Bridging the divide: an alternate method of learning

• Main Author: Pillay, Taswald
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: School buildings - South Africa - Zandspruit - Design and construction; Community centers - South Africa - Zandspruit - Design and construction; Squatter settlements - Social aspects - South Africa; Architecture and society - South Africa
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/8842

M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) === This dissertation investigates the establishment of a learning centre in Zandspruit, an informal settlement that is located on the northwest periphery of Johannesburg, South Africa. This study investigates an alternate method of learning as a learning culture, as an alternative to that of closed school campuses. The learning culture provides the community with an architectural space that acts as a platform for open-ended learning and engagement. The architectural intervention proposed here is thus a response to the existing context, addressing education and spatial-social disintegration. The intervention is not an attempt at replicating existing typologies or even the tentative placement of a centre for utopian societal and educational ideals. Rather, it constitutes a radical approach, seen as necessary to achieving social development, acting as a catalyst for social cohesion and spatial synthesis. Existing modes of operation, advances in education through technology, as well as other pertinent networks and connections, are considered in the approach to designing a public interface, which attempts to suggest possible remedies to the difficulties endemic to the context. Further to this, this dissertation suggests how the adaptability of learning spaces can be achieved by addressing time, space, event and programme as concepts for incremental growth leading to the changing needs of a South African learning society.