and a new station near the eKhaya eKazi building site in Makasa. This station is needed because currently most of the residents in this area of khayelitsha, such as the MonkeyBiz women, have to take a taxi or bus to the station before beginning the train ride into the city of cape town for work every day. this makes the commute even longer and more costly. This upgrade to the township, however, also brings along with it the need for shack clearance for a new diversion road. All of the shacks marked with an "x" as seen below are to be demolished.

The second was the home of of a couple that moved from the eastern cape in search for job opportunities. They began in a small shack in Harrare and then once they earned enough money joined a federation in khayelitsha. These federations are groups of over a hundred families that pool the 16000 rand government subsidy for housing and help each other build improved housing at a higher standard than the typical "matchbox" houses. They use whatever money they can earn to add more rooms, brick veneers, and improved interior finishes. After the homes are built the federations also become neighborhood associations in which the residents have a forum to discuss the social issues affecting them. This particular federation for example decided not to allow any shabeens (bar/pool halls) to be built in that neighborhood because of the crime and disturbance associated with these businesses. Though Loyiso pointed out that despite this decision many of the residents just go to another area and use the shabeens there, therefore just pushing the problem and stigma onto other neighborhoods.

And the third was the upgrade of a young boy into becoming a man. We were welcomed into a celebratory ceremony and the home of Loyiso's friends where a boy had just returned from his journey to the bush and was to be reintroduced to society as a man. There was singing, dancing, a slaughtered sheep, traditional xhosa beer, and the best bread any of us had ever tasted. The hosts and guests were incredibly open and welcoming to us and generously shared their home and their culture with us. Along with all of the other women we presented a gift and ashley gave a speech wishing him well in his future and the time he will spend with family.



(check out youtube for the videos)

it was another eye opening day in the level of joy and happiness that seemed to upgrade the entire condition of Khayelitsha in our mindset. As Loyiso tried so earnestly to illustrate to us there is a rich culture and community spirit in khayelitsha that at times perhaps transcends the condition.

Design Development

this is the latest design iteration based on 3 recent contractor meetings and the conversation with Carin Smuts. The primary structure would be too expensive in steel frame as intended and therefore we have simplified the design to have the primary structure be the 12m container and large shed roof. all program will then be plugged in under this roof. The columns will be stacked cmu with rebar and concrete fill with infill cavity walls constructed with maxibrick. Because of security concerns we have a solid base with all light coming in through the polycarbonate (or fibreglass) roof and clerestory windows. Shading will be provided through bamboo lining the translucent roof, which is commonly used in architecture throughout the cape area. We also chose the single slope roof so as to prevent the shedding of water onto the neighboring lots. We have yet to fully integrate the areas for rainwater catchment. at the moment we are considering that water barrels will be kept in the ground level storage room.

Also in terms of personalizing and finishing this framework, Barbara from Monkeybiz has a great suggestion to have bottle wall mosaic in the front entry of the building. This project could involve bottle collection by the women in the area so that there is a physical contribution to the building form. Also the container will be an ideal canvas for a local mural artist.

week 2

It's Sunday morning, and we--some of us--just woke up with a note on the door from Tom about bringing food for brunch from Olympia Cafe down the street, which will definitely make for a great last day of an incredibly full week.

To begin, we already wrote about the blessing ceremony on Tuesday (definitely check out the artaidsart link on Patrick's post below), which overall was a more beautiful, enlightening, and 'successful'--in terms of starting to connect the community to the project and ourselves--experience than I think we even expected. The following day involved the enormously helpful 3-hour conversation with Carin Smutts, whose new double-height studio studio space on the top floor of her house (with a view of the ocean) happens to be about the size of our site, making it a great example of the kind of large, simple but beautiful space we could create in our own project. Following this talk with Thursday's "field trip" to the Migrant Worker Museum and community center (where Wired Women work) in Lwadle, Guga S'Thebe, and the Philani Nutrition Center and Weaving Studio in Khayelitsha, we definitely heightened our understanding of community centers and how artisans can interact with and use the centers. Finally, we again spent Friday with the women at the MonkeyBiz clinic in Cape Town, this time working with translators (our Xhosa still needs a little work, though I've totally mastered one of the clicks) to record the women's stories--of how their histories, their families, their hopes for South Africa, their legacies for future generations.

Every day I have been completely blown away by people here. The women and other members of the community have embraced us in so many ways, without many of the reservations we might have suspected them to have, and in speaking with mothers, wives, grandparents and other family members we repeatedly see simply a great strength, a perspective on life with realities, priorities, so different from our own but so much more grounded in basic connections to family and to place. People love their homes and the land in a way I think often runs less deep for Americans. Everywhere is an opportunity for meaningful conversations about life here, the state of the country and its future, spoken about very differently by our guide Loyiso or the owner of an art gallery on Church Street or a cab driver. All of this for me has begun to give greater gravity to our project and to our hopes of creating a proud but safe building full of opportunities for its users. I worry more about the disappointment if we are not able to physically accomplish much during our time here, but at the same time I am thrilled with the development of the design as we get more input from community and professionals, and I have no doubt that we have plenty of work to continue moving forward with as the construction realities of every aspect and detail of the building come better into focus.

Gearing up for another productive week...Gena arrived Friday night, so for four full days the entire group is here. We started yesterday with a meeting with the contractor who finished part of Blue on Blue for Tom (the first of three contractor meetings in the next few days), but after that...day off. Penguins on Boulder Beach! I wanted to go swimming with them, but rather than catch pneumonia we opted for a good lunch and a couple beers back in Kalk Bay instead. Which led to getting ready with a bottle of wine back at Blue on Blue...which led to the 31st floor of the ABSA building in Cape Town...which was a great night of chilling out and dancing above the city.

Photographs

A more extensive collection of photographs from our time in Cape Town can be found on my Flickr page. Visit it here:

www.flickr.com/photos/leidio

I'll be posting photographs every few days or so throughout the summer. Additionally, Tom's photographs from the blessing ceremony in Khayelitsha are found in the latest Art Aids Art newsletter. Visit it here:

http://web.mac.com/artaidsart/iWeb/Site%202/eKhaya%20eKasi.html

conversation with an architect

Today we met with Carin Smutts, an architect with great experience in community building throughout the area, both during apartheid and since its end. In her Seapoint home and studio (which happens to be almost exactly the dimensions of our site), we dreamed of one day having a workspace overlooking the ocean like hers and we had an excellent discussion regarding the project and its implementation. The following are some notes from that meeting:

COMMUNITY
- Khayelitsha is a younger, faster-moving township with a strong sense of hierarchy within its people and thus a greater motivation for power struggle and fraud. “South Africa is in a bad state at the moment…”
- beware the community ward: while the women may be trustworthy, many community members have a hidden agenda and we are like to end up spending money on what is essentially a bribe.
- rather than buying land, one can obtain a 99-year lease for 1 R/year
- while it is vital to understand what the community members want, it will also inevitably change, so one must always move ahead finding the middle ground for an satisfactory economic project

WORKERS
- we must pay the local workers per square meter **not a set wage** because nothing will get done otherwise
- no cash. set up autobank accounts so that everyone can be paid electronically
- sometimes you must feed the workers and buy their materials before they begin. conditions are better now than they have been in the past, but nonetheless this may be necessary in the beginning of a job. however, this is not custom; the workers should expect to bring their own lunchboxes and buy materials when necessary.
- do not pay up front except what is necessary; no advance loans. payment is received when the job is finished!
- getting emotional results in losing money and does not help us or the community

INVESTMENT
- training people (i.e. as security officers) and encouragement for them to do voluntary service can result in employment
- people are also less likely to vandalize something if they’ve made it themselves
- material collection can directly involve community members: ask what the townspeople want to get rid of, or what they can help you collect (i.e. bottles)
[Guga S’Thebe—CS Studio]
- successful because its sustained by the community, selling to both locals and tourists
- locals were trained during construction in, for example, the metalwork: making tree cages, balastraudes, and handrails out of scrap material
[also see Laingsburg, Zolani]
[Uthango Lotyebiselwano]
- total community participation in its creation, but without sustained use the building was completely torn down piece by piece

BUDGET (*basic rule of architecture: everything will cost at least double what you expect)
- 5,000 R/sq m is the absolute cheapest (our project is about 160 sq m, which would amount to 800,000 R minimum—which is beyond our current budget)
- in order to fit a bare-minimum budget, use containers and plan to do it all yourself
- steel has skyrocketed, so don’t plan on using steel frame structure
- timber is a major fire hazard in a township
- blocks are the safest bet but cement can still be expensive, and CMUs are not as nice as regular bricks. try to use something cheap like maxi-bricks (taller and thinner) and get a place like Corobrick to donate blocks (Bryan Edwards)
- likewise, insulation is sometimes donated, or at least offered at a good price. talk to John McEvoy

DESIGN
- complete the dream design, but work backward from it; when it comes to construction, figure out what is most essential, finish that part, and work forward incrementally as budget allows
- establish a face, an address, an identity, but make it more about a magical space inside the building than making it shout outside
- creating volume is essential (make it as tall as possible) as scale can not only help establish that identity but create a landmark for the community. remember, one “floor” can technically be 4.5 m high
- the box: figure out the minimum satisfactory standards, and start there. put up some cheap trusses in steel or timber to make a basic sheltered space
- leave a “finished product” with each step, allowing for contingencies and hold-ups
- security is the foremost concern
- avoid windows wherever possible; rather, depend on the transparency of the roof to provide light (less likely to be climbed upon and/or broken into) and whirly-birds for ventilation
- incorporate translucent elements to reduce the need for electric lighting
- never skimp on plumbing (cheaper ceramic fixtures always break down)
- start with standards to get the most product/usable space for your money
- incorporate beadwork into the construction and design of the building itself

PROGRAM
- do not open it up to community groups other than MonkeyBiz—allow them to maintain control, always keeping a business sense rather than getting soft
- allowing other groups to enter threatens the survival of the building if it becomes a power struggle
- embrace flexibility of space in front (for example, people can extend the space by clipping on a tent for special events). keep in mind that front façade is only face that can really be “decorated/designed” as other three walls are likely to become shared property—so keep those back walls solid and open the front up with roller shutters
- elements such as water collection tanks could be additionally used to establish identity

CONTAINERS
- providers: Container World, Big Box
- most common insulation is isowall—foam
- extensive documentation will help the bidding process
- make sure foundation is built up and waterproofed

CONTACTS
- town planner Ilias Brink
- Tana Klitzner, landscape architect looking at the larger environment that can be created for people. working in Khayelitsha on the VIPP project to revitalize urban spaces—the “light box” project (Verina?). particularly focused on security issues. moreover, they have a piece of land in Arare that would be free to whoever would like to build on it..
- Sebastiano Peniza, contractor who “knows how to build”
- Bryan Edwards, Corobrick
- John McEvoy, Sajax (? insulation)
- Lovell Freedman, supervisor of artisan Sydney
- Iain Louw, whose phd student constructed “the coolest house ever” out of found materials, including a wall made out of tvs
- Rodney Harbor, formalized plots of land for tradespeople- Helen Liberman and Sipho Powani, Ekamba Lebantu

This is an aerial view of where we are staying. The body of water to the right is False Bay, which is, it is disbuted, either the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean.



This is a view from a restaurant in Kalk Bay. The town in the distance is an area between Fish Hoek and Simon's Town. The weather had turned horizontally stormy in the afternoon but lateday the clouds broke and the wind picked up; these cloud banks moved swiftly across the Cape just as dusk began to set in.

Celebration

Yesterday, we journeyed to find the University of Capetown just to discover the entire University is on holiday until July 30 for winter recess. though the physical campus was absolutely stunning to behold nonetheless....and as always the studios were in post-review chaos.

We had planned before takeoff to construct an installation of the ground floor of the proposed structure in order for the MonkeyBiz women and community to get a sense of the scale and nature of the spaces that are to be built. Today MonkeyBiz and Art AIDS Art had organised a blessing and celebration for the building and with the large gathering this was an ideal opportunity for us to carry out the installation. CashBuild, the Khayeltisha version of home depot where most residents buy building materials, was the source of the installation materials. We decided on a basic construction of walls using twine and metal stakes. We were unable to install on the site itself because of the existing building so we chose a location a few blocks away next to the large community center. With Loyiso, Sydney, Nadeem, Stephanie, and Tom's assistance the installation construction actually ran very smoothly in the beginning and many people watched from the road and a few residents approached to find out what we were up to. We were then approached by two members of a local community development forum who were concerned about the installation because they saw outsiders conducting what looked like manual labor. This concept insights opposition in the community because there are so many unemployed residents of khayelitsha and with any building project in khayelitsha local residents should be employed. Tom, Nadeem and Loyiso explained the project to the forum members and they invited us to speak to the forum later in the night.

With the installation complete and ready for occupation we went on to Makatiso's house for the blessing and celebration of dancing, singing, bunny chow, and the discovery that no evil spirits reside inside the house or on the site which is always good to hear, Tom introduced the building to the community in Xhosa a great gesture, and Angie introduced the project Khayelitsha team with the translation help of Loyiso. We then gave a short explanation of the building through a board that was taped to the MonkeyBiz container. The community members gathered and said a short statement that they were very pleased with the work of Barbara and MonkeyBiz and that they were excited to have a new center based within the community. Almost the entire celebration group then moved on to the installation site and we passed out floor plans and renderings so that each person could better understand what was to be constructed. There were then more speeches and it was actually a great opportunity for us as well as the participants to visualize the way the space will be used. The group of around 35-40 people fit easily into half of the multipurpose space and this reiterated the concept that Tom and Dorothy stated from the very beginning, that what may seem like small spaces to Americans can be efficiently utilized here in ways that we do not typically conceive of. The MonkeyBiz women and other participants that we met were more open and receptive to the design and the installation than we could have hoped. There were perhaps some that were confused about the installation and its purpose and humored us nonetheless, but as Stephanie (our law school mate at Blue on Blue) stated the most valuable aspect of the event was that we were able to convey our genuine attempt to communicate, share and learn with the MonkeyBiz women and community throughout the building process.

After the long day, and some fried chicken, we attended a short meeting with the community development forum mentioned earlier and Tom, Loyiso, and Nadeem were able to clarify the goals of the project and the current support of the surrounding community and we were also able to show our schematic design board to illustrate the nature of the building.

it was a full day, and a great day to continue to build support and ownership for the project within the local community.

A week on the Cape

South Africa and the globe

Globalism is the state of all things smelling the same. The scent of a mall, full of commodity gadgets and the same clothing made with the same hands of southeastern Asia and central America as any other mall in the world, is the same in the outskirts of center city Cape Town as it is in my hometown. Often South Africa feels more like Canada. This shouldn’t be alarming since both were (and Canada still is) members of the Commonwealth, which allowed South Africa to be privy to the economic engines that fueled neo-liberal capitalist theory following World War II. Often, South Africa feels more like Italy—dirty in a way, ad hoc in another way, and the same protocol at the espresso bars of Cape Town. Walking around city center (known as the City Bowl, due to the surrounding mountains, including the famous Table Mountain) is an odd mix of Rome, Istanbul, and maybe some place like Guadalajara. I’ve only been to the first two, which is the source of my impressions, the point being that to some extent you feel the grit, the luxury, the darkness, the poverty, and the self-conscious social history of Cape Town all at once, as opposed to American cities where these sensations are often distinctly dispossessed of each other.

We live in St. James, a village in the greater municipality of Cape Town, and spend a great deal of town about a half mile down the road in Kalk Bay, a similar village with a commercial center and a nice collection of restaurants, shops, and watering holes. It is winter here, and many establishments and homes burn wood, sometimes in pyres along the sidewalk (as in the case of the all-you-can-eat-prawn-place), and the air, right along the ocean, smells of the briny sea across the street and the clear winter air through which currents of wood smoke blow. Sunset is early, for obvious reasons, and this can be surprising since I’m used to the lingering light of dusk still at 10:30 back in Michigan. It accounts for a superficial fatigue right around seven in the evening when it is completely black, much as it occurs in winter back home. As a result, we spend time in the studio talking, listening to music, or going to a new restaurant.

Food here at the restaurants is delicious and cheap, so going out to eat is a good activity and allows for meaningful social time. Many restaurants have fireplaces and lingering around is the expected practice. Even after three hours at a restaurant last night our server was surprised when asked for the bill. Thus the joke that in South Africa one partakes in the discussion course, the water course, the bread and oil course, the starter course, the main course, then coffee, then the tab course, the paying course, and the waiting for change course. In St. James and Kalk Bay nearly everyone is white and speak with British accents. But we were interested to learn that Kalk Bay was an area during Apartheid where blacks, coloureds, and whites lived together, and where the rigors of Apartheid were not so explicitly apparent. Whites in South Africa are either Afrikaners or British and speak Afrikaans or English; black Africans in the Western Cape consist of Xhosa and Zulu peoples including many from the Eastern Cape that come to the townships of Cape Town for work; coloureds are of mixed race, descended from blacks or whites and slaves brought from the east during imperial times.

Nearly all in Cape Town speak English, including the Xhosa people who prefer it over Afrikaans for obvious reasons. June 16 was a national holiday commemorating the student protests of June 16, 1976 in which over 170 students were killed during a demonstration against the obligatory teaching of Afrikaans. This event was central to the emergence of the Africa National Congress which would eventually overthrow Afrikaner rule and open up free democratic elections, ending Apartheid allowing for the transformation of the nation previously ostracized by the world’s powers. The ANC is contentious in politics today due to extensive corruption and the perception among the majority that they are not tending to the people; a liberal movement persuaded by the fruits of globalism. We are still learning much about South African politics and at a good time to boot what with elections in 2009 and the arrival of the World Cup in 2010, for which many policy programs mark as some sort of glorious apotheosis of the new South Africa. Obviously, most of the country won’t experience significant change as a result of that magic number and it all feels, I gather by talking to residents in Khayelitsha, like an inverse Y2K deal.

Khayelitsha is the Africa that we all expect. Children push low-slung crates on a crude sort of long bed wagon with wheels around the streets and I have only witnessed children with these things. There is a bus service that brings folks from the township into the city center and other parts of Cape Town. They are tall buses and long, with large non-reflective windows and dirty brown and yellow exteriors. In the fields between informal and formal settlements or housing developments there is trash strewn among the grasses and shrubs; trails crisscross these areas that people scavenge through them looking for things that may be useful. In the afternoon light they are emblazoned on the sky over the plain in which the township rests, an expanse of treelessness and sand that used to be the seabed. The government has implemented the construction of roads and along them some utilities such as street lights. They line the highways of the plain and end in the haze of the mountains along the horizon. Schools and community centers are under construction, as well as new houses, but waiting lists are long for houses which are small and ineffective as long-term dwellings.

Children who do go to school (over 80%) remain without skills and resources upon finishing. On the pavement zigzags spell out intersections and along the roads everyone seems to be carrying plastic bags. Strip malls and even big-box retail are popping up in the townships and people patron them despite a healthy skepticism of debt. Like many poor areas in America, even impoverished homes here have televisions or sound systems and it is common practice for people to play loud music from their front rooms during the day. Walking down the streets I hear Beyonce, Paris Hilton, and techno. The techno, some Berliner-shprockets high modernity nonsense, really makes things feel dystopian. 20-foot long containers double as shops—for barbers, pay phone booths, or fruit stands and they can be found at intersections within the neighborhood as well as along major roads. The train station in Khayelitsha is busted and makes use of ramps which during rush hour are packed and swarming with people. In the car we pass a funeral, another time on a walk we pass a meeting of residents who have gathered to discipline a boy in the community accused of robbery. Justice is bottom-up in the township, particularly in light of the fact that police are far away, and don’t attend to the informal squatter settlements. The colors of Khayelitsha are radiant, and the people here are in tight community. The greatest irony of poverty is that it often brings out the best of human cooperation. The residents take pride in what they can, just like anybody else in this world, and despite rising crime and drug problems, the residents of Khayelitsha are finding themselves empowered to reign in their community in a way that is really unprecedented, even in America. People are friendly and welcoming, and the children fascinated by visitors.

There is always the worry for xeno-exoticism, or the notion visitors have of the victimhood, innocence, purity, or righteousness of struggling communities or exotic peoples. Naturally, this can’t be avoided, and that’s alright to an extent. Curiosity and empathy are essential in all inter-human relations, particularly in cross-cultural exchanges where the aim is to share resources and glean learning from communities with different assets. Moreover, all peoples on this earth are xeno-exoticized to some extent. White Americans do it to Jennifer Anniston, Ivy League students, the Mafia, hicks, and Celtic culture. The difference in guiding productive and meaningful curiosity and empathy lies within a community’s expressed intentions, motivations, and the methodologies of interaction. At the end of the day, the dignity expressed between two people of different origin, livelihood, class, race, gender, or whatever else you want to distinguish, is about mutual experience, respect, love, and affirmation of personhood. Also at the end of the day, this isn’t really all that hard to accomplish. So, when I write fondly of the children of Khayelitsha who exude a vibrancy that I have witnessed only here, I do so because it’s true, not out of pride of having been in the center.

The drive to and from the township takes us along the dunes and the shore of False Bay. To the north and south are steep sandstone mountains that rim the plains. The dunes are lush with growth, the water is a deep blue on a sunny day, and the mountains are slightly obscured by haze depending on the magnitude of the well-known winds of the Cape that emerge from the confluence of the cold Atlantic currents and the warm Indian Ocean currents. All and all, the Cape is epic in its geography and represents the greatest aspirations and the deepest troubles of a country consciously dealing with identity and justice in a free market world. The former is, perhaps, and surprisingly, the result of the extraordinarily late arrival of official equal justice to a Commonwealth nation. In light of the flourishing of rights activism that was possible and supported in the mid-nineties, and the leadership of Nelson Mandela, South Africa is, or has the potential to be, one of the first major post-global nations. It can, under critical scrutiny and the affirmation of its assets, even those of unsavory histories, become a sustainable nation without the delusions of free market globalism.

cool runnings

1--the name of a bar on Long Street with a sweet second-level balcony. Long Street is a fun downtown strip of bars, restaurants, and hostels that we'll definitely be hitting up in Cape Town, now that we know to stop before you get to the area where people will follow you down the street pulling on your sleeve (fist day mistake).

2--we met some friendly rastafarians outside the church in Khayelitsha yesterday.

3--this morning (actually afternoon since we actually slept in today) I went running in absolutely perfect weather. Up about 12 flights of stairs, along the base of the mountain, down to the beach, and back up along a gentle hill through Kalk Bay and St James. Then I ate an orange on my balcony overlooking the ocean. I'm possibly never leaving.

pK in za

Part one of the project_KHAYELITSHA (pK) team has landed, and having just finished our first week I'll write about where we are at the moment. We just returned to our St James home from a full day in the township with our guide Loyiso. Nadeem, our unbelievably attentive--and hilarious--host dropped us off around 10am at the MonkeyBiz "Boat," the shipping container currently used by MonkeyBiz as a storage space and workplace for many of the local women bead artists. Yesterday we met many of these artists at the MonkeyBiz clinic in Cape Town, where we helped serve a little food and tag the beautiful dolls they had completed that week. Yesterday we also had the opportunity to meet with Barbara Jackson, Shirley Fintz, and Mathapelo Ngaka, the founders of MonkeyBiz, to show our current design plans and renderings and to talk about our upcoming work. Meeting these women was truly fabulous, as they all have such a passion for their work and very real ideas about the new center in Khayelitsha. I think our notions of the project were greatly informed and influenced by this visit.
Today as soon as we arrived on site we met Mathapelo's mother, who was equally warm and inspirational as she talked with us inside her home next door. From there Loyiso, a local who is experienced in agricultural and landscape projects (and who hopefully will be one of our collaborators on this project), took us all throughout the township, explaining both the newly planned and informal settlements as well as much of the culture of the area. When we finally spent some time on our site at the end of the day, I think we came to a better understanding of some of the challenges of the neighborhood, including the amount of trash, overbuilding of property lines, size limitations...but the bright bright African sun and the warmth of the neighborhood's people seem a good start to making the new center a success.
Okay, there's an initial basic run down. Now I have to get off our cozy studio floor to get ready for dinner in Kalk Bay with Cameron Sinclaire and a local (architect?) friend of his. He's been here for a few days also and is working on a project in Freedom Park, so it should be a great south-africa-is-incredible conversation. Our bed and breakfast is beyond amazing (fell asleep listening to the ocean last night), the weather has been lovely, and between rush hour martinis ($3!) up in cape town and dancing in a pool hall in the township today, we all can't wait to get going.