ISTP Colloquium: Counteracting Shifting Baselines

Abstract

The use of public space, informal trade, the taxi industry and informal settlements are direct responses to a segregated landscape and structural challenges in South Africa's young democracy. Informality plays a role in crossing the barriers constructed through colonial and Apartheid planning but is also a result of rural-​urban migration. Adequate responses to city-​making or the production of inclusive environments cannot be generated by one discipline or theoretical framework alone.

Engaging with the dynamic forces of the formal and informal in Johannesburg, the work of 26’10 south Architects is embedded in a unique mode of thinking that has led to intertwining theory and practice, the co-​production of knowledge through actively engaging citizens and capacity building through academic studios. Evidence based research on the social, transformative capacity of the built environment and questions on the functional and qualitative impact of urban interventions, negotiate design-​ambition within limited project budgets and the interrogation of policy and government agendas as multiple baselines from which to actively impact complex urbanities.