African Design Magazine ADM #39 April 2018 | Page 49

AZA18
a stage set for a next city that is
neither utopian nor dystopian, but
rooted in an African urban reality.
The final result will be a big model
that shows a thriving urbanity with
architecture as both stage and
backdrop. In short: a theatre of life.
‘The 495 CITY’ Masterclass
presenterThorsten Deckler
is thrilled at the opportunity to
work on a very defined urban
challenge together with students
and experienced architects like
Sameep Padora and Peter Barber.
We have designed a tight brief in
which there is lots of room for the
imagination of participants. I also
look forward to the discussions
which inevitably ensue in the
process. It is very important for
architects to, every now and then,
test ideas, to kick them around
with different people and to try
something out. There is huge
potential for transformative
learning.
The 495 City is a development
concept which 26’10 south
Architects are currently working on.
It speculates on the re-building of
Johannesburg’s first-ring suburbs,
from predominantly single storey
into high-intensity neighbourhoods
that offer a range of ownership
and accommodation options
for ordinary people. Using base
information prepared by 26’10,
participants wil l design and build
Sameep Padora, keynote
speaker and ‘The 495 CITY’
masterclass presenter says
that having done some amount of
research and design work on the
subject of affordable housing, he
was attracted to the synergy with
the Masterclass. “Though my work
has been in a completely different
context, specifically in India, the
challenges of affordable housing
are slowly converging into patterns
that seem to recur globally. So
while specifics of these contexts
seem to vary, their meta-narratives
are beginning to appear contiguous
despite the geographic distance.
I was interested to see through
the aegis of the Masterclass both
the similarities within the meta
narratives as wells as the variances
of context specificity.  
The formal mechanisms of the
state that operate within the city of
Mumbai, define the city in binaries
of formal and informal. “Even a
cursory dive into Mumbai’s fabric
clearly points to interdependencies
between the two extremes, so
much so that there is an entire
city within the city that escapes
the broad classifications of its
AFRICAN DESIGN MAGAZINE © | APRIL 2018
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