Masters Project

My dissertation is an exploration and design of a Memory Exchange Hub in Lephalale in between the Maroela Old Age Home and the local Lephalale Library. Lephalale is situated in Limpopo where the EXXARO coal mine is crucial to South Africa’s energy production and in being so offers a resource for the community at large, but the question is what this industry offers to Lephalale in return. The community is need of an intervention which contributes to their daily routines in community engagement. The reason for this study is to provide a central space in Lephalale for the community to expand their knowledge on different topics and be closely exposed to different types of people in Lephalale. A variety of trees surround the Bushveld landscape and the most important to the people is what is known as the big five South- African trees. These trees forms part of the way Lephalale treatsThis project introduces the formulation of a theoretical approach through an ancestral dream of the author. This evokes a study on the history of the people of Lephalale and ultimately formulates forms of memory to be introduces as physical realness. A culmination of conceptual approaches like preservation, interweaving and transience influences the design approach. The main theoretical stance is based on the theme of different forms of memory and how memory relates to space and time. A contribution to sustainable building design in a hot interior area is designed using the primary structural use of eucalyptus poles, secondary use of steel and an introduction of an alternate use of material. Thatch roofs evolve into thatch walls as a new morphological element. The main theme of the project introduces a space where the people of Lephalale can engage in different forms of narrative and be reminded of the connection they have with each other, their set of skills and the history of Lephalale.

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Lephalale

The two main cultural groups in Lephalale are that of the Afrikaner and the Bapedi. The proposed building thus becomes a space for multiple narratives and their intertextual interactive actions. Celebrating only one metanarrative in the community can lead to the challenge of competing narratives, thus celebrating one person and not the specific community at large can be liberated when loosened, which highlights the ethic of narrative flexibility and the narrative plurality. Different narratives can be conflicting, and it is thus vital to allow spaces that invite empathy to ‘outsiders’ of Lephalale and in return gain a “plurality of narrative perspectives”

The essence of creating a space for the community of the bushveld is to [re]member the metaphysical memory within the lived members: [Re]living an experience, a symbol.

The identity of the diverse people in Lephalale is based on the recounted stories in the same past and the poetical ethics of memory is achieved after the remembering, retelling, and reciprocating of the members’ memories. The poetical ethics of memory refers to when the members exchange memories that might be foreign to another, the members enhance their own sense of self-awareness, in experiencing “oneself as another” which is also the title of Ricoeur’s book.

People come to Lephalale to celebrate and transform things: raw resources into finished products, new beginnings into bitter-sweet endings, action experiences into metaphysical experiences. The community exchanges memories and keep the narratives and teachings of past lives intact by practising and improving their methods, thus transfiguring the past.

A memorial space, as Kahn explains, allows for the process of letting go and putting to rest, but then that would mean that a community centre for learning takes the memory and puts it toaction. The end product is a result of the working memory that can be exchanged again.

A Memory Exchange Hub

This dissertation is an exploration and design of a Memory Exchange Hub in Lephalale in between the Maroela Old Age Home and the local Lephalale Library. Lephalale is situated in Limpopo where the EXXARO coal mine is crucial to South Africa’s energy production and in being so offers a resource for the community at large, but the question is what this industry offers to Lephalale in return. The community is need of an intervention which contributes to their daily routines in community engagement. The reason for this study is to provide a central space in Lephalale for the community to expand their knowledge on different topics and be closely exposed to different types of people in Lephalale. A variety of trees surround the Bushveld landscape and the most important to the people is what is known as the big five South- African trees. These trees forms part of the way Lephalale treatsThis project introduces the formulation of a theoretical approach through an ancestral dream of the author. This evokes a study on the history of the people of Lephalale and ultimately formulates forms of memory to be introduces as physical realness. A culmination of conceptual approaches like preservation, interweaving and transience influences the design approach. The main theoretical stance is based on the theme of different forms of memory and how memory relates to space and time. A contribution to sustainable building design in a hot interior area is designed using the primary structural use of eucalyptus poles, secondary use of steel and an introduction of an alternate use of material. Thatch roofs evolve into thatch walls as a new morphological element. The main theme of the project introduces a space where the people of Lephalale can engage in different forms of narrative and be reminded of the connection they have with each other, their set of skills and the history of Lephalale.

Design Touchstone

Design Touchstone
This model’s purpose is suppose to capture the essence of the project. It acts almost like an hypothesis in the sense that it tries to predict what the outcome should be after answering the research question.

The design of the touchstone is made up of mostly recycled material. One timber plank remains rested on a surface, painted with a new layer of paint. Steel rods are insterted and placed to face upright. Different coloured thread is then weaved through the rods in very unpredictable patterns. Many of the steel rods have magnets sticking to them through gravitational pull.

A second plank is suspended in the air, the second plank does not receive a new layer of paint. Thread is attched to the top plank and the grid is in line with the steel rods on the bottom grid. Each one of the threads has a magnet tied and glued to it. The magnets move unpredictably as they group themselves in a form I did not intend them to move into.

The fact that the model is constructed of recycled materials, contributes to the idea of working with mostly the existing environment. The magnets were extracted from old speakers, just like coal was extracted from the landscape. The magnets project a new voice, where as the coal allowed for growth.

Two timber panels are used to portray the new versus the old. The old is the existing site, and the washed and ruined ap- pearance of it elaborates the fact that the landscape is used and has many vacant spaces. The magnets linked to the equal cut string indicates that people are separated, but have the potential to regroup their connection through an external intervention. The new panel is painted black and has a grid

that holds steel shafts. Smaller magnets are linked to the top of the shaft. Different co- loured thread is weaved through the steel, indicating the architect’s influence and a form of cultural intervention. The thread is the only element of the touchstone which is not recycled material.

The “old” is suspended in the air and the “new” rests on a platform. Two parties will have to work together to elevate the new and bring it together to the old. Once the old and the new is connected, the vacant spaces are filled. As soon as we separate them, then an exchange between the mem- bers occur. The people of Lephalale have al- ready proven that they can work together in expanding their community in 1974 when the ISCOR mine required to people.

The one thing that has not changed in the town is the ecosystem and how people inter- act with it. There is an abundance of trees all over and these trees are living architectural en- tities where people and animals get to gather. Schools, churches, commuters and artisans still gather under trees for various reasons.

Construction Touchstone

The concept investigates on how architecture can be used as a mediator for the in-between space, pores and the interwoven. Preserving the environment is a challenge in the design process, especially because the site is in abun- dance with trees and has a few ant hills and an- imal nesting spaces. Investigating which trees are allowed to be removed allows for more flexibility in the design. The concept of pores as an architectural realm allows the builder not to harm nature, but to build around it. The site is based in a coal mining town and thus suggests that one can construct beneath the natural ground level and create possible us- able spaces.

On the surface however, we face many ob- stacles identified as trees on site. The build- ing can either avoid the trees, thus allow for in-between spaces or it can allow the trees to develop as part of the structural system. There is always at least one link between the experiences in one person’s story, compared to another. The beginning and ending of ev- ery person’s narrative remains the same, life to death. The tales of Lephalale connects in various ways from start to date. The aim is to locate those in-between spaces where people are connected and how architecture can allow for these in-between spaces.

Another method of constructing around the trees is by building “in the sky”, thus develop-

ing a layer above the trees. Thus, creating a dis- tinct threshold between the natural environ- ment and human made structures.

“People will become animals” just as buildings will form part of nature. Mxn-made structures, ideas and rituals can in one way or another be connected or influenced by the environment they’re in. The art is in how these two worlds unite like when the stereotomic merges into tectonic structures. Thus, the natural environ- ment will adapt according to external influ- ences, therefore people should work with the environment and not against it.

Unveiling the structure (2004: 117).