http://www.guytrangos.com Guy Trangos Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:24:24 +0000 http://www.guytrangos.com en http://www.guytrangos.com/Transition-Exhibition http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/Transition-Exhibition Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:24:24 +0000 Guy Trangos 5013160 In October 2012, Guy was approached by the well known Market Photo Workshop in Newtown Johannesburg, to design and implement their landmark Transition Exhibition. The exhibition, in the well known Bus Factory in Johannesburg, served as the culmination of months of work undertaken by the Market Photo Workshop, Rencontre d'Arles, six prominent South African and six prominent French photographers. The project entitled 'Social Landscapes' was a key part of the France - South Africa Season 2012 and 2013. The major curatorial devise used in the exhibition was a splaying of walls and light in the large warehouse space. Walls supported by cables attached to the industrial frame of the Bus Factory splintered away from each other allowing the visitor the opportunity to see key parts of the large exhibition, and every wall as they enter the space. Narrow strip lighting suspended from the roof structure mirrored the dynamic plan and served to guide the visitor through the exhibition. The photographs were curated in Arles and mounted on the walls with a high-resolution printed wallpaper. These stretches of flat images were complemented by framed photographs. The 100m exhibition runs until the end of March when a major publication documenting the work will become available. Completed in 2012 Social Landscapes Website French - South Africa Seasons Website In October 2012, Guy was approached by the well known Market Photo Workshop in Newtown Johannesburg, to design and implement their landmark Transition Exhibition. ... http://www.guytrangos.com/Article-Let-Us-In http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/Article-Let-Us-In Tue, 19 Feb 2013 01:09:11 +0000 Guy Trangos 5013138 Article published in the Financial Mail, in December 2012, on the socio-spatial challenges facing South African cities: The events of the past year have left many South Africans uncertain about the nation’s future. Phrases such as ‘police massacre’, ‘credit rating agency downgrade’ and ‘failed state’ have slipped into conversations for the first time since the end of apartheid. In light of these significant challenges, particularly with a view to an increasingly murky future, South Africans are questioning how we got here exactly, and why after eighteen years of democracy South Africa’s bright, kaleidoscopic future has been demoted to an over-ambitious dream. An abstract concept not explored by many South Africans regularly holds some answers. Beyond the centimetres between two paintings on a wall, an engine capacity, the size of an en-suite bathroom or an expansive field, ‘Space’, is central to the fractious nature of South African society, and remains at the core of our social, and economic divides. Apartheid’s most pervasive, most obvious and often most subliminal impact on our society today is spatial. While apartheid legislated division, it essentially built itself on a firm foundation of segregation laid by successive colonial and capitalist processes. Towns and cities were planned on racial and socio-economic grounds, mine-workers were housed near the mines, factory workers near the factories and the wealthy far away on large plots, removed from the rough and tumble city. Apartheid drew on these early spatial divisions in society, and enforced them aggressively. Central to the apartheid plan was an anti-urban strategy; a diverse, dense, messy city similar to the likes of New York and London would have been obsessive apartheid’s worst planning nightmare. Separating races, into different, dislocated neighbourhoods, combined with the coring out of the little urbanity we as South Africans had in the nineties, has resulted in largely disconnected, suburban communities burdened with an entrenched culture of exclusion, mistrust and otherness. This dislocation remains visible in a city such as Johannesburg through its sprawling urban appendages, where the likes of Lenasia, Soweto, Orange Farm and the post-apartheid Diepsloot remain largely peripheral to any urban and economic centre, hampering social integration and economic opportunity. Our cities are underpinned by this legacy. Instead of racial divides, socio-economic difference is pervasive, with very little true social mixing occurring. In this sense, an economic apartheid exists in our cities, and despite the fact that spatially we as citizens occupy a more diverse, shared city, this is ineffective without true social overlap, encounter and real public experience. One of the greatest challenges to a truly public society, has been that of private interest, where property value and the individual trump a sense of public good. This urban selfishness is a daily reality in our cities, rooted in a forced historical social, cultural and racial disconnect. In his 2010 book entitled Seeking Spatial Justice, renowned urban theorist Ed Soja described Johannesburg as a ‘polarised cityscape of fortressed urban extremes,’ - an apt description for an often-abrasive city. For example, towering walls festooned with barbed wire do not make integrated communities; aggressive disregard for pedestrians by motorists cannot create a harmonious society, and increased self-exclusion in the form of security and ‘nature’ estates divide society more successfully than apartheid ever managed to achieve, with private security companies and walls to boot, albeit at a socio-economic level. While violence in our society, and an often-ineffective police force are listed as reasons for the fortification of our suburbs, it is perhaps the deep mistrust felt between polar communities that underlies this self-isolation. This socio-economic spatial exclusion and marginalisation has been in the news as its frictions erupt in different incarnations globally. The Occupy movement over the past two years has been staking their claim in public space all over the world, and calling for greater financial transparency together with the relinquishing of global financial power by the fabled top 1%. While the South African Occupy protests were small, large demonstrations such as the mine and vineyard worker’s strikes can be seen in a similar light, as employees demand significant increases from company owners who are often seen as detached and hyper-wealthy. This significant movement doesn’t call for a global rebalancing of financial power, but rather for greater financial control that enables wealth to migrate down the pyramid. Urban Marikanas in the form of often-violent service delivery protests have flared up in South Africa during the last decade too. It is important to note that these occur in places usually on the urban periphery, and come to represent a spatial frustration that is presented through a service delivery argument. In effect, these communities would greatly benefit from being much closer to the economic heart of the city, where even if opportunity isn’t available, its possibility inspires hope. Being spatially located closer to the city, in dense communities allows services to be provided on a far more cost effective basis, where well reasoned installations benefit larger communities, as opposed to small peripheral pockets reliant on significant stretches of piping and cabling. It is up to significant strategic planning on behalf of municipalities to ensure that urban migrants are supported and catered for, inner-city evictions and demolitions here represent the failure of the city to accommodate inevitable inner-city growth, and not the failure of residents to fall within formalised processes. It is useful to question too, why a more public and equal city is important if, as is the case in Johannesburg, the increased privatisation of services seems to make delivery more effective. The answer is quite simple. In order for all South Africans to draw social and economic benefit from living in or near a city they need to be able to freely access the space of the city, its squares, parks, streets and plazas. Should these become more and more privatised as is the case in Johannesburg where malls replace squares, gated communities control roads, and private transport operators replace public options, those without economic and social capital will continue to be increasingly marginalised. An economic division again replaces a legislated apartheid. It is thus without surprise that those sectors of society who continue to be excluded, under serviced and disenfranchised are becoming increasingly frustrated. While capturing an essence of current waves of public discontent, urban solutions are not impossible. A large scale rethinking of what the notion of city in post-apartheid, post-Marikana South Africa is necessary. This implies that the city has to be seen as the domain of all its residents, where neighbourliness and common good needs to replace mistrust and scepticism. The city needs to be seen as a place where everyone is welcome, and where all can apply their trade and benefit from being at an important node in a global network. The city cannot remain the exclusive playpen of the profit hungry developer where cut-price buildings result in a cut-price urban experience for the rest of the population. Looking forward at 2013, it is of pressing urgency that city planners, developers, urban designers, engineers, architects and citizens understand the effect their decisions have on the equality of our society. Before building a solid wall around your house, moving into a secluded security estate, developing a Sandton skyscraper without any form of public realm provision, closing off a road or forcibly removing a hawker, consider the impact these decisions have for our society. The continued spatial marginalisation and isolation of South Africa’s underprivileged majority will further fuel increased public discontent, and very little nation building and city binding can take place in this context. In 2012, sectors of South African society told the rest of the country that the status quo wasn’t good enough, for the first time unions were denied representative rights from members, and large scale strikes shifted into states of anarchy. 2013 should be a year of reflection and urgent action, for very little will be achieved without the spatial divisions of our society being significantly challenged, and our cities working as cohesive communities. Article published in the Financial Mail, in December 2012, on the socio-spatial challenges facing South African cities: The events of the past year have left many... http://www.guytrangos.com/Reflections-and-Opportunities http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/Reflections-and-Opportunities Tue, 08 Jan 2013 08:17:42 +0000 Guy Trangos 3292309 As part of Guy's ongoing involvement in Designing South Africa, he had an important role in assisting with the production of the organisation's latest publication, Reflections and Opportunities: Design, Cities and the World Cup. The book looks at Designing South Africa's major focus from 2009 to 2012, which has been sharing and celebrating South African ingenuity around the World Cup, while remaining critically aware of the event. As the only major report on the World Cup 2010 published so far, Reflections and Opportunities is a landmark piece, with important insight and discussion points contained within. The publication, also published in Portuguese, heralds the start of Designing Brazil, and established a south-south link between the two World Cup host nations, one with experience of the event, the other pushing to deliver it on time. A critical article on three World Cup stadiums written by Guy was included in the book. The book was published by Designing South Africa, edited by Zahira Asmal and launched in 8 cities globally between April and July 2012. Designing South Africa Website As part of Guy's ongoing involvement in Designing South Africa, he had an important role in assisting with the production of the organisation's latest publication,... http://www.guytrangos.com/Dislocated-Suburbia http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/Dislocated-Suburbia Mon, 19 Nov 2012 11:03:25 +0000 Guy Trangos 4189649 The following extract is the introduction to Guy's MSc. City Design and Social Science thesis, which was completed in 2012: Socio-spatial Dislocation Johannesburg is not a polycentric city; rings of development do not neatly expand from a clear, singular centre like those of an ancient oaken tree stump, but the city is ‘poly’ in the sense that a body is made up of multiple organs. Here however, the organs are removed, swapped, some receive life-sustaining fluids, others are left to die. Many disconnect themselves, afraid of the infective bacteria these urban fluids of diversity and a shared public might bring. In understanding Johannesburg, we can prod the suffering body, but, more importantly, we need to examine and operate on the organs themselves. A city deeply dissected by a succession of social, political and economic forces that readily sought to segregate, Johannesburg exists today as one of the most socio- economically and spatially polarised populations on earth. Understanding the ways in which these forces have arranged Johannesburg into zones of urban inclusion and exclusion is key to deciphering what processes should be supported in order for the expanding urban centres of the future to be more fair, equitable and supportive of the needs and rights of their inhabitants. Importantly, the city exists as a dislocated set of varied suburban conditions, without much current relationship to the experientially absent inner-city. In understanding Johannesburg today, and attempting to truly imagine it as an inclusive, absorbing, living, densifying and democratic city that meets the challenges of sustainability, rapid urbanisation, social exclusion and high inequality, the city has to be examined for what it is – a conurbation of varied suburban conditions. Only then can contextually relevant and local design approaches, essential in subverting the rapid encrusting of spatial inequality in the post-apartheid city bridge the chasms that rip across its contested landscape. In exposing the city as a collection of physical and cultural spaces that are truly suburban, postsuburban and at times even anti-urban, the resident, public servant and city designer are afforded very specific and remarkably different contexts within one urban boundary. Understanding and valuing these differences can better assist in the creation of better linked, hybrid zones of multiplicity, where what is often defined as an urban culture – that often associated with social diversity, shared facilities, public expression, and blurred lifestyles – is allowed to play out within local variances and traditions. Reading the city anew requires the development of a specific lexicon developed within a theoretical framework. This sets up a position from which to explore the contemporary context of Johannesburg, followed by an analysis of the key historical forces that actively designed a city of extreme segregation, sprawl, suburbia and later, decentralisation. Next, the city will be placed within a history and theory of the global suburbanisation process. Following this, a grouping of suburban conditions will be established through a socio-spatial mapping process. The physically, mentally and culturally dislocated, sprawling landscapes of Johannesburg will be interpreted, with three suburban groupings forming the basis of a focussed urban and cultural analysis. In concluding, the new design processes this form of reading the city enable, and their potential for alternatives to current city making norms will be examined. ‘What would it mean for Johannesburg to develop a form of urban living that was not simply more affluent and more efficient, but that was also democratic, where democracy here is a question of freedom, of choice, of pleasure? Chipkin 2005: 108). A Framework for Reading Johannesburg In developing a theoretical underpinning to reading Johannesburg today, key terms need to be defined within the specific socio-spatial context established in this paper, which include suburbia, postsuburbia, the city, the inner- city, and the anti-urban. Suburbs are often understood as the ‘non-central city parts of metropolitan areas’ (Hayden 2004: 3). They are typically imagined as sprawling, low rise, low density and residential areas, where manicured gardens, licks of paint and architectural ‘styles’ provide variation within a largely repetitive built form. They are however expansive agglomerations of individual houses, shopping malls and business parks situated beyond the congested energy of the central, urban heart. Suburbs have also become cultural players in their own right, as ‘sites of promises, dreams and fantasies’ (ibid) where the often-derided strip mall, fast food outlet and gigantic billboard become the urban icons of successive generations. References to the suburb here seek to capture this ‘non-central city part’ in the broadest sense possible, defined almost entirely as that which falls outside of traditional urban and industrial centres but remains part of a metropolitan region, including its varied urban forms, societies and cultures. In assessing the evolution of a large portion of suburban conditions in Johannesburg today, the application of the term postsuburbia seems accurate. As elaborated by Soja, ‘postsuburbia’ is an appropriate bedfellow of his ‘postmetropolis’, or his ‘postmodern urbanism’ analogy for the new urbanisms at the turn of the millennium (2000: 239, xiii). The term captures a degree of the suburban condition, that which is more independent, a regionally significant typology, which exists together with the urban core as opposed to because of it, an ‘amorphous metropolis of many centres or possibly no centres’ (Teaford 2011: 16). The city is largely defined as a political construct, that within the municipal boundaries, be it low-rise sprawl, informal settlements or tall, glazed office blocks. This inclusive approach removes the suburban – city dichotomy, and includes the suburban within a notion of the city, while references to the inner-city describe Johannesburg’s old CBD, the area of the city most densely packed with tall buildings on a tight street grid, which skirt the old mining belt. To a certain degree the historical collusion of business and politics in perpetuating a suburban ideal in Johannesburg can have the effect of distinguishing the city’s suburbs as distinctly anti-urban. Economist Edward Glaeser describes the subsidisation of suburbia in the United States, through homeownership, highways and schooling policies, as politically engineering an anti-urban country (2010). Similarly Schensul and Heller describe how private developers dominated the post- apartheid spatial reconfiguration and de-densification of Johannesburg, in a move that saw the decline of the inner- city at the expense of a range of suburban greenfield developments (2011: 81). The anti-urban process as described by Glaeser is thus relevant to Johannesburg, where the office park lakes of the postsuburban emerged as the grey concrete towers of the inner-city emptied. CHIPKIN, I. (2005). The Political Stakes of Academic Research: Perspectives on Johannesburg, in African Studies Review, 48, 2, pg. 87-109 GLAESER, E. (2010). Why the Anti-Urban Bias? (online) www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/ articles/2010/03/05/why_the_anti_urban_bias/ (accessed 7 August 2012) HAYDEN, D. (2004). Building Suburbia, New York: Vintage TEAFORD, J. (2011). Suburbia and Post-Suburbia, A Brief History, in Phelps, N. and Wu, F. (eds.) International Perspectives on Suburbanisation, A Post-Suburban World? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Completed in 2012 as part of the MSc. City Design and Social Science degree at the LSE. The following extract is the introduction to Guy's MSc. City Design and Social Science thesis, which was completed in 2012: Socio-spatial Dislocation Johannesburg... http://www.guytrangos.com/Resilient-Cities http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/Resilient-Cities Wed, 03 Oct 2012 09:00:36 +0000 Guy Trangos 4189831 For five months in 2012, Guy worked as a researcher at LSE Cities. This ended with his return to Johannesburg, at the end of his studies. The project he was involved in was named Resilient Cities, and it examined key international case study cities, interrogating how factors such as urban governance, urban form, population and economic factors can combine to ensure some city districts weather urban change, global crises and economic challenges, while others evolve completely. Guy was directly involved in the urban form component of the research, and this involved a historical and modern-day analysis of the district-in-question's built environment, its proportions, heights and widths. The work is expected to be published in the next several months. For five months in 2012, Guy worked as a researcher at LSE Cities. This ended with his return to Johannesburg, at the end of his studies. The project he was... http://www.guytrangos.com/Gwangju-ICC http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/Gwangju-ICC Wed, 03 Oct 2012 08:40:53 +0000 Guy Trangos 4189724 In 2011 Guy was selected to attend the 2011 Gwangju International Curator Course in South Korea. The course ran for the month of August, just before the start of the Gwangju Design Biennale in September. Every year, around 20 participants are chosen to take part in this important course, with applicants and attendees from all over the world. The 2011 course was led by Ute Meta Bauer, and her insight combined with the Biennale's concept of Design is Design is not Design, enabled a stimulating exchange and debate. A tangible outcome of the course was a group work dimension, which saw a number of small groups of students interrogate the Gwangju art scheme, its artists and funding mechanisms, while trying to find ways of creating a space of a lively art and design debate within the urban community - all with important international ramifications. Completed in 2011 as part of the Gwangju International Curator Course administered by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation. In 2011 Guy was selected to attend the 2011 Gwangju International Curator Course in South Korea. The course ran for the month of August, just before the start of... http://www.guytrangos.com/Ahmedabad-Research http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/Ahmedabad-Research Wed, 03 Oct 2012 08:05:58 +0000 Guy Trangos 4189640 During March 2012, the 2011/12 MSc. City Design and Social Science students at the LSE embarked on their annual research trip. This year the students spent a week in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India. The focus of the groups research was a river upgrade scheme, and its effect on surrounding communities. This is an extract, written by Guy for the LSE Cities website, which outlines the trip: At the end of March 2012, the LSE's MSc City Design and Social Science students spent a whirlwind week in rapidly expanding Ahmedabad - India's seventh largest city. After landing in the city, and adjusting to the close on 30 degree temperature change, we set about trying to get to know and understand Ahmedabad, a metropolis that thrives on complex informal networks and exchanges. Our programme was organised by CEPT University, a leading design-oriented university with an incredibly open attitude and campus, with students who proved to be knowledgeable guides with sharp minds, kind spirits and nimble motorbike skills. The programme consisted of visits to important Ahmedabad sites including the very public and architecturally intriguing Sarkej Roza, the introspective Gandhi Ashram designed by Charles Correa (image right by Jorge Martin), Le Corbusier's iconic Mill Owners Association building and the highly detailed yet very solemn Adalaj Step Well. The main focus of the visit was the Sabarmati Riverfront Development, an ambitious infrastructure project that has already seen over 11.25km of concrete embankment built on both sides of Ahmedabad's main river. The development includes a large-scale sewer system along the river, two tiers of promenade, new bridges and the reclamation of around 158ha of land that will be developed into public open space, with 20% earmarked for institutions and private developers. The project is contentious in Ahmedabad, mainly due to the lack of a broad based, public-participation process and a disastrous relocation process, which has sought to displace the residents of informal settlements on the riverfront. The balanced programme curated by CEPT exposed us and our CEPT colleagues to both sides of the riverfront debate. Proponents such as Bimal Patel, the project's architect, argued that the new riverfront was essential for a future Ahmedabad actively competing with other global cities for investment, and thus a centre modelled on the likes of London, Paris or Singapore was necessary. Opponents such as CEPT academic Renu Desai, argued that the riverfront ruined the pragmatic relationship between city residents and the river, that it denied the rights of informal settlement dwellers to live on the river and might not, on completion, be an inclusionary public belt, available to all. The debate was rich, and highly relevant in a world where developing economies are expanding at such a rate,so much so that countries forget what makes them significant and different in a sea of homogeneity. We visited the project multiple times, documenting its relationship with the surrounding community, and marvelling at the significant paradoxes the riverfront development presented, while attempting to understand the need for investment and large-scale infrastructural improvement. After working in groups with CEPT students for part of the week, our better-framed analysis formed the basis of city design briefs that explored ways of potentially intervening or improving on either an aspect of or the whole project. Ahmedabad was an electric experience, from high-energy auto-rickshaw races, to swirling dust clouds, Rajasthani dancing, roadside chai, decadent dhal feasts, cool morning breezes and challenging debates. The LSE group grew stronger, and the bond with our CEPT friends, closer. The opportunity to engage with a city, and project which sits so precariously at the front of economic versus social development debates in rapidly expanding, developing city contexts was invaluable to all of us. Completed in 2012 as part of the MSc. City Design and Social Science degree at the LSE. During March 2012, the 2011/12 MSc. City Design and Social Science students at the LSE embarked on their annual research trip. This year the students spent a week... http://www.guytrangos.com/Article-Robbrecht-and-Daem http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/Article-Robbrecht-and-Daem Wed, 03 Oct 2012 07:45:23 +0000 Guy Trangos 4189510 Article published in the Mail and Guardian, in May 2011, on the Robbrecht and Daem exhibition at Arts on Main in Johannesburg: The Cities Alliance predicts that the urban population of sub-Saharan Africa will double in the next 20 years. This means that as more and more people move to urban centres in search of better lives and opportunities the region is facing a future of rapidly changing cities, and the roles of the city planner and architect—as the urban visionaries—will become more important. A fundamental question arises: can South African architects and developers continue to roll out buildings that do not relate to their surroundings, the greater population and the environment and still create better cities? Their recent track record is not promising — bleak Gautrain façades, blank hotel buildings and fenced corporate enclaves have all recently sprung up across Gauteng. Instead of improving cities with a considered and respectful approach, a brash architecture of insular buildings is perpetuated. The city is worse off and South Africa’s architectural culture remains undeniably insipid. Given this context an exhibition of the work of the Flemish couple, Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem, was particularly topical and was received with great enthusiasm when it opened in March. The exhibition, Robbrecht en Daem—Pacing through Architecture, curated by Iwan Strauven and Stefan Devoldere, was brought to Johannesburg by architect and Wits academic Hannah le Roux. The duo’s approach to architecture represents an anti­thesis to the developer-driven marble-clad office parks we have become so accustomed to, producing instead an architecture of simplicity, sensitivity and humility. The exhibition, held at Arts on Main in downtown Johannesburg, was presented in a darkened space where conceptual drawings, paintings and sketches of Robbrecht and Daem’s buildings were displayed on low tables—an accessible curatorial technique, drawing the visitor into the firm’s design process. Visitors were able to sit on stools designed for the Johannesburg exhibition by Robbrecht. Low-hanging spotlights illuminated the work and large screens displayed videos by dance filmmaker Maarten Vanden Abeele of inhabited, significant Robbrecht and Daem buildings. Politically accountable, culturally embedded The work demonstrated their main influences—tradition, simplicity, rhythm, geometric ordering, proportion and art. All represented an architecture that reflects local values and buildings that, to quote Le Roux, are “politically accountable, culturally embedded and socially and environmentally sustainable”. Notable Robbrecht and Daem buildings on show at the exhibition included the Bruges Concert Hall and the Boston Bird Hide. The first is a faceted brick building ­—grand and angular ­—which fills a void left by the moving of a train station from the edge of Bruges’s renowned medieval centre. It reflects hard infrastructure rather than the fussy ornamentation that one associates with a concert hall. Its plain façades, large volumes and highly flexible interior configurations all form a backdrop to the building’s greatest achievement—the ease with which people can use the building. In contrast, the Boston Bird Hide is an ephemeral, rural building at the edge of a forest, which is on a cycling path that crosses England. The hide is clad in tall, repetitive timber slats, disguising the light building against the forest. The slats are painted in hues and tones that reflect the colour of birds endemic to the area. Both buildings respond directly to their environments, the first being hard, heavy and urban, whereas the second is integrated gently with the forest and its colours. Both not only key into their contexts beautifully but also enhance them poetically. Robbrecht and Daem’s success is also in part owed to a close working relationship between architects and local government in what is known as the Flemish bouwmeester process. The bouwmeester, essentially a government architect, is available to advise local municipalities on buildings and to work with architects. The office organises architectural competitions for new municipal projects and helps select the best possible solution. Architects are paid their full fees by the government. More and more infrastructure As South Africa continues to experience significant urbanisation, more must be invested in the provision of amenable public buildings and spaces to enhance the lives of residents. Current lapses in adequate service delivery by the government are as much a failure to plan contained, dense cities as they are organisational, creating sprawling cities that require more and more infrastructure. The exhibition was accompanied by a workshop on how South Africa can facilitate the building of better buildings. Linda Mampuru from public works, Zahira Asmal from Designing South Africa and other key built environment role players opened a conversation about the procurement of public buildings and how more opportunities for architects and local municipalities could be created through the implementation of a system similar to that of the bouwmeester. Architecture, after all, creates a city, provides it with an identity, a sense of place, orientation and physicality. It is only through a similar, considered architectural approach that South Africa will be able to create more sustainable, better serviced and well-managed cities. Article published in the Mail and Guardian, in May 2011, on the Robbrecht and Daem exhibition at Arts on Main in Johannesburg: The Cities Alliance predicts that... http://www.guytrangos.com/BRT-Artwork http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/BRT-Artwork Thu, 31 May 2012 14:16:28 +0000 Guy Trangos 3292300 As part of the on going roll out of Johannesburg's BRT system across the city, artists have been asked to submit artwork proposals for the glass and steel surfaces of the stations. In 2012, Guy Trangoš's submission entitled 'Joburg Dreaming' was chosen to be included on a station. The 2m high, and 6m long work was inspired by a divergent thinking process on the city. It is an abstract swirling of patterns and icons, all combined in a singular rhythm. In a sense this captures the pulsing flow of the city, its contrast and diversity. Important to the work is its multiple view-points, the commuter is literally in it, while the city at large looks at it from a distance. A scalar play in the work was thus important. The artwork should be implemented during 2012. As part of the on going roll out of Johannesburg's BRT system across the city, artists have been asked to submit artwork proposals for the glass and steel surfaces... http://www.guytrangos.com/City-Living http://www.guytrangos.com/following/guytrangos.com/City-Living Thu, 31 May 2012 14:16:23 +0000 Guy Trangos 3292412 Through an in-depth analysis of the financial crisis, the occupy protests, and the meaning of public space in the City of London, a new City was imagined by the project. This design-based research project formed the core design component of the MSc City Design and Social Science, at the LSE. This extract is from the final submission's introduction: "We arrived to a city strained by economic recession, unhinged by a wave of riots, and occupied by demands for alternatives to austerity. In the late summer and autumn of 2011, the public presented a series of challenges to ‘business as usual.’ On August 6th, the protest against the police killing of a young black man in outer London escalated into attacks on businesses and public infrastructure that ignited five days of riots across London and the UK (Guardian and the London School of Economics, 2011). On the morning of October 15th, protesters aligned with the global Occupy Movement stormed the London Stock Exchange - a symbolic heart of the local and global financial sector (Occupy LSX, 2011). Forced by police to retreat, protesters established a makeshift tent city along the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, where they set up temporary residences, educational programmes and political working groups (ibid). Similar scenes unfolded in over 2,500 cities around the world, where the ad-hoc public city embedded itself in the crevices of the business city (Occupy Together, 2011). In London, Occupy Camps appropriated pavements, parks and vacant office buildings near the very institutions they deemed accountable for job losses, home evictions, and widening income disparities. Converting 8-hour business districts into palpable public sites of 24-7 civic performance, London’s camps spatialised democratic ideals in the everyday non-spaces typically occupied by hurried commuters and symbols of corporate power. The City of London - a leading global business enclave with a dedicated police force and a small resident population of 8,000 - has responded to recent events with increased securitisation, legal action, and unyielding historic ceremony. During the 5 days of riots, the City’s private alert system broadcasted over 100,000 messages to businesses and residents, advising them on how to respond to the events (Vocal, 2011). Although no rioting occurred within the City’s boundaries, companies urged employees to avoid public transportation and to work from home, bank branches and retailers closed to the public, and the City’s police force remained on emergency alert (City of London Police, n.d.). Despite the presence of the Occupy camp at St. Paul’s, the Lord Mayor’s parade held to the same 785-year-old route through the City, promenading livery companies, military bands and police teams past the protesters. In February 2012, the Corporation of the City of London secured the legal right to evict the St. Paul’s camp, winning a court case on the premise that the 24-7 presence of protesters obstructed businesses and threatened ‘public health and safety’ (Davies, 2012). The context of the current financial crisis has intensified pressure on the public realm to mediate between different actors vying to assert political rights, economic claims, and social expression. Although the August riots and the Occupy movement emerged from distinct socio-economic and political conditions, they both illustrate how the control of public space becomes an increasingly valuable asset in a time of crisis. Sociologist Craig Calhoun extends the implications of the 2008 financial crisis beyond the market, positing that ‘the crisis does not just belong to the financial rating agencies, Goldman Sachs, or other corporations. It belongs to culture and society’ (Bregtje van der Kaak, 2011). Architect Laura Burkhalter and sociologist Manuel Castells frame the financial crisis as a failure of both neoliberal market systems and their translations into urban form, declaring that the ‘bankruptcy of the economic and spatial model’ should be addressed equally through urban design and political reforms (Burkhalter and Castells, 2009: 24). These multi-disciplinary frameworks for reading economic systems as integral to the design and lived experience of the public realm have shaped our conceptualisation of the financial crisis as a city design problem. We have arrived at a global moment in which economic enclaves of exclusion are being challenged in cities around the world. And we begin our investigation of the ‘public city’ in the City of London at this moment of crisis and contradiction: when banks rely on public bailouts as public institutions experience funding cuts, when businesses have more votes than residents and women are restricted from participating in certain political processes (Fig. 4), when public demonstrations are treated as security threats and public security is outsourced to private companies (Vocal, 2011). In this context, we ask what is the ‘public city’ and what role can it play to address urban inequality? We propose the creation of a more public City of London, in which productivity stems from diversity and intensity, and public spaces facilitate inclusion and opportunity. The City of London is unique, yet it is also kin to a global family of urban business districts. It offers an opportunity to question the efficiency of urban terrain ruled by private interests and to reconceptualise the ‘business as usual’ city as a true public city for the 21st century." Completed in 2012 as part of the MSc City Design and Social Science degree at the LSE. With Ilana Adleson, Sharifa Alshalfan, Nicolas Palominos and Adriana Young. LSE Studio Publication Chapter Link Through an in-depth analysis of the financial crisis, the occupy protests, and the meaning of public space in the City of London, a new City was imagined by the...