Getting Started
The research group was made up of five students from various Universities in South Africa and hosted at Arts on Main in the Johannesburg central business district.
The video below is the summary of the process and the work followed by the explanation in more detail
Convertible Cities 2010
Upon receiving the brief from Ivan the students studied the map of Johannesburg's CBD and decided, based on their proximity to Arts on Main and main life, that they would use choose a site within walking distance. Their intention being to choose a context that would have the energies required to fulfill a diverse mapping process.
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| Mapping Troye Street |
The Site
The students chose the route from Park Central Taxi Rank to Commissioner Street's BRT stop along Troye street as the group decided they would explore the connectivity of people in the CBD and resolve the brief from that standpoint.
The students chose the route from Park Central Taxi Rank to Commissioner Street's BRT stop along Troye street as the group decided they would explore the connectivity of people in the CBD and resolve the brief from that standpoint.
After a brief mapping exercise the group set to work, depicting the mapping process onto their framework that they had laid out before hand. The intention was to express their experience's through the CBD via the mapping and try convey what they felt and saw along the route.
Initial Concept
From these concept diagram the group proposed various interventions, agreeing that through connectivity they could increase the social cohesion of the urban city dwellers through incentive based game player scenarios at various points.
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| Concept Model - Social Interaction |
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| Concept Diagram - Incentive Nodes |
Giving the name to the system: SACCS - Campus of Life
Themes
The themes that governed the program were based on the notion of the contrast of the CBD contrasting to the rest of JHB as playground of pleasure versus a playground of survival with the CBD context being the location of the survival.
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| Playground of Pleasure |
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| Playground of Survival |
Through this analogy the group sought to 'convert the city' through breaking down the barriers of education by integrating the people of the city into a connected social group, who together can strive to a more educated and cohesive society themselves.
Program
The idea being that the people involved in their day to lives could participate at various nodes to work together at these points to gain credits in the form of either transport tokens, food tokens or access into beginner level course at various tertiary education systems in the CBD.
These points would be enhanced by the opening up of the ground floors of various building increasing the shop frontage that shops have and providing more opportunities through the movements of people.
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| FNB Faculty of Business |
These tertiary systems would be sponsored by the building who host the game players points on their ground level. i.e the FNB faculty of business, hosting a multi-player incentive point whereby users who take part and complete a series of business related questions together in a certain time would gain education credits to allow them access into the system.
Or the Pick 'n Pay transport node where users who clean the bus stop would be given food tokens and so on.
The methods of linking these points of interactivity would be done via cell phones, CCTV digital displays and other digital media. These would then supplement other campus activities such as the fashion schools who display their designs on ramps found on top of the BRT stops and displayed throughout the CBD via CCTV.
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| BRT Cat Walk with CCTV Link |
Other faculty points would be retrofits of existing buildings such as the Drill Hall, where the Arts Faculty would open up to the youth in the area and provide a space for expression of art and display student work.
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| Drill Hall Art Faculty |
Presentation
These interventions were marked out on key points on the framework, with the entire display creating a sensual display of the barriers and debris that a typical city dweller deals with on a daily basis.
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| Final Presentation |
