Mvezo

Mvezo is the birthplace of Nelson Mandela. An astonishing beautiful landscape in the remote and rural Eastern Cape.

We are very happy to accept an appointment to project manage the development of an interpretive centre overlooking the Mbashe River.

Think Local and create jobs.

(I wrote this article for Port Elizabeth's daily newspaper, The Herald, it first appeared there on 20 June 2011)

The other day I went to watch our local rugby team play at our local stadium. Some local friends and I have taken a suite at the stadium to support the local economy. So, there I was, drinking some local beer and having a good time. At half time we were brought a meal to help soak up some of the alcohol. After complimenting the waitress on the meal, I was horrified as she explained that the Thai Chicken dinner had in fact been pre-cooked in Cape Town and brought in by truck up the N2 that morning. Come On! Could this be?

This meal was creating employment for someone in a Cape Town factory kitchen? What are we thinking? No, I am not picking on the stadium management. I am sure they are doing a great job. I am picking on us, all of us who live here and who need to develop an awareness that we need to support and grow our local economy. This is where jobs and poverty reduction will come from. It is unfashionable to say this I know, but we must come to see that it is more urgent for us to take action against poverty than against global warming. We must come to see that is more urgent for us to address the local economy than to address Rhino poaching. If we allow this poverty time bomb to explode, it will take out every Rhino, every Elephant, every forest and everything that this country has built up over the centuries. It’s urgent!

I had forgotten about my Cape Town cooked rugby meal by the time the May 18 local government elections came around. But, as I listened to the campaigning, I was struck by how few ideas at all were put forward about issues impacting on the local economy. All I got was a lot of hype about killing Boers, media bias, open toilets and police brutality.

I heard no-one, contesting these elections, articulate any understanding of the challenges facing the local economy. This is odd, because local government can and should play a pivotal role in leading us out of poverty and joblessness. We must, of course, be informed by policy developed at a national or provincial level, but our strategy and tactics need to be made completely relevant to the local economy. It is not clear to me from anything I have heard from local government, what our strategy and tactics are. It seems though, that we have developed the idea that we need “outside investment” or an “export programme” to get our local economy to work. We seem to believe that we need GM to get deals that see’s it export more Hummers to Kazakhstan, or that we need to build an IDZ so we can export Aluminium to Argentinean cooldrink can fabricators! We have come to think that we will be rescued by big investment from “outside”. We believe that somehow these actions will make the poor less poor. I am sorry to say, our thinking is mistaken. In order for us to reduce poverty and create jobs, we desperately need to focus on not only on getting new money to come in, but also on how we ensure that he money that is generated here remains for as long as possible. We must work to ensure that money circulates locally as many times as possible before it vanishes to the coffers of transnational corporations in Johannesburg, Hong Kong or London. This is the challenge that our small city is facing. It is not the same as the challenges that Cape Town, Durban or Dubai are faced with. It is our own challenge. It is a distinctly local challenge and in desperate need of local thinking and local leadership.

Each of you reading this will know how in your homes and in your jobs illogical purchasing decisions are being made all the time. As transnational corporations work harder and harder to expand their global reach, we find ourselves making more and more stupid decisions. We buy Irish butter , we get our takeaway from an American hamburger chain, our cars, even those made in the metro, are in some way part of a scheme to enrich a German or Japanese corporation. We watch foreign TV. We listen to American music. Every time we purchase from these transnational corporations we are taking away from the local economy, we take away from local culture, we damage the environment through waist, emissions and packaging. But what can we do?

Perhaps the first step we must all take is to help each other understand that “localisation” (not Globalisation) of the economy is: Good for the environment, Good for job creation, Good for quality, Good for well-being. Maybe the second step could be to build consciousness through our purchasing decisions. We could buy milk from a local dairy. We could support local restaurants (avoid the chains) We could switch off the TV, watch Bay United or the EP Kings at our local stadiums. We could catch a show at the Opera House. We could buy our food at a farmer’s market. We could start a farmers market! We could grow our own food. We could sell our own food. ….I don’t know. There must be a million things we can do to localise our economy. Let’s choose one, and do it today. It’s Urgent.

A New Revolution

This Article first Appeared in the Eastern Province Herald on 7 March 2011.

Mohatma Ghandi, lead a productivity Revolution from the front, by example

President Zuma, in his State of the Nation Address explains that continued and increasingly frequent, service delivery protests are an “expression of people’s frustration at the slow pace of delivery of Municipal Services”. I am no longer sure that is all that these protests are about. It is very hard to believe that the people of Ermelo, Kwazakhele and Vosloorus are really so cross about faulty street lights, potholed roads or broken manhole covers. Does it not seem more likely that these people are angry because they are still poor, still jobless and still hungry after seventeen years of democracy? Our President prefers to avoid the unfortunate truth that poverty and joblessness are not really the fault of an inept mayor or a lazy ward councillor. In fact, poverty, it is not really a local government failure at all, but rather a much more serious, fundamental national policy failure. A failure that was born in apartheid times, but now lies at the door of the presidency and with cabinet. It is convenient, perhaps to blame local government as the “fumbling, parochial, country bumpkins”, that just don’t get what “we at National” are trying to do. But it seems unlikely that this argument will stick for very much longer.

Moeletsi Mbeki believes this growing discontent will lead to a revolutionary overthrow of the government within the next ten years. I hope that he is wrong. We have a functional, constitutional democracy that allows for orderly change of government though the ballot. We should make use of it.

What I rather argue is necessary in South Africa, is a new, defiant, revolutionary approach.  Similar, in some way, to the spontaneous, revolutionary defiance that we witnessed in the streets of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Similar to the defiance we experienced in South Africa in the seventies and eighties. But, not the political defiance which was visible to all and which made headlines every day. If we look deeper than the political defiance of South Africans during that time, we see a less reported; less understood economic and commercial defiance.  A defiance that is perhaps more interesting than the political defiance. In the seventies and eighties the poor, marginalised and the underclass set up many, many businesses, against huge odds and in contravention of the law. From humble beginnings, the poor established a multi-billion rand taxi industry with revenues to match JSE listed companies. The poor and oppressed set up a network of taverns, shebeens and spaza’s, with a national spread and convenience appeal to rival the most sophisticated food and beverage operations. The underclasses established a Professional Soccer League with attendance, viewership and advertising revenues to rival competing global sports and leisure operations. This defiant, spontaneous business revolution was almost completely overshadowed by South Africa’s political defiance.

This is the revolution that Mahatma Ghandi spoke about when he insisted all Indians spin their own cotton, thus closing down imports from Manchester. This is the revolution that Ghandi lead where ordinary Indian citizens harvested their own salt in defiance of British law. Ghandi inspired a revolution, where he led from the front and by example. Spinning his quota of cotton every day and marching 288 kilometres to “illegally” make salt at the coast. Ghandi’s approach was however, very dissimilar to the top down, central planning “productivity revolutions” of Moa Tzedung’s Great Leap Forward or Julius Nyerere’s “Ujaama”. Ghandi inspires a revolution of small business, defiantly capturing the market. Street by street. Sector by sector.

 

In South Africa this defiant, spontaneous revolution began to develop momentum in the seventies and eighties, but it never grew into its full form. I never came full circle. It seems, sadly, to have been halted, or significantly slowed, with the advent of democracy in 1994. Our defiance, in this country, has rather become characterised by things that we refuse to do and not by things that we do in fact do. “We refuse to teach the children!” “We refuse vacate the homes we have invaded?”” We refuse to be governed by the North West province!”” We refuse to tolerate these “aliens” steeling our jobs!” “We refuse to allow busses to transport people to work!”

 

How was it that we lost our pro-active spirit of defiance? Was it perhaps the election promises of jobs or the lure of tenders and BEE deals that took away our sense of urgency and defiance?  Did “Freedom” take away the zeal to “Just do it”?

Perhaps it is time that this is this defiant, spontaneous, pro-active revolution should re-ignite. A commercial revolution, a business revolution; where the poor defiantly build businesses and capture market share, even breaking the petty laws and by-laws that stand in their way of growing chickens, brewing beer or running guest houses. Perhaps the role of local government in this revolution could be to firstly not stand in the way and secondly to refrain from creating conditions that continue to favour big corporate capital. Perhaps the role of national government could be firstly to come clean to the electorate about its inability to create jobs in anywhere near the quantities required; and secondly to show leadership in re-introducing the urgency and spirit of pro-active self reliance that we have begun to lose.

Government has a choice. It can lead from the front in this revolution or it can stand back, continue doing what it is doing and thus become a victim of it.

Let us see what they do.

Can families root out Poverty?

This piece first appeared inThe Herald (Port Elizabeth) on 8 December 2010.

Nguni Matroos, the one armed geriatric Tsistikama farmer,...an inspiration!

Minister Ebrahim Pattel proposes that the salaries of the rich are frozen. While it is easy to see how this move would score points with the labour movement, the Minister has not argued how this limitation will address the challenge of poverty. We speak a lot about poverty in South Africa.y, rural poverty, “endemic poverty”, “entrenched poverty”. In talking, we have almost abstracted poverty; elevated to the status of an issue. Something requiring the world’s attention like global warming or rain forests. But how much do we really know about poverty? We think we know what poverty is. Surely the answer is obvious. But is it? South Africa like other developing countries are today the front-line, we are at the battlefront of the war against poverty. Here, poverty is real, tangible and palpable. This is not the case in Japan, New Zealand or Sweden.  Our friends in those countries can be forgiven for assuming and arms length theoretical view of poverty. But for us in Africa, we have got to develop an understanding of poverty useful  enough, to use to take action. Poverty is a problem effecting real people with real lives. I have slowly begun to grasp that we often think of poverty as the “inability to consume”. We think that poverty is simply that we haven’t got enough stuff or the money to buy stuff. But I wonder if it would not be better to understand the “inability to consume” rather as the symptom of the problem we are trying to solve. Would it not be more useful for us to see that it is the continued inability to produce and be productive that is the root of poverty?

Much of poverty is caused by ordinary people being robbed of their ability to be productive.  This robbery has been carried out in the name of colonialism, apartheid, crime or capitalism. Government’s welfare and housing programme’s are addressing the fallout from the robbery. They are to be applauded for this effort. But, does a social grant and an RDP house stop poverty? Is a poor woman still poor the day after she moves into her new RDP house? Yes. Of course. She is simply a poor person sleeping under and asbestos roof.  For us to take this woman out of poverty, we need to find out what stands in the way of her being productive. This is where it becomes difficult for government. It is impossible for government to go door to door, intervening at a household level . Government is doing what governments must do. Government have cemented our macro economic fundamentals and they have put in place safety nets for those that are too sick, too old or too young to look after themselves.

So if the institution of government cannot root out poverty at the household level, which institution can? This is where I propose, for discussion, that we do not overlook the family as an “institution”. The family institution has real power and it has broad reach. A family has the ability to identify those of its members who are victims of poverty. If it is not your sister, it may be your cousin, if it not your cousin it may be your second cousin. Extend definition outward from the core as far as you need to find a member trapped in poverty. Once we find this person, I suggest we get personally involved; understanding what obstacles this member faces to being productive. Remember we are trying to help this person to take the first step out of poverty. To earn even R1000.00 a month may revolutionise this family member’s life. What blockages stand in the way of your family member growing chickens? Selling firewood? Making vetkoek?  Mending dresses?  Painting houses? Growing pumpkins? Washing sheets? Baking Bread?  Don’t be cynical or patronising. Remember obstacles that may seem small to you could seem insurmountable to them. Once you agree on the project, help unblock the blockages. It may require a small cash loan, it may require some advice, it may need you to assist with an alcohol addiction, you may need to fence in the chickens to keep the neighbours dogs out. Each situation will be different, but know that you are the best placed person to help. One by one, family by family poverty slowly begins to withdraw to be replaced by a generation of productive, efficient and competitive families.

Could this be the path we should walk? Let us discuss it.

Work for All?

This piece first appeared in The Herald on 5 November 2010.

Tim Chats to Engineer, Hashiem Agerdien, as the private sector hoists the first truss at the state funded, NMBM Stadium

AT first Cabinet’s new growth plan seems unlikely: five million jobs in 10 years. Finance Minister Pravan Gordhan makes it clear the bulk of these jobs will be delivered by business. Is this even possible?
If we are to achieve the jobs target laid down by our president, we would see unemployment dropping from its current levels at 25% to a level closer to 15% by 2020. This equates to a 10% improvement.
So, simplistically, it seems, that if I have a business that employs 20 people, to achieve my share of the target today I would have to employ another two people (a 10% improvement). Suddenly, it seems a little more possible.
But, if it is we in business who have to deliver on these targets, are we up to it? Do we have what it takes? I would say we do, but there will have to be some serious changes made.
Firstly, we in business will have to stop being mediocre. We need to realise we must be world class – from the sign at our entrance, to the kettle in our tea- room, to the management systems we put in place.
We cannot continue to do as we have done because “we have always done it that way”. We must improve continuously. Read. Travel. Find out what best practice is and change our organisations for the better.
Secondly, we must stop our obsession with easy money, dodgy tenders and incentive schemes. There are more than enough real business opportunities with real demand for us to pursue.
Spending all our time brown-nosing people, claiming they can “get you a tender” or “fix you a deal”, is a big mistake. Let us spend our time building our businesses.
If there is a tender advert in the Sunday Times, let us put in our bid like everyone else. Let our achievements and capacity speak for themselves.
Thirdly, we must stop whinging. Sure, we’ve got poor leadership and we’ve got corruption. Get over it!
Don’t let that stand in our way of being excellent. Don’t complain. Do something! As a business you can do a lot more than an ordinary voter:
You can fund a campaign or a political party.
You can leverage your profile in business to run for public office.
You can use your profile to put your perspective across to leaders at a meaningful level.
Don’t complain, don’t whinge. Take action!
The business sector has a lot of work to do, but there is critical support we need. Government has provided the leadership to set the jobs target, but business needs a little more from them than that.
Firstly, can the business sector get a little more credit for the role we have played and continue to play in transforming this country? We are a key part of this country’s success.
Can you cut us some slack? There are rotten apples in the business, just like in government, but please, the word “businessman” is not synonymous with “bourgeoisie capitalist pig”!
Government does not need to choose between being friends with business or with labour, but just know that, by definition, labour cannot create jobs. As soon as labour creates a job, it is no longer labour, but business.
Secondly, government, don’t scratch your head trying to think what new programmes you should dream up to create jobs. Rather, let’s focus on doing what you have already promised to do.
There are some big job-stealing problems that you need to get right like education, crime and public transport, but there are small things that government officials and elected representatives can and must do immediately. It may help if they are pointed out:
Make decisions;
Make sure the water runs when we turn the tap;
Make sure the light goes on when we flick the switch;
Answer your phone;
Return your calls;
Reply to your e-mail;
Fire those that are incompetent;
Promote those that excel;
Process applications;
Issue permits;
Pay us when you buy something from us (on time); and
Spend your budgets.
Get these things right so business can go ahead and create jobs. You are slowing us down.
Like US president John F Kennedy, famously setting a target in the ’60s to put a man on the moon “before this decade is out”, our president’s act of setting a target has an already added value by getting you and I thinking about how to get it done. But now, we must act.

Can Domino and Dumisa teach us Chinese?

This piece first appeared in The Herald on 29 October 2010

During a recent trip to Hong Kong, I met with the management of Ocean Park, where Port Elizabeth’s, Bayworld dolphins: Domino and Dumisa are being cared for. My objective with the visit was to gain some practical planning tips that we could use in finalising the design in preparation for when Bayworld goes into its much awaited and anticipated construction stage. I came away from my time in Hong Kong very impressed with the facilities and infrastructure at Ocean Park.
Domino is participating in live shows in a 500 seat, roofed grandstand and Dumisa has the onerous task of making dolphin babies. I was privileged to be taken “behind the scenes” into a climate controlled facility with a series of 9 or 10 inter-leading pools which make up their renowned captive breeding programme. I was impressed with the care taken to every detail. The special poolside finishes, with water jets ensuring smoothness on the dolphin’s skin, the hydraulic, adjustable level floor in the examination pool, the strategically located chemical footbaths to avoid contamination being tramped in on handlers and scientists shoes. All very impressive.

But, as I sat at the cavernous Hong Kong International, waiting for my flight home, I began to reflect on my few days in Hong Kong and my week in mainland China before that. I began to wonder what it is that the Chinese have, that we don’t have, that has enabled them to provide such great care for South Africa’s dolphins. What has enabled them to build such a miraculous economy with all the infrastructure, bells and whistles that go with it? As I boarded the plane for the 13 hour flight back to Johannesburg, I cast my mind back to the week I had spent in Chengdu before arriving in Hong Kong. Chengdu is a 2500 year old city of 11 million people. Bigger and older than London, but not even on the list of China’s top 10 biggest cities! Development is happening everywhere. It seems cities are being systematically re-built, to an ever elevated specification and higher standard.
As I ate my airline portion of “chicken or beef”, I felt saddened that we were not able, in Port Elizabeth, to provide the care and facilities that, our dolphins, Domino and Dumisa are accessing in Hong Kong. Over the years, Port Elizabeth’s Bayworld did an almost miraculous job with very little. But in the end, the system we have built, the society we have created, could not the provide the support required to sustain a healthy captive Dolphin population in Port Elizabeth. We had failed.

But why had we failed? I was not certain.
I had travelled to Hong Kong in an attempt to acquire “know how” from the designers and managers of Ocean Park. I came back with a supply of very useful information and valuable tips, but I also came back with the knowledge that our problem at Bayworld, our problem in Nelson Mandela Bay, our problem in South Africa, is in fact not a shortage of “know how”, but rather a lack of vision of a shortage of will .
It is a selective lack and shortage. It is evident that we, as a country, are not incapable of developing a clear vision and a strong will. The 2010 Fifa World Cup, managed to collect South Africans around a specific “vision”. We all witnessed a sufficient supply of “will” to see us building the world’s best stadia and top class infrastructure. Given sufficient urgency, we are capable. It just seems that China has sufficient urgency over a far broader range of social objectives and can sustain it over a far greater length of time. China had the will to emerge from poverty and famine in the 1960’s. China (more mainland China than Hong Kong) had the vision of a better life for its people. In order to achieve this vision, they have developed some characteristics from which South Africa could perhaps take lessons:
o China has a strong and decisive state at all levels
o China has set out to ensure that all it citizens are able to be productive in some way.
o China set out to control its population at levels where it can ensure prosperity.
Importantly, much of what had to be done to pull China out of poverty would have been very unpopular to implement. Nobody wants to have a bossy government, nobody wants to work hard and nobody wants to stop making babies. But everybody benefits from a prosperous country free of famine.
So, perhaps after all that, I say to Bayworld, the Nelson Mandela Metro, Provincial Government and National Government: We, as a city, do have enough “know how” to turn Bayworld (and the entire city) into a world class destination. With enough urgency the budget will be found. What we are lacking at the correct level, is a clear vision and sufficient will to see it happen. Our country deserves this. Our citizens should demand it.

The Public Market at Inhambane - Mozambique

Soweto Sprawl

The Streets Of Stonetown

The Way Space Feels.

I try to pay as much attention as possible to how I feel when I am in a building or in a space. It is in the feeling, the unquantifiable,… the immeasurable…., that the magic of Architecture is to be found!

Stepping into a space can make you feel a certain way. It can make you feel better or worse, than the time just before you moved into it. A space can communicate without words to evoke emotion and feeling in the person moving through it. Music can do the same thing to the person listening to it; speaking directly to the heart. Communicating the feeling, the emotion, in a way that words struggle to do.

We moved offices last week; less than a kilometre from our previous space in Cape Road; but the feeling of the new neighbourhood is quite different. The office we moved out of was a converted Victorian house. The one we have moved into is the third floor of a small, 1970’s mid spec office block. What feels most different however is the street or the urban quality. Our new office block is located on the corner of Clyde and Lawrence streets in Central. People walk up and down the pavement all day. It overlooks a small green park , there is a corner store just over the road and coffee around the corner in Parliament Street. I suppose it feels like a place where people belong and are meant to be. Our Cape Road office was on a busy street, cars rushing past. A very different character. Not nearly as suburban as the offices in Newton Park or Walmer, but still dominated by the Motor car. It did not feel as comfortable as this new space seems to feel.

It fascinates me that by arranging forms in a particular way; (walls, windows, pavements, park benches and kerbs), that people can be made to feel better or worse for passing through them. It fascinates me because to understand this magic, is to know good design. To own this knowledge is my dream.

Who built a Crooked House?

Architects are living through fantastic times in this city and South Africa generally. Not only is there an abundance of work, but a heightened awareness of the value that Architects are able to add to the built environment. There is such a lot of “cool” stuff to do, that I am worried that we try to do too much and loose out on the enjoyment of doing one thing well. I believe though that it is better to take action than to worry!

…So I have taken action.

I love beautiful buildings. Big buildings, small buildings. I love being inside them. The light, the sound, the way people use them. The way they sit in the city or landscape. I love the way these buildings are put together.

There is magic in that; and I am starting to reconnect with this magic.. What surprises me is that I have felt that reconnection not in the billion rand, high visibility, world beating projects running through our office, but rather in something a little more modest….

You see,.. my semi- retired father and I are building a wooden cottage in the Outeniqua indigenous forest. It is a very modest cottage built for family needs; rectangular in plan, with a double pitch corrugated iron roof. When I say we are building the house I don’t mean it as a metaphor for designing and drawing plans for, or a metaphor for sitting around watching the contractor’s progress. No; I mean we are physically, digging, measuring, cutting and fitting (and sometimes knocking down)

It has been great on two significant levels. Let me list them:

Firstly:

When physically building you are compelled to focus on one task. You are compelled to be present. Not to think about the next meeting or the previous phone call. How often do we get a chance to be focussed on the present? Especially those of us in management positions can lead a very fragmented and frantic existence. Many of us have powerful and creative minds but have created a reality for ourselves where we spread our input (and out impact) so thin as not to add the value that we could.

Secondly:

Building in the forest has helped me see the potential of my own hands and energy. I can actually build a house. WOW!
The real truth is that Murray and Roberts could probably build it a little neater. (OK,… a lot neater.) But it is not a competition. We are building the house because that is what we need to do to meet our needs and aspirations right now. We are not building the house to try to compete with Murray and Roberts! But what I am talking about here is something more widespread! A phenomenon that spreads across our lives and effectively limits what we believe we are able to do. We are intimidated by the corporate and media dominated world through which we move every day. We slowly begin to believe that we are not good enough to take action.

We cannot sing as well as Mariah Carey, so we will never dare to sing at a family dinner or in the pub.

We cannot tell stories as well as Stephen King, so why even bother trying.

Mom cannot make clothes as neatly as Edgars, so we’ll rather stay at home than be seen dressed in her homemade tracksuits.

We cannot build as well as Murray and Roberts, so lets not let people laugh at our crooked house!

The net result is that we become intimidated into inaction allowing big corporate and media giants to do for us what we used to do for ourselves, and it only takes a little time before we have lost our skills and our dignity forever.

I have in the forest found the joy and freedom of taking back that which I thought I had been robbed of. Cutting planks, laying boards, nailing trusses.

There is magic in that!

Antananarivo, December 17, 2006

I would like to be able to say that I published this blog from Antananarivo, but I am back in Port Elizabeth now. I did notice internet cafes here and there so I could have done it. I was travelling with my family though; and this was quite dificult. We got sick, the weather was hot and the language barrier was hard to overcome.

We only spent a morning in Antananarivo on our wat to Ifaty, near Toliar on the south west coast of Madagascar. "Tana" as it is known, could be a beautiful place. It is crippled with poverty and really needs a coat of paint. The city centre is surrounded by hills, the buildings are seldom more that 4 stories high and has a strange medieaval quality. Strangely absent (or out of sight) are any signs of corparate power or individual wealth. (like in Johanessburg or Soa Paulo where there is great poverty, but in the shadow of great wealth and power.)

I will return, but not soon.

Frankfurt Stadium

I arrived back in SA from Franfurt this morning:

My thoughts on Frankfurt Stadium are as follows:

The "Park in the Forest" has given Franfurt a very specic context to refer to. It informs the approaches and the way it which the building responds to its edges.
We must be careful in PE that we do not take too many direct cues from this building. In as much as PE stadium is in a Park, it is more urban (trying to be).

The approaches to the stadium, the activity that happens on each of the boundaries of the site must inform the design and the siting of the buidling.

I enjoyed the way in which the levels cut into the podium on the "practice field" approach.

I was interested to see how the palyers and VIP's crossed over public areas. (I am not sure where I got the idea that players and VIP's were to be kept sterilised from the general public)

The feel of the Bowl was intimate and enclosed. (48000 seats we were told)
I was suprised to see no moat and no (inpeneatrable) physical barrier between the pitch and the seating.

I was interested to see the allocation of standing room only parts of the stands. I know that this is a south african tradition for both rugby and soccer, and am interested to find out why we are not planning for this in Port Elizabeth.
I was pleased to see the siplicity (almost roughness) of the detailing. Nothing luxurious.

Impressed with the use of precast concrete. very neat.


Interesting towers above the standby generators.

Ich bin ein Berliner (I am a pork sausage)

Berlin is a beautiful place. It seems very comfortable for people to live here, bicycles, busses, underground. Not harsh and diffuclult like jhb, or even pe.
The stadiums are lovely and very nice to have seen. things work here, they are designed and though through with consideration. I like that. we need to become like that at home. I am dedicated to bieng part of a growing movement to transform our cities into livable places for flourishing human habitation.

The Old Man's Profession

Saturday, October 14, 1995

Timothy Hewitt-Coleman, Young Architect.

"Ah, but its an old man's profession", is what established firms like to tell their young graduates when they complain about receiving pay cheques less than the sweepers at VW. This priceless wisdom is generally imparted with a patronising tone of finality that makes it clear that the subject of pay is not one that is to be brought up by the young and underly. And, after all, Frank Lloyd Wright never paid his interns at all!

But, is liberation from this bondage and "initiation" attained upon completion of the period of Architect in Training? No, sadly not; and in fact this whole article deals with the plight of the young Architect in the "Old Man's Profession" and tries to look at ways in which the youth can claim the power they need in order to leave their mark on the profession and the built environment in general.

Architectural graduates not only leave university powerless but seem to grow very slowly out of their powerlessness into the full status of what an Architect is and needs to be. Now this is not because it is inhumanly difficult to learn all that needs to be learned, but rather because it is in the interests of those Architects who have this power and knowledge not to allow young Architects to grow powerful enough to challenge their domain.

In attaining full status as an Architect all of us must work through and grow old with three "Old Men's" institutions; University, Practice and Institute. Each of these, in their own special, way add to the frustration of a young Architect trying to grow into the fullness of her chosen profession. Each of these promote the status quo of domination by established interest groups and each of these in the final analysis also play their part in damaging the profession and the quality of the built environment as a whole.

University

We must commend our university for the unquestionably high standard of education that it provides its Architectural graduates. A five year degree at UPE or similar courses at other universities equips the graduate with probably the most intense design training that can be obtained. Sadly however this rich training does not result in skills being acquired that are in great demand in the profession and the pitiful salaries earned by young graduates attest to this. The practice of architecture is a very specific kind of enterprise. It has very particular limitations, advantages and opportunities and it would seem that Architectural Graduates though highly educated struggle to apply their skills when faced with the constraints of Architectural practice. This situation makes it difficult for the Architectural Graduate to enter a practice with the confidence to demand proper reward for the work that is to be done, and having entered the practice on a weak footing, a low base is created from where salaries will be increased.

The second great shortcoming of the University, is the failure of the degree course to in any way equip the young Architect to enter into a practice or partnership of her own. Here the need is not for practical skills because those are learnt elsewhere. Rather the young Architect requires perspective and clarity on ways to apply the creative skills that have been acquired, to try and sell them on the market. This role of preparation for private practice must be assumed by the University because it is clearly not in the interests of established practices to do so. Even the Institute could face loosing the support of its established firms if it were to train young Architects in the mutinous skills of setting up for private practice.

Practice.

Architect's-in-Training are seen as a predictable source of cheap labour and are very seldom exposed to any structured training programmes within practices. The tradition in architectural practices has become that new graduates would endure a period of internship and then very slowly rise in the practice, being exposed to more and more responsibility and gradually gaining more insight. Of course only a very small number of Architects can ever become partners in established firms and therefore many hopefuls allow themselves to stagnate, believing that they will eventually be selected as a partner after many years of loyal service. This system may function well to motivate young Architects to do their best for their bosses, but it is not a system that best promotes the individual advancement of Architects into professional maturity. It is a system that has evolved to meet the needs of established and entrenched practices over many years but is being seriously challenged and questioned by a young generation of Architects with an appetite for free information exchange, transparency and open networks. These young Architects don't take as easily to hierarchy, but work better witin collaborative management structures. Many progressive thinking young Architects are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the tendency of large firms to limit the exposure of the salaried architect so that she does not become familiar with the inner workings and management of the practice. Exposure that desperately needs to be acquired in order to function as a professional in the fullest sense. Skills essential to an Architect are not passed on to the youth. The profession suffers and the built environment suffers with it.

Institute

But what of the young architect who embarks against all odds and good advice to set up alone in private practice? The high design training received at varsity does not put bread on the table and she is lacking in important skills that should have been attained as an Architect-in-Training. But faced with the pitiful salaries offered to qualified Architects in private practices a few (more desperate) young Architects to go it alone. Only there, to be confronted with the overwhelming ignorance among small to medium sized clients about the role and funtion of the Architect. Larger clients, generally enlightened as to the role of the Architect in the construction industry, are harder to attract because they have been cornered by the established practices. Even more potential small clients are lost to young Architects because of a lack of awareness of what services an Architect could offer them. Clearly the marketing of the Architect's profession in such away to assist small practices is not happening in any significant way. This kind of marketing (the same kind that encouraged the public to "ask their Pharmacist") is what one would expect the Institute to co-ordinate but instead they seem to be concentrating their efforts at a national level in continuous negotiations with government and other sponsors of large construction projects destined for he drawing boards of the old established firms. (notice how much better of the established firms rate on the Pilot Roster than the small young firms!) The Institute of SA Architects has no visible programmes to assist clients in selecting an Architect appropriate for the project at hand and thereby entrenches the status quo where large commercial clients appoint the same firm time and time again making it difficult for the young architect to gain access. In fact the Institute has very little at all to offer young Architects in their plight. Here we must also remember to that by far the largest majority of young Architects are salaried and the only representative voice that they have is the Institute, who has repeatedly failed them, leaving them unorganised to ply their individual wits against organised established practices.

But perhaps now is an oppourtune time for young Architects to ensure that the new, voluntary Institute will represent there interests. If a voluntary institute is to be successful in any region in South Africa it will have to convince young Architects what programmes will be installed to further their interests. If the new institute does rise to this occasion it could become the platform from which young Architects reach out to the universities, the established practices and the potential client base and as a result not only advance the interests of young architects earning salaries but also those in private practice. If the new voluntary institute does however not embrace the concerns of young Architects, we will have to find some other means to secure our careers and our futures or we will have to be content to remain weak and powerless to the detriment of ourselves our profession and the built environment as a whole.

Welcome

The idea is that we will use this Blog to share with those who are interested, some ideas about spatial and urban issues that effect us every day. Please comment where you have something to say. We would like to share your ideas and thinking.

A Manifesto for Spatial Transformation

Tim serves on the main comittee of the East Cape Institute of Architects where chairs the "Habitiat" portfolio comittee. This commitee comprises Shaun Fogarty, Debbie Makan, Greame Eckley, John Blair and Tim Hewitt-Coleman. Together this comittee developed the wording of the manifesto below, which was tabled for adotion by the mebership of the East cape Institute of Architects on 10 November 2005.


Eastern Cape Institute of Architects

A Manifesto for Spatial Transformation

We the architects of the Western Region of the Eastern Cape, united by common training and similar skill, being diverse in background and persuasion, declare our commitment this region, this country and this continent.

It is out of this patriotism that we feel obliged and driven to declare our belief that the built form, the fabric of cities and towns, have a profound effect on the quality of life those who live and dwell in them.

To this end we, as a group, concur that the conceptualisation, formation and transformation of our cities and towns must take centre stage in public debate, discussion and action.

In the interest of promoting and leading that public discussion we all declare that we strive and act towards the creation of cities and towns that can be described as :-

Accessible and Compact

Safe and secure

Remembering the past

Sustainable and open to regeneration.

Providing adequate Housing for its residents

Promoting Vibrant Cultural Exchange
.
In Harmony with Nature

Distinctly South African
.
Poverty Free

We recognise that as Architects our influence and impact is limited, but we commit nonetheless to the following actions:

To create and promote an urban environments that are accessible to all, by increasing the overall density of habitation and promoting public transport and access for the disabled.


To reduce crime and anti social behaviour by designing and promoting spaces that promote ownership by the community and reduce opportunities for vandalism, violence and theft.


To promote the conservation of buildings and spaces which reflect the diverse history that we inherit.


To recognise and promote the right of every person to be housed in a building of sufficient quality.


To promote an architecture that has a positive impact on each person and on their daily lives, which enriches life and allows people to relax and have fun

To create an environment in which a truly South African architecture can emerge – one which, whilst acknowledging the region and the continent, is specific to this country.

To create, through good practice and good design, a built environment which helps to alleviate poverty and promotes education and skills transfer



We the undersigned commit ourselves, our energies and our business towards strategies and actions in our everyday work which, we know, will move our region toward these spatial objectives.

We furthermore undertake to be vocal as a group in leading public debate around spatial issues. We will point out fault and folly where it occurs, and praise vision and brilliance where it is found.


Port Elizabeth, 10 November 2005