Human Settlements Review - Parliamentary Monitoring Group

Human Settlements Review, Volume 1, Number 1, 2010
the post colony. His insight has particular
relevance in the realm of architecture and
spatial practice. Colonisation conditions a
cultural genocide that effectively eradicates
most indigenous practices, rendering
communities ‘speechless’ and unable to act.
This disruption of tradition and the established
approaches to the conditions that inform
everyday lives of communities is most obvious
in the spoken and written word. It is, however,
somehow less obvious in the constructed
world of human settlement where modernity
seems to inevitably take command. The RDP
house, as a solution to shelter in South Africa,
is exemplary of this condition. Not only does
its autonomy fly in the face of the collective
spatial structure that is emblematic of ubuntu,
but perhaps more so, it is in the massification
of the means of its production that we
dehumanise dwelling.
The contemporary task of architecture in
a developing environment such as Africa
demands an alternative approach to the design
of the built environment. The norm of ‘topdown’
utilitarian and economic approaches that
are prevalent in developed countries tend to sit
uncomfortably within African contexts. Local
practices and communities have been largely
marginalised from modern modes of material
production and consumption. In his publication
‘Modernity at Large’ the post colonial theorist
Arjan Appadurai [1996] identifies this condition
and establishes a coherent argument for the
‘production of localities’. Opposing the scaler
and spatial dimensions of material culture,
he proposes the elevation of complex coaxial
interrelations between the imperative of
the socius, technological interactions and the
relativity that constitutes any context. At one
level this may seem to imply a fundamentally
different attitude to the structuring of human
existence, however, when otherwise examined
it could be interpreted as a plea for a return to
origins, to a condition where inclusive human
relations prefigured the making of ‘architectural
form’.
Since the emergence of South Africa’s
democratic independence in the early 1990’s,
there have been many policy attempts to
redress the legacies of colonialism and
apartheid . Needless to say we have not
succeeded in either quantity nor in quality of
delivery in the built environment. Whilst we
enjoy a rich policy domain we lag in delivery
on the ground. Socio-economic empowerment
underlay’s government’s ideology of
transformation yet the predominant modes
of architectural production are still dominated
by market principles. These protect formal
practices and establish barriers to inclusivity,
marginalising the participation of the poor.
The role of design in prefiguring inclusivity
can maximise opportunity for more horizontal
relations that promote direct involvement of
the poor and marginalised. Design through
participatory practice in its broadest meaning
can revolutionise housing, education and
health programs affording direct socioeconomic
opportunity for communities.
Initially the project had established a utilitarian
approach to implementation. Directly
translating MoE norms, a 50m 2 classroom
unit built from concrete blocks with corrugated
sheet iron was proposed. Its construction and
appearance drew on the common utilitarian
solutions that were prevalent in the region at
the time. Lacking in any design consideration,
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