March 8, 2010
ON VIEW: all the glitters is not gold
Location: Harvard GSD, Gund Hall Lobby
Dates: 3/7-13
Authors: Dorothy Tang & Andrew Watkins
Funded by the Penny White Award
Over the last century, the extraction of gold in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni has created a constantly shifting landscape. Regional urban form is tied to global gold prices, mining, and waste. Deep shaft mining has actively altered the topography, hydrology, and ecosystems of the 80 km mining belt that traverses the two municipalities. In the 1970s, the decline of the mining industry set the state for informal settlements to occupy former mining lands. The degraded environmental conditions are major obstacles for these communities to improve their livelihood. Now, with the advances in technology and rising gold prices, mining has been reactivated and massive topographical and hydrological operations are set in motion once again. Our research documents the physical and invisible infrastructures that support informal settlements and gold mining as a means to reveal opportunities for collaboration and future growth in both constituencies.
Enjoy some images from the exhibit! Drawings will be posted the next time around.
March 1, 2010
Sneak Preview
My thesis research travel was funded by a Penny White Award, and the required presentation/exhibition is coming up! Drew and I have been working hard to get the materials together, and we finally sent our first LARGE board to print today. The board consists of a series of axons/diagrams that illustrate the physical, social, and economic landscape of the mining belt in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. It was pretty challenging to diagram all these different factors accross a 100-km strip, but I'm hopeful that they drawings will be well received.
The remainder of the drawings will attempt to document processes that we observed while in South Africa, and you'll have to come check out the actual exhibit at the GSD from 3/7-13 on the student wall! I will post the all the final drawings after the exhibit, but it's much more fun to see them in person!
February 24, 2010
Hello World...
Why is this called "Digging for Gold"? Perhaps because the process for this thesis project so far has felt like I've been digging for gold in a nearly impossible way. Let me back up for a little bit. This is a blog about my thesis project titled "Cities of Gold" which examines the agency of landscape in the context of gold mining and informal settlements in Johannesburg. The premise of this design investigation is to find synergies between the gold mining industries and informal settlements that are mutually beneficial, AND it has to be landscape based. All this to result in a design project by mid-May.
Digging for Gold--it seems to be a metaphor for the ambitions of the design project itself. Many economists, most notably Hernando De Soto, have argued that informal settlements should not be seen as a liability, but an opportunity for economic development. That business, governments, and other financial institutions should consider informal settlements as potential resources, not just because of their large numbers (1 in 6 people in the world live in slums according to UN-HABITAT), but also because the shack/self-built house or whatever dwelling squatters live in should be considered an investment on their part and represent potential consumer power.
Needless to say, this approach has been highly criticized, and since I am not an economist, I will not attempt to address financial or policy issues (I'm just a landscape architect), but to consider whether or not there are hidden resources within informal settlements that might be an asset to their city or other industries. Perhaps a new type of symbiotic relationships can be forged through the design of the physical environment and start to shape the modes of production and survival mechanisms of the city itself.
Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni have been fascinating case studies, not just because about 25% of their population live in informal settlements, but also because of how the gold mining industry has played such a dominant role in the physical form of the region. Gold mining has LITERALLY changed the landscape, and continues to actively shape its topography and character.
I have some thoughts about where the project is going, but I'm going to save that for another post. My advisor says I should try to summarize my project every two days verbally to distill my thoughts and keep focused. Hopefully I will be disciplined enough to do so.
If you're interested in what I've been working in since last Fall, read my thesis prep document to catchup!
Digging for Gold--it seems to be a metaphor for the ambitions of the design project itself. Many economists, most notably Hernando De Soto, have argued that informal settlements should not be seen as a liability, but an opportunity for economic development. That business, governments, and other financial institutions should consider informal settlements as potential resources, not just because of their large numbers (1 in 6 people in the world live in slums according to UN-HABITAT), but also because the shack/self-built house or whatever dwelling squatters live in should be considered an investment on their part and represent potential consumer power.
Needless to say, this approach has been highly criticized, and since I am not an economist, I will not attempt to address financial or policy issues (I'm just a landscape architect), but to consider whether or not there are hidden resources within informal settlements that might be an asset to their city or other industries. Perhaps a new type of symbiotic relationships can be forged through the design of the physical environment and start to shape the modes of production and survival mechanisms of the city itself.
Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni have been fascinating case studies, not just because about 25% of their population live in informal settlements, but also because of how the gold mining industry has played such a dominant role in the physical form of the region. Gold mining has LITERALLY changed the landscape, and continues to actively shape its topography and character.
I have some thoughts about where the project is going, but I'm going to save that for another post. My advisor says I should try to summarize my project every two days verbally to distill my thoughts and keep focused. Hopefully I will be disciplined enough to do so.
If you're interested in what I've been working in since last Fall, read my thesis prep document to catchup!
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