#Feesmustfall, brass bells and the pain of the taxpayer

 (This piece first appeared in The Herald on 19 October 2016)

A few days back, I made a short presentation on some of my recent work to a, polite audience at the newly renovated Tramways building. To be honest though, the small group of architects, historians and academics had mainly come out to hear from my colleague, Professor Albrecht Herholdt, with whom I shared the stage that evening. You see,  Professor Herholdt, is one of our region’s finest architects and he spoke that evening on the fantastic work that he and his team is doing with the MBDA to bring the historic 1820 Settler Campanile  back to life as a working tourist curiosity. The work being done there is really impressive. The bells are going to chime once again, the crumbling brickwork will be repaired and the old clock will once again be a reliable resource for those passers-by who do not wear a watch.

I was pondering this lovely presentation as I dreamily cast my eyes from the third floor window of my Clyde Street office the next morning. From my desk, I have an unsurpassed view of Algoa Bay. On a clear day I can see all the way to the Port of Nqura.  But it was not a clear day. It was not even a quiet day. In fact, I was startled out of my dreaminess by the sound of chanting and toyi-toying coming past my building. A noisy protest was making its way from Cape Road to Town. Hundreds of angry students in #Feesmustfall regalia, escorted by a massive police contingent, including a huge big water cannon truck, which had just been decorated in dripping turquoise by a protestor’s “paint bomb”. The students passed without incident. The chatter in the office was all about “Well the ANC promised free education…” and “Why don’t they just stop burning down the Libraries?”.

But I’ve been thinking about these protests a little. And the more I think of it, the more I see that these students are raising an important question that we have not yet fully debated as a country. If I am able for a moment to look past the arson, the intimidation and the thuggery, I can just see the beginnings of a meaningful inquiry into what we as a community feel is reasonable or unreasonable to expect our tax payers to pay for. I ponder this question now as I sit writing this piece in the Wimpy Bar in Port Alfred. I have stopped to rest a little from my drive back from a project meeting, coordinating the spending of hundreds of millions of tax payers Rands in new buildings to accommodate various government departments’ administration and management needs.  The driving was tough as I navigated the “stop and gos” caused by the hundreds of millions of Rands invested in widening and generally improving the coastal road from East London the Port Elizabeth.

The thing is, I have been in business for the last twenty years or so. I have paid a lot of tax in that time. I have paid Vat, PAYE, Transfer Duty, Import Duty, Capital Gains Tax, Municipal Rates, RSC levies and those taxes you pay on alcohol and fuel that I can remember the names of. Though I feel good about the fact that, through my taxes, I have been able to make some contribution to the effort to improve our country, I am also deeply conscious that every time I fork out tax money, I am not doing so voluntarily. You and I are compelled to pay tax by force and by the full might of the state. If I don’t pay, I will be jailed. If resist my captors, I will be shot. It is not overly dramatic for me to say therefor, that you and I pay our taxes at the threat of death.  It’s just a fact.

Today though, I am not making an argument for or against taxation. I am rather arguing that this money, which has been extorted from us, must be treated with a far greater measure of respect. If we are to accept taxation as a necessary evil, there must be some understanding that tax money can only be used to deliver something that the private sector would not otherwise be able to deliver.  So, I would like us all to begin to ask of each other: Why is it not a good idea to spend tax payers money to support struggling students? Why is it a good idea to spend taxpayers’ money to make it easier for lorries to drive from PE to East London, or for container ships to dock at Nqura or for for SAA so compete with Kalula.com? Can the huge industries and corporations that run these transport and logistics operations not pay for this? Why is it a good idea to spend tax money on massive brass bells in the 1820 Settlers Campanile? Can the lovers of bell chime music not pay for this? I am asking the question not because I claim to know the answer, but because I believe we have allowed ourselves to be side tracked by fear mongers and haters. We have been side-tracked to such an extent that we have not been able to hear the valid questions the students are clumsily asking…”What projects, should we as a community, invest taxpayers money in?”  “What investments will ensure the best of possible futures for our people?” “What investments can wait a little longer until we have helped each other emerge from the scourge of poverty and desperation?”

Statism and the East Cape Taxi Protest

(this piece first appeared in The Herald on 15 June 2016, under the "Title SA freedom being circumscribed)

My 1997 Toyota is currently propped up on bricks in my backyard. You see, I’m waiting for my small time mechanic “guy” to find a specific part that is being reconditioned by his small time parts supply “guy”.  I have though still managed to get around town regardless of this challenge and regardless of this week’s province wide taxi protest. This, partly thanks to Uber and partly thanks to the luck that I do not rank in the number of the struggling poor compelled to live in the far flung periphery of our sprawling metro. So, as I have zipped around town as a passenger in the last few days I have had a little more time to follow what my “friends” are saying on Facebook. Much of my feed is clogged up with pictures of cats sleeping in laundry baskets or heart wrenching messages about how not sharing this picture of a goat means that I don’t care about people dying of cancer. There was, though, some interesting talk about what people think of the taxi protest. Most of the talk was about the fear of the protest getting violent or how unfair it was that students could not get to class to write their exams.  Yes, I feel for the students. I feel for the mall bound housewives’ stuck in traffic jams. But, to be honest, I’m more interested in what this protest is really about; and as far as I can understand, it’s really is about the delay in the provincial government’s issuing of “operating licenses”. Because, you see, the state has decided that it is criminal for a hardworking person to make an honest living transporting people from A to B without their permission. Really!? Perhaps there is something that I am not getting here? But my real worry is that so many of us are completely content with the idea that the state somehow has the right to tell us what we can and cannot do and that we need their “permission” to do an honest day’s work. This state bullying is not just in the transport sector, it’s all over the economy!

 I work as an Architect. In this industry the state has decided that they do not trust the judgment of those who chose to do business with me. I am therefor required to remain “licensed” by the state. For an Architect to work without a license is a criminal offence. I go to jail! I mean, can we not be trusted as ordinary citizens to choose for ourselves who to employ to give us a lift to work or to draw up plans for the extensions to our patio?  Do we really need armies of faceless civil servants employed with our tax money in Pretoria or Bhisho to help us with this level of decision making? Perhaps the reason we tolerate this intrusion is because we have not paused to think about it?

 In the late eighties many of my friends, like me, were caught up with the idea of “freedom” and of “power to the people”. It seems though that as time has passed that ideal has evolved rather to us being content with changing the complexion of the state rather that questioning whether it was ever necessary for the state to take away our individual freedoms in the first place. The Apartheid state was unapologetic in taking away freedoms in the pursuit of “Law and Order”. At that time, citizens felt it was absolutely OK that there would be laws stopping us from selling flowers on pavements, brewing Umqomboti  in the backyard or playing guitar for loose coins at the bus stop. It was just understood that the state was in control and it was the job of each and every citizen to “stay out of trouble”. But somehow we have allowed that apartheid mindset to move with us 20 years and beyond into the “free” South Africa. The obsession with “statism” seems to be held equally by political parties to the left and the right.  The political debate is generally only about what category of additional state control can be forced upon its citizens.

Since apartheid times, the excuse used for state bullying has moved from “Law and Order” and “Suppression of Communism” to our new regime’s talk of “Health and Safety” and “Transformation”. We need though to wake up the very real possibility that our freedoms are being taken away for no reason other than to allow huge monopolies to step in and take control of the country. Putting in place “licensing procedures” on top of layers and layers of compliance requirements makes it more and more difficult for any but larger and larger institutions and corporations to keep up. State capture is not a single event, not just the Guptas, not just one corrupt politician. It is a tendency that has come with us since before we agreed in 1994 that freedom is what each and every citizen deserves and is entitled to.

So I urge each and every one of us, from today on,  to free our minds and to become openly and vocally disgusted whenever we encounter the smallest attempt on the part of the state to tell us that we are not free.  As long as we are not harming anyone, it should not be any of their damn business! 

Beyond Tolerance

(This piece first appeared in The Herald on 24 December 2015)

I don’t really give too much thought to the war in Syria. There’s just too much else to think about all the time. I mean right now I am facing a real dilemma: do I buy the silver baubles  for the Christmas tree or do I get those shiny red ones with a picture of a snow man on them? …..And what about the Christmas lights? Do I get the white flickering ones my wife wants to match the candles she bought for the table or do I get the brightly coloured blinky lights that remind me of my child hood?

As children we're taught  to tolerate nonsense  for the "sake of peace"

What I can say about the war in Syria though is that Isis has given intolerance a bad name. Realistically, Isis are just the last in a series of zealots, warlords and dictators that have left most thinking people rejecting any and all tendencies toward intolerance. The Spanish Inquisition, Robben Island and Stalin’s Gulags are all recorded testimony of murderous path down which unchecked intolerance leads. Nixon could not tolerate the idea of the Vietnamese choosing to live under communism so he bombed Hanoi back into the dark ages. Bush could not tolerate Saddam, so he bombed Bagdad.

So I completely understand how it is that the mindful and well-mannered people spend much of their time advocating “tolerance”. For much of my life too, I have argued for “tolerance”, but I have now begun to re-think

You see, in a very real way “tolerance” means putting up with what I know is wrong “for the sake of peace”. But I have come to see that this is really a very short term solution. In fact, what I am calling for now, on this Christmas Eve, is a healthy dollop of “Intolerance”. Let me explain. I am making this call to all good people, all patriots and all lovers of this beautiful ecosystem of which we are an indivisible part.  I encourage you all to take inspiration from the students who this year said: “We will not tolerate Universities being for rich people only” or from the banks and unions who forced our president to backtrack when they said: ”We will not tolerate you destroying our economy”. I encourage you to become intolerant in your home, in the street in which you live, in your shopping centre parking lot.  Because it is the poor and defenceless that carry most of the cost when our society tolerates lawlessness. It is the poor and defenceless that cannot afford short term insurance, it is the poor and defenceless who must tolerate starvation because their chickens are stolen from their back yard. It is the poor and defenceless who can’t get the time off their dead-end jobs to tolerate being sent from pillar to post by brutally mindless corporations and institutions.

So, where you witness drunkenness, littering, late coming, rudeness, cold cappuccino or institutional nonsense; don’t tolerate it. Make a scene. Find the courage to speak out. If each of us does this every day, we will be victorious.  Mayor Giuliani proved in New York, that by becoming intolerant of little “crimes” we create environment where the bigger, more serious crimes begin to dwindle. We can’t expect our overstretched Police to deal with the small stuff. There is just too much really serious crime going on. So it’s up to you and I to become intolerant today.

Go now and rest; but rest with one eye open for that drunk uncle that may be thinking of stepping out of line. And when you put him in his place and correct his behaviour know that it is no less than your patriotic duty to have done so.

Help Little guy with Direct Action

(This piece first appeared in the Weekend Post on 31 October 2015)

I drive a 1997 Toyota. It has 476 000 kilometres on the clock. I drive this old car mainly to embarrass my children, but also because I know that renewing my car every two or three years has a hugely destructive impact on our planet. In fact, a recent report in the Guardian  points out that the amount of carbon that it takes to make a car (its “embodied emissions”) is very likely to be greater that the total exhaust pipe emissions over its lifetime. What the Guardian is trying to say is that my clapped out old rust bucket is better for the planet than a brand new super-efficient, high tech Hybrid!

My 1997 Toyota, when it was still young

I take the health of our planet very seriously. You and I know however that the truth about our country, and many others like it, is that the most pressing threat is not the levels of carbon in the atmosphere, not the depletion of the ozone layer, not even the desperate and sad story of the Rhino. No, the most pressing threat to our society is poverty and exploitation. Poverty is a breeding ground for disease, ignorance, corruption and crime. Quite simply, we are all doomed if we are not able to build a stable economy where each and every one of us feels that it is worthwhile to make our best effort every day to improve the health and welfare of ourselves and of our families. What I want to talk about today though, is what it is we do about this situation. You see, I am inspired and impressed by the direct action students across the country have taken in dealing with tuition fees. Inspired; because students are showing us that it is far more effective to take direct action than it is to put our trust in party politics. The students of 2015 have shown us, that if we want to get something done, we must get off our backsides and take direct action. The students of 2015 focussed on the issue. They set aside party politics; they set aside complexion and economic status. They focused on one issue and they were very effective.

But, “Direct Action” is not only about blocking traffic and singing songs. “Direct Action” is about our choices. It’s about what I produce and about what I consume. It’s about how I choose to act. So, it was no less that an act of revolutionary defiance that I had my car repaired on my front lawn this Saturday while my neighbours were indoors watching the rugby. (Yes, the old crock breaks down from time to time!) You see, I could have opted to have the work done by the recommended, massive Japanese owned multinational corporation, but instead I opted for “Direct Action” and chose to employ a trusted, loyal and brilliant small time mechanic to repair the broken starter motor. It cost me a lot less. He earned very good money. It’s a “win-win” situation. No massive corporation, no CEO salary, no marketing budget and TV ads, just a small time “guy” with his box of tools on my lawn. I do the same when I need bicycle repairs, carpenter, plumber, electrician, tailor or plumber. It’s the right thing to do.

You may be surprised to hear of the good work that the Metro is doing to support small business.  In fact, all municipal construction projects now require that 25% of the work is done by Small Medium and Micro Enterprises. Believe me, this is really painful to people like me, who are called upon from time to time to design and manage these projects. There is a heap of complicated paperwork involved and it really is a lot easier to get the work done where your contractor is listed on the JSE. The point is though, that the Metro is being responsible and is leading the way in this action. My appeal is that each of us follows this lead. That each of us, in our businesses and families make a commitment to allocate a portion of our annual spend to emerging businesses. (Perhaps 10% may be easier to achieve initially.) But even at those levels, by direct action, we will be able to make a massive and lasting dent on poverty.

What I am proposing is that each of us builds “bridges” between those of us who have emerged from poverty and those of us that are making the effort to do so. It really is a two way street. If you are working to emerge from poverty, make it easy for those that want to trade with you. Answer your phone. Arrive on time. Do what you promise. For those of you that are trading with those emerging from poverty; yes, it does take more effort. You will need to search a little harder to find the service you are looking for. You will need to check the references. You will need to pay promptly. But that is the Direct Action that we can take. Consumers may complain that there are not enough emerging businesses to address the most pressing needs, but we must trust that these will emerge if there is good money on offer. Emerging businesses may complain that there are not enough customers, but we must trust that these will emerge when we have good product to offer.

Political parties cannot do it for us. The future is in our hands and direct action is the tool we will use to build that future. Start today!

Drop the Mindless Controls

(This piece first appeared in The Herald on 14 August 2015)

I took a drive out to the countryside this morning. The rolling green pasture and forest  to the west of Port Elizabeth is an incredibly beautiful an peaceful place and today I had good reason to drive out this way, rather than through Walmer, to my office in Central.  You see, as I write this, Walmer is completely closed down by large groups of angry people disrupting traffic with burning barricades. To make matters worse, thieves and thugs are taking advantage of the opportunity to carry out smash and grab attacks on motorists stuck in the traffic jam.  It’s not pretty.

Photo: Litha Hewitt-Coleman

My drive out toward Colleen Glen takes me past the Georgiou Hotel. Some of you may have seen it. It’s a sprawling , gaudy complex along Kragga Kamma road. You can’t miss it with its vulgar fleet of white stretch limos parked outside enticing the aspirational classes to indulge in some expensive massage or just generally pretend to be The Kardashians for a few hours. No I don’t really like kitsch and pretentious places that much. They are not to my taste. But the fact is that the Georgiou’s, whom I have not yet met, have gotten off their backsides and invested big money in the region. They have created jobs. They are attracting visitors to our city and generally contributing to the economy. Those of you have been following the story of the Georgious (front page of The Herald on 13 August 2015) would know though that our “system” has just ordered this massive investment demolished.

I am not able to find fault with the judge who ruled in this matter. I am not able to find fault with the municipal officials or with the neighbours who may or may not have objected. All of the individuals who have worked to crush this initiative have just been “doing their job”. All of these people have been working within the framework of the legislation laid down by our constitutional empowered and democratically elected parliament. But I do find fault with the system that we have designed that is fully capable of standing in the way of ordinary citizens creating jobs and building the economy with their own money on their own land.

It is clear to me that the angry people who have today shut down Walmer are angry and frustrated because “the system” is not working for them. The sad truth is that the economy does not value them highly enough to employ them gainfully. Yes, the angry residents of Gqebera will express specific grievances against the housing delivery process or against the lack of free electricity, but these are the details that obscure the sad reality that these angry people are too poor to look after themselves.

I am not arguing for a second that we will solve all our cities problems by allowing the Georgious to continue running their controversial Hotel, but I am very concerned that a minefield of mindless land use controls are stifling billions of rands worth of property development.  I am not arguing that, by removing these, we will create the kind of economy that will absorb the poor and desperate of Walmer Township. In fact, I don’t know of what plethora of mindless controls may be destroying jobs and slowing the economy in other industries.  But I do know about property and I do know about land and I can tell you right now that our legislators have it in their power to make all the changes needed to unblock this part of our struggling economy. Will it be a complicated knot for our legislators to unravel? Absolutely! But we are living in a country where the super duper complicated knot of Apartheid was undone. Our leaders in 1994 had a strong, unwavering political will do undo that knot. In fact the political will to disband the Scorpions after the 2007 Polokwane conference was so strong and unwavering that it took only a matter of months for legislators to draft and approve legislation that very quickly made the Scorpions an curious relic of our democracy’s short history.

But please, let’s not descend into political or ideological debate about this matter. I am not arguing against the system we currently have that defends the poor from the homelessness, hunger and disease that results from poverty. I am saying that the state must do its bit. My appeal rather is that, at the highest levels of leadership in this country, we need to prioritise the removal of any and all unnecessary controls and restrictions on economic activity. Sure, we need to have laws that ensure that the environment (including people in it) is protected from harm. But that’s it! Any other control on the economy is a luxury we just can afford right now. Any other control on the economy is an insult to the poor and desperate people of Walmer Township and others trapped in poverty across the length and breadth of this beautiful country.

Taking the first Steps to Off Grid Living

(This piece first appeared in The Herald on 24 March 2015)

Load shedding makes us all angry. We are frustrated with Eskom. We are disillusioned with the slow progress with the building of new power stations. We are suspicious of dodgy deals with the Russians to build nuclear reactors. Many of us are investing emotion and passion in this negativity, but my family and I are rather investing my energy in doing what we can to move away from the gird in whatever small steps we can. I am speaking about this because I see that much of the discussion about “off grid living” generally comes from one of two extreme positions. Firstly there’s the guy that is living in his 1974 Volkswagen camper, who powers his whole existence from a wind turbine he built by re-wiring an old desk fan he found by the roadside. He doesn’t need to cook; because he eats all his food raw and he avoids hot water because “everybody knows” that washing is part of a grand Illuminati conspiracy. The second extreme position is that of the billionaire in Houghton who builds a state of the art solar panel system bigger than my house. It tracks the movements of the sun by means of clever engineering and software developed by the SKA project. The power is stored in batteries just like the ones on the Mars rover. The whole system does cost about the same as a cabinet minister’s annual salary, but comfortably runs his air conditioning, 90 inch TV’s, heated pools and a mini ice rink.

DIY Solar Panel installation December 2014

Caught between these two extremes, most of us simply give up and rather focus on wording clever status updates that ridicule Eskom executives. But I am here to tell you that there is hope. There is real and immediate action that you and I can take toward moving off grid.

You see, I have just recently installed an off grid power and water system at our little farm just outside Port Elizabeth, and you know what? It didn't cost me an arm and a leg. In fact it cost me round about the same as what it would have cost me to get water and electricity brought to the farm by the municipality. Hear what I am saying! The cost of installing a system that will generate free solar electricity and clean running water in perpetuity is the same as what the grid would have charged me just for the privilege of being connected to them and being billed by them with ever increasing rates regardless of the reliability of their supply. Of course there will be some on-going costs, but there won’t be load shedding, there won’t be the mindless standing in queues at the “customer care” centre, there won’t be the lying awake at night with the guilt of knowing that I am pumping huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere every time I switch on the lights.

You may not think that my situation on the farm is relevant to everyone reading this, but what I want to tell you, is that solar panels and rainwater tanks are only part of the story. There are two important aspects to consider.

Firstly, we must re-think what it is that we have become dependent on the grid for, remembering of course that the idea of a “gird” dealing with our electricity, water supply, sewerage disposal, telephone and internet is all reasonably recent. There is no reason we can’t step away gradually from the grid, in the same way as we slipped slowly into the habit of becoming dependent on it. Do we need to use so much? Do we need the air-conditioning? Do we need the heater? Do we need the ninety Inch TV? Do we need the welder in the garage or the toaster in the kitchen? Do we need to plant our garden full of plants that have beautiful flowers but that will die without the quantities of water they evolved to become accustomed to in the swamps of the Amazon? There are thousands of actions we can take today to consume less energy and water and to produce less waste.

Secondly, after we have taken the obvious step of consuming less, we must do what we can to diversify our consumption and waste. What I am saying is, it may cost the same to cook on gas, but it is unlikely that the gas supply will run out at the same time as the electricity supply grid. What about rain water? You may not have enough storage to make you independent of the municipal system, but you may have enough to be able to use the municipal system as a backup and not a primary supply. Even just to irrigate your garden would be a step in the right direction. Cooking and heating with firewood is not a bad idea, in fact it’s fun and romantic. What about processing some of your waste in a compost heap, grey water system or septic tank? What about heating your house with sunlight and cooling it with wind?

What I am talking about is migrating off grid in small steps. First by consuming less, then by transitioning into a hybrid situation, where each time the grid goes down it is less  and less of a disaster to you and your family.

There are things we can do. We are not helpless and doing these things makes us feel a lot better than when we are bitching about Eskom. Don’t you think?

Are we there yet?

(this piece first appeared in The Herald on 24 December 2014)

Perhaps as you read this you have reached your holiday destination? You have sped along the freeways or braved the airport terminal. You are where you want to be. Because, it is at this time of the year when many of us try to be somewhere else. We try to be where we are not normally. At the first chance we get, when we are released by our bosses for a few days or when we get a little extra cash, we escape, we run away, we go somewhere else. “Why is this?”, I asked my wife as we sipped Australian wine and chomped Paraguayan peanuts on our air Malaysia flight to Buenos Aires some time back. Can it be that the physical and spatial reality that we have built for ourselves is so intolerable that the only thing that keeps us there is that we don’t have enough time or money to leave it behind? No, this can surely not be the case. But even when we look a little closer, even at those times  of the year when we are not on holiday, still we find this intense drive to be in a different place. Driven by the idea that the different place is better. Our cities are living testimony to this obsession. Streets, roads, highways, overpasses, underpasses, airports, railway stations, IPTS lanes parking areas all built at huge expense and at massive cost to the environment to be sure that we can get as quickly as we can from where we are now to where we are not. Stopping along the way, is controlled, frowned upon or downright illegal depending where you are trying to get to. We see it also in the things we purchase and consume. It is not good enough to have ordinary butter, it must be Irish butter, our olive oil comes from Argentina, Portugal or Greece, our cars from Korea and our phones form China.  The other day I bought spring onions imported from Kenya. I kid you not…Spring Onions! Are we discontented? Are we displeased with this place, our place and the things that come from our place? No, I don’t think so at all. But I do think, as individuals, we are weak, we are without centre, we are easily manipulated and easily swayed by institutions and corporations that will make money for themselves in exchange for our freedom and for our time.

How much of our tax money is used to fund roads, bridges, harbours and runways? How much of our monthly salary goes to paying for cars, petrol and repairs. How many bright minds in our economy go to working in the motor industry, petrol industry, tyre fitment centres, vehicle finance and vehicle insurance? All collaborating and conspiring to build the machines and the system that make it efficient and effortless to get you to be somewhere else.  Imagine the extra cash we would have if we did not need to pay for all of this year in and year out. We are fortunate of course because we don’t have to imagine car free towns and cities, we can actually visit them and observe for ourselves (or rather just Google them and save the cost of the flight ticket). There are many, many examples of kind and caring societies that have managing the car and taking back the city’s streets. Quebec, Venice, Curitiba and Stone Town are beautiful examples of how this can be done in such a way that these places become a delight for residents and visitors.  We don’t have to imagine cities that grow their own food we only need to look to the Urban Agriculture of Mumbai, New York and especially Havana where 90% of the city's fresh produce come from local urban farms and gardens and where more than 200,000 Cubans work urban agriculture sector. We don’t have to imagine a city that provides more than 90% of its energy needs from renewable resources, we need only to look to Reykyavik in Iceland.

 But my appeal is not only that we allow ourselves to imagine a city with fewer cars, less pollution  and less imports,  but also that we begin to imaging a city that we are happy to live in, happy to work in and happy to spend time in. My appeal is that we begin to imagine a city that attempts not to dream up new products that we can manufacture and ship across the ocean, but rather cities that make responsible use of their land, their water their sunlight and forests to feed themselves, cloth themselves and house themselves.  Perhaps this requires a mind-set though in which we begin to understand that we are not casual observers of the cities and towns we live in, but rather that we are active participants, actively creating the shape and form of our cities by the way in which we allow our lives to play out in them and by the way in which we choose to spend our money in them. Or will we remain trapped in the idea that the solution will come from somewhere else, that our clothing will come from China, that our electricity from Eskom in Mpumalanga, our food by refrigerated truck from Cape Town and that the only way we could navigate our city is cars running on Saudi fuel.

But wait, I can’t be chatting for too long, I have got to get back to the all-important task of basting my Brazilian Christmas Turkey.

Who will champion PE’s ICC?

(this piece first appeared my regularish column in the The Herald on 9 September 2014)

I was fortunate to, last month, spend a week in Durban. I was one of four thousand five hundred delegates from around the world that attended the 25^th World Architecture Congress. It really was a great event with great speakers, great exhibitions and great and inspiring debates in the corridors and coffee bars that make conferences like these worthwhile.  Yes, my mind was on the papers and presentations, but maybe, even more than this my mind was on the city of Durban and the International Convention Centre, where this fantastic event was being hosted.

As I was shuttled from the distant airport or as I booked into my beachfront hotel or enjoyed a steak for supper, I was asking myself: “What does Durban offer the conference goer that Port Elizabeth does not?”  I was asking myself “What gave the people of Durban the confidence to build the International Convention Centre, where we in Port Elizabeth have failed to build ours?”

Because many of us remember how, before the World Cup came around, Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality was all set to build our own International Convention Centre on our own beachfront. All the studies had been done by the world’s leading thinkers on these matters and showed that there is probably no other investment our city could make that could attract such a significant amount of new visitors to our region as an International Convention Centre. And not just any old visitors, but big spending business people, who, wherever they go around the world, seem to burn money before, during and after the conference on hotel accommodation, restaurant meals shopping and touring. The amount of new jobs, new opportunities, new rates and new taxes that was predicted would have been generated by this project is actually quite staggering.

It is all so sad therefore, that at the precise moment when our city seemed poised to push the big “GO” button on our own very own ICC, that  Sepp Blatter announced to the world in 2006 that South Africa would be hosting the Fifa 2010 World Cup. From that day on everyone went crazy. Any plan, any idea, any vision and any project that did not, in some way, support the World Cup was shelved and forgotten. So with the passage of time, people now forget that the plan for our ICC was not shelved because it was a bad idea,it was shelved because the World Cup got in the way.

Back to the streets of Durban and my Hotel on the beachfront. Yes, Durban’s beachfront is nice, but not nearly as nice as Port Elizabeth’s. The Durban beachfront is actually decidedly down market and positively shabby. It seems that the whole “upmarket” part of what was the beachfront has upped and moved off to the North Coast, to Umhlanga, to Belito and to Salt Rock. I don t know the places that well, but I do know that PE’s beachfront still contains its upmarket restaurants, hotels and apartments. It does this gracefully, while still accommodating ordinary people that are unable to spend large amounts of money. PE has cleaner beaches, our sand has a better colour and the skies are crisper. Port Elizabeth has a better beachfront. Fullstop!

In the evenings after the lectures, exhibitions and talks, my wife and I would visit Durban’s Florida Street. It’s a restaurant zone about 10 minutes taxi drive from the ICC. It’s nice, with a good range of restaurants, bars, antique shops and art galleries. To be honest though, our own Stanley Street is better. Stanley Street offers a wider range and has a much better “street vibe” and is distinct by being nestled in a uniquely preserved heritage precinct that is Central and Richmond Hill.

So, I come to ask myself : “What it is that is standing in the way of Port Elizabeth becoming a world class conference destination?” We really do have an offer that can out-compete Durban.  We have all the key ingredients to make ourselves into a conference city, that can be better than Durban and, importantly, we have the rare opportunity to locate an ICC on the beachfront. Imagine being able to step out of the conference and see the waves, smell the sea and check out the talent along a public promenade back to your beachfront hotel or your fancy restaurant. Colleagues, our city has it all. All except an International Convention Centre. Yes, I know our friends at the Boardwalk Casino have tried to convince us that what they have built at their new hotel is the same thing. While we must all understand that the casino bosses were well motivated to convince that gaming board that what they were building would save the city from building an ICC, the truth is that their conference venue is nice and it’s better than what they had before, but just does not do the trick. It just does not have the scale required to attract the kind of conferences envisaged by the city prior to 2006.

But all is not gloomy, because we are very fortunate to have in our city many very highly paid and skilled public leaders. They can be found in our Development Corporations, Development Agencies, National Departments, Provincial Departments and Municipal Directorates. (Remember, an ICC is a public investment, requiring taxpayer’s money.) So my challenge to the clever and powerful people of this city is: Which one of these individuals in these powerful institutions will step up to the plate?

This project needs a champion.

Who will it be?

ECIA Chair slates ‘too big to fail’ developments

This piece appeared on the mype.co.za website on 6 September 2014. It captures some of my views on the city and the profession at the moment.

ECIA Chair slates ‘too big to fail’ developments

6 SEPTEMBER 2014 BY ALAN STRATON

The past two years have seen the Eastern Cape Institute of Architects’ (ECIA) take on a higher level of advocacy and engage more actively with the public, business and government to educate and share the power and joy of the art of architecture; and on how design can be used for good.

?ECIA President, Tim Hewitt-Coleman says, “The city is its buildings; and the city is the spaces between its buildings. We must work hard to develop a dialog about the ‘Art of Architecture’. A critical dialogue that helps us all see what it is that we like, what we don’t like and what we would like to see our own cities and towns become.”

“I continue to be astounded at how architects in our region manage to achieve such excellent buildings against significant odds, something we must consider a major achievement. There are many of these and we have taken the time to build an exhibition of outstanding design currently on display at the Athenaeum.”

Hewitt-Coleman is adamant that architects have a crucial role to play in protecting excellence. “We are in a desperate fight to defend the tradition of excellence in the built environment against a recent irrational and completely ill-considered attempt to buy the services of an architect on the basis of ‘cheapest is best’,” he said.

“The public sector, spending tax payers’ money, is the number one culprit in this mindlessness. We call upon the public to assist us in this fight, by demanding excellent buildings, excellent parks and excellent spaces. Architects in our region are ready to provide these services.”

The celebration of excellence has been an on-going call to action of the current ECIA committee, which has been in place since 2012. Today a new committee was also elected to carry to mantle forward building on recent achievements.

The ECIA has made significant inroads in involving the profession and public more actively in the design process and engaging them in debate around the way urban spaces are shaped.

“The inaugural Urban Assembly was hosted in October 2013 presenting an ambitious collection of regular ECIA events and a series of new public events, including the popular Archi Race and the prestigious Milde McWilliams Memorial lecture given by the inspirational Luyanda Mpahlwa of Design Space Africa,” said Debbie Wintermeyer, ECIA committee member.

In April 2014 the ECIA also hosted an exhibition at the Athenaeum which showcased competition design entries for two major projects at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and the design of the new NMMU Alumni building, allowing the profession and public to engage with the idea of the architectural competition as a method of procurement. The ECIA also promoted awareness of the Union of Architects World Conference inDurban in July.

Hewitt-Coleman said the new ECIA committee must remain focussed on what he sees as the “needs” of the profession and the built environment: Clarity, education, training and ethics: “It was a joy to serve with this committee over the last two years. To be an architect is to be a member of a very old profession that pre-dates Roman, Greek and Egyptian civilisations. Those of us who are asked to care for this profession in our specific corner of time and place, do so out of a deep sense of gratitude to the generations on architects who shaped our tradition.”

Recently the Eastern Cape has seen innovation temper local design, with the construction of green buildings which are less expensive to heat and cool, use less energy for lighting and are generally more comfortable to live and work in. Many of the projects in region are leading the way nationally.

However this is not the norm.  “For the large part, our cities a terrible sprawling dust raps of poverty and desperation. While much of this is understandable because of our history of apartheid city planning, what is happening right now in 2014, in architecture and city building is completely inexcusable.

“I don’t just mean the mindless rows of matchbox houses sprawling over the hills, but also the megalomaniacal big capital shopping centre monster way outside of our city to the west and in all other directions of the compass where cheap land can be found to build ‘too big to fail’ monuments to our system’s uncaring arrogance,” Hewitt-Coleman said, adding that architects everywhere are calling for a “human face” to the planning of buildings and cities.

“Architects are being called upon to step forward, out of the shadows, and claim the space needed to design and plan the cities of our future. We are slowly and tentatively developing the courage to do what it takes to wrestle this space back.”

Reflecting on 30 years of a changing architectural landscape – which is shaping and reconstituting modern South African cities – the Eastern Cape Institute of Architects’ (ECIA) latest exhibition, Excellence in Architecture: 1983-2013, celebrates how the region has morphed through architectural intervention.

The ECIA exhibition opened on Friday 5 September, and runs through to 12 September in the Athenaeum.

The Crisis in South African Cities within the context of the entrenched dysfunctional relationship between Urbanists in the Public, Private and Academic Sectors

(This Paper was first presented on 5 August 2014 at the International Union of Architects - World Congress in Durban. - It was presented at the "Parallel Academic Sessions" after a lengthy process of abstract approvals and double blind reviews.)


Close to half of South Africans now live in towns and cities. There is no evidence of the slowing of this trend. The 2011 Census shows us that rural provinces like the Eastern Cape have a declining population while urban centres like Gauteng show massive growth in population at rates very difficult to plan or develop for.
The growth pressure on South African cities in the last 20 years has of course been the engine driving change in the country, because where there is growth there is a drive for transformation. This has necessitated a profound “re-visioning “and re-imagining of what were old colonial and apartheid cities. This urbanization pressure has created the perfect opportunity for change. Nowhere else on the globe since the rebuilding of Europe after World War 2 has there been a need for urban spatial transformation as here, in post-apartheid South Africa.  There are great obstacles to change including our limited resources, our old paradigms and our vested interests. Not surprisingly the process of spatial and physical transformation has been a flawed process.  No matter how you look at the current reality in South African cities, twenty years into democracy, all can still, without exception, be described using the terms “Town” and “Township”. (Those of you from outside the country are reminded of Apartheid spatial planning’s dictate that black residents be located outside of “town” in dormitory “townships”.)

All of our cities are currently characterised by:
• Inner City areas facing decline, degradation, increased vacancies and deflated rentals.
• Middle class suburbs remain crime affected and under siege from roaming criminal gangs.
• Government subsidised housing is very poorly located, very poorly serviced and of very poor quality.
• A lack of spatial integration (denying, particularly the poor and new urban immigrant’s access to critical urban resources and the urban economy).
In spite good policy documents, South African cities have continued to become massive sprawling, polluting, fossil fuel dependent, urban regions that experience high levels of crime because of shortcomings in the urban economy and the weak social infra-structure. These cities are in many ways monuments to inefficiency, social dislocation and environmental degradation.
To this day, our cities remain memorials to apartheid's most visible and viscous social engineering projects; divided between rich and poor, black and white and well serviced and poorly serviced. But what is perhaps worse, is that far from turning around this inherited pattern, the forces acting on our model of development since 1994 have rather perpetuated and reinforced the failed pattern.
As we speak, this pattern is playing itself out in the city that has been home to my family and to my architectural career. The Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area will, in the coming months see massive new sprawling developments beyond Motherwell to the east and outside Sherwood to the west of the metro. The process is now well underway to obtain approval for a new R6 Billion “mixed residential” development beyond Motherwell, along the road to Addo and construction has already commenced on massive new regional shopping centre to the west along the N2.
Curiously this crisis in South African Cities continues at a time when there are skills and resources available in the public, private and academic sectors to address these challenges and in fact to transform our cities into vibrant models of  balance, harmony and sustainability.
It is therefore the position of this paper that the most significant obstacle to meaningful urban transformation in South Africa lies not in a shortage of academic “know how”, not in a shortage on public sector investment, not in a shortage of private sector mobilisation but rather in the entrenched dysfunctional relationship between these three sectors.
Each of these sectors operates increasingly as a “silo”, separate from each other with no mechanisms available for true collaboration. The public sector has become driven by a number of imperatives that require it to “procure” the “services” offered by the private sector in a standardised mechanism designed to “procure” other “goods and services”. The obvious fact that public and private sectors can best serve the urban crisis by contributing the best from their ranks to collaborate in providing, vision, leadership and direction is of no concern to the faceless authors of our public sector’s “supply chain management” procedure. The unavoidable nett result of this strategy is a contested, completely unproductive standoff between the public sector “urban silo” and the private sector “urban silo”.  No vision emerges from this standoff; no leadership emerges from this standoff.  Only “safe”, “compliant”, “cost effective” implementation.
In a similar way urbanists in the “academic silo” come under increasing pressure to focus not on the South African urban crisis, but rather on “purer” academic pursuits. A youngster with a Phd that deals with some arcane branch of architectural theory is much more likely to assume a professorship in Architecture than a practitioner with 20 years’ experience in city building. This trend seems unstoppable with a momentum developed from very high up in the South Africa’s higher education community.  Architects who teach are now actively discouraged from participating in private practice. Those from private practice, who give of their time to the university and share their experience generally, do so as volunteers. Academics offering to serve the public sector are treated the same as their private sector counterparts, as a commodity to be bought through a “procurement system” with the same resultant frustration.
While in architectural practices everywhere we find that the energies of the brightest minds are committed to pure commercial pursuits. Top Architects, in top firms dedicate a disproportionate amount of their time on bids, tenders and RFP’s. When the projects are moving, architects at the top of their game commit most of their valuable time and energy in “managing risk”, resolving conflict and ensuring cash flow. Very little time here for reading, studying, engaging or developing the perspective that we know is required to see the bigger urban picture.
In this way the silos grow more and more isolated and positions within them become more and more entrenched. Urbanists of otherwise impeccable credentials begin to withdraw into cynicism and isolation. Great ideas are shelved. Big visions parked. Energy diverted.
Is there any solution? Is there any alternative to these dysfunctional relationships? Is there any way out of this urban crisis? Of course there is. These challenges were made by people like you and I and they can be overcome by people like you and I.

In light of the above, we put it to this conference that the following are now accepted as “common cause” by the three “sectors”; academic, public sector and private.
• Firstly, progress in addressing the crisis in South African cities is significantly dependent on the effective collaboration between “Urbanists” located in the public, private and academic sectors.
• Secondly, effective collaboration is substantially obstructed by current public “Supply Chain Management” procedures.
• Thirdly, effective collaboration is significantly obstructed by current Higher Education human resource management practices.
• Fourthly, the burden of Research and Development required to address the Urban Crisis is not shared in any helpful way by the Architects located in the private sector.
If the above can be taken as consensus, then this paper then makes the following propositions which it calls on the conference to debate:
Proposition Number 1
This paper argues that Architects in private practice have a meaningful role to play in developing vision and solutions to many of the challenges that face our rapidly growing cities. It is further argued that practicing architects are, as a by-product of their professional practice, daily exposed to up to date, complex data that informs and frames the questions and challenges that make up the urban crisis.
The limiting challenge however is that a formalised structure to support and facilitate the assimilation, processing and sharing of this data does not exist to the same extent as this exists in South Africa’s Universities. Universities all have a long established, structured set of incentives that promote research and debate.
Architects in South Africa are organised, primarily though the South African Institute of Architects. A number of programmes are run by this voluntary association to ensure the “Continuing Professional Development” of its members. In its turn, the regulating authority, South African Council for the Architectural Profession (SACAP) determines what is deemed to be an adequate amount of “Continuing Professional Development” in any given 5 year cycle. Within this environment, very little emphasis is placed on ensuring that research outputs of the profession are captured in any meaningful way.
The proposition put forward in this paper is therefore that:
The South African Institute of Architects is best placed of all institutions to formulate a systematic research process that captures the collective wisdom emanating from the work of practicing architects in the rebuilding of South Africa’s cities and that it will be failing in its mandate toward “Architects and Architecture” if it does not develop programmes to address this challenge.
Proposition Number 2
This paper points to the uncontested fact that University Architecture departments through the country have displayed a “drift” away from professional emphasis toward a greater academic emphasis. This is evidenced by the growing proportion of junior and senior teaching staff at Architecture departments with little or no professional exposure or credibility. This weakness arises from the fact that Architecture departments are located within universities where they experience significant pressure to conform to “uniform standards” which align the seniority of teaching posts with equivalent academic achievement. There exists no framework at any South African University to equate professional achievement with appropriate post-graduate qualifications meaningful to selection panels considering applications for teaching posts in Architecture departments around the country. While the South African Council for the Architectural Profession is mandated to accredit schools of architecture, no part of its directives to schools of architecture include the need for teaching staff to have has any contact or exposure to the profession of architecture.
The proposition therefore put forward in the paper is that:
The South African Institute of Architects is best placed to ensure that The South African Council for the Architectural Profession, develops expands its guidelines for the accreditation schools of Architecture to include minimum levels of professional experience for various categories of teaching positions.
Proposition no 3
While some architectural services procured by the public sector are of a routine and basic nature, others call for the Architect to provide significant leadership and vision. No evidence or research has been presented by the public sector at any conference or in any publication to suggest that leadership and vision can best be obtained from private sector architects using the current supply chain mechanisms uniformly adopted by Local, Provincial and National government departments. In fact, the documented evidence of Architects failing to provide adequate leadership in public sector projects grows as procurement process dictated by National Treasury become more uniformly employed.
This “supply chain” practice continues in spite of a number of workable examples where leadership and vision is procured by the public sector using free, fair and transparent processes. These examples include the long list of Director’s General, Municipal Managers, Chief Financial Officers and CEO’s of development agencies who are all procured in interview and shortlisting procedures without the need to submit a competitive financial offer.
The proposition therefore put forward in the paper is that:
There is no institution better placed than the South African Institute of Architects to commit to a comprehensive research project to test the hypothesis put forward in this paper that:
“Current South African public sector supply chain management processes, do not match the best Architectural skill and talent with the tasks that most require these skill and talents.”

Conclusion
This paper calls on this conference to debate the above three propositions with a view to accepting, rejecting or refining the position. The intention is then that this paper, in its refined form, becomes a call to action for South African Institute of Architects, to step into a leadership position in the task of ensuring that the energies of South Africa’s architects are best directed to the growing Urban Challenge facing this country and this continent

The End of Excellence?

(This Piece first appeared in The Herald on 25 July 2014 and is based on a talk I gave at the Athenaeum that week)

I have never visited Paris, but I have, just last night, visited a fantastic exhibition of excellent buildings and spaces at the grand old Athenaeum, in Central Port Elizabeth, entitled; “100% Paris”. You can still catch it. It runs until 25 July 2014. The exhibition is part of a collaborative between the Alliance Francaise, The ECIA, the NMMU School of Architecture and the MBDA. The ECIA’s Regional Awards programme is on Exhibition and so is some very interesting work by the MBDA and NMMU on the Baakens River Valley.

    

Visiting exhibitions and events of this sort always gets me thinking and this time was no exception. I gave a small talk on behalf of the ECIA and there was some very stimulating discussion that followed. The event got me thinking about “Excellence” and especially excellence in the built environment. What is it? What is its purpose? Has its time passed? Is excellence and means to an end? Or is excellence an end in itself? It got me thinking about “The End of Excellence”.

Because, as I said at the talk last night, I am quite sure, if you were to ask anyone who ever visited, Paris, or London or any other beautiful city, to speak of what was most memorable of their visit, they would speak of the built environment. They would speak of the bridges, the steeples and the spires. They would speak of the parks, the walkways and the avenues.

I am pretty confident, that after having returned from London or Paris,  you would not speak of how neatly the accountants prepare their balance sheets, or with what precision the doctors sew up their stitches after an appendectomy.  Yes, of course these disciplines are indispensable to our civilisation, but we must confront the truth that there is something very significant and lasting about the impression that the built environment makes on us.

So, what about Port Elizabeth? Yes, we have some beautiful places. We have the Donkin Memorial, City Hall and Feather Market Centre. We have an extraordinary collection of buildings, parks and spaces in Central. There are some parts of our city that are truly excellent, but  many of these are all very old buildings and places.  So, I ask: are we still able to create excellent spaces? Or, have we moved into and era beyond “ The End of Excellence”?

I ask this because, excellence is under threat. Around the world it is being beaten up and kicked in the teeth. Excellence is being bludgeoned simultaneously by a gang of three thugs. I am not afraid to name them.

Thug number 1 – “Mediocrity”

“Mediocrity” is a politically correct thug. “Mediocrity” says that perusing excellence is unfair because then not everyone gets a chance. “Why should people that are un-talented, unmotivated and generally useless not also get a chance?”

Thug Number 2 – “Competition”

“Competition” is dressed like a respectable accountant, but still very much a thug. “Competition” says that “if it can’t be measured, it can’t be managed”.  “What makes Central better than Charlo? What makes the North End Stadium better than the Boet Erasmus? What makes Architect A, better than Architect B? Show me the calculation! Is it longer? Is it heavier? Does it have more light bulbs?”

Thug Number 3 – “Compliance”

“Compliance” is a mouse-like, lawyer-like, thug? Compliance says “excellence” what is this? Where in the rules does it say we have to create an excellent city? “Compliance” says, we have made rules designed for stopping corruption and thievery, “What more do you want?”.

The sad news is that these three thugs have taken over public and private sector property developers. The people that build our cities are now controlled by these thugs or have become their agents.  Where excellence still happens, it happens because of the super human efforts of isolated individuals in the public and private sectors, who, in spite of the odds being stacked against them, see to the delivery of excellent buildings and spaces. Even today. Even in our city.

 The private sector routinely deliver s mediocre buildings and spaces because it appeals only to the mediocre tastes and expectations of you and I, the people who frequent their mindless malls, rent spaces in their sterile office parks. The public sector routinely delivers a mediocre built environment, for the same reason as the public sector, but they but they are also absolutely determined to see the each and every individual participant in the long sequence of events that leads up to anything getting built, is equally as mediocre, “So that everyone can get a chance.”

The private sector explains that it has no choice, it must remain competitive. It explains that the stock market will punish it if it were to waste money on creating an excellent built environment. “So as long as our competitors can get away with building poor environments, then so will we.” The Public sector, explains that “We are dealing with tax payer’s money here. There must be competition, to show that we paid bottom dollar.”

The private sector says to the public. “I have done everything you have asked of me. I have got the EIA, the TIA and the HIA. I am exhausted. I have complied. Where does it say I have to develop excellent buildings?”  The public sector says pretty much the same, but is even more exhausted by the complex internal compliance procedures required to so much as move a pencil from one desk to another. There really is no time and energy left to champion such niceties as “excellence”.

Yes, it is sad. Yes, it is demoralising. But it is the brutal truth. Excellence everywhere is under attack and none so more as in the built environment. But, I ask:  Is it the End of Excellence?

My attempt is to convince you that it is not the end. Yes, we are under attack from these three mindless thugs. Yes we are bleeding. But there are things we can do. 

And while there are still things that can be done, it cannot be the end.

UIA Conference - Durban 2014

I have prepared a paper for the UIA Conference commencing 3 August 2014 in Durban. I post it here just in case anybody is reading it in the meantime.

You can find the paper at: http://www.uia2014durban.org/programme/south_african_planning_institute_sapi_6.htm

Time to knuckle down to work and have a braai

(This column first appeared in the Weekend Post n 24 May 2014

I was planning to write this column on Workers Day, but I was too busy working. Make no mistake, I took the public holiday. Like everybody else, I was out of the office, but I was physically working with my gumboots and my chainsaw, clearing alien vegetation that has come to clog up the dam and the stream. Call me crazy, but I love to do physical work. I love the feeling of using my muscles, my arms and my legs. I love the rhythm of thinking and doing. I love the feeling of physical exhaustion in the evening.  I love the supper time retelling of the achievements of the day and I Iove the deep satisfied sleep that follows it. It seems strange to me therefore, that I have put so much time and effort in my life to ensure that I don’t have to do any physical work at all. My twelve years of schooling in maths, literature, history and science required no “doing”, no lifting or pushing. It did though; prepare me for another five years of study at University which would eventually deliver to me the degrees I required to become an Architect and be guaranteed of never having to push a wheel barrow, thrust a spade into the ground or cut firewood.

On leaving University, life as a young professional was clear, nobody ever handed out a rulebook, but the understanding was that we must put in time at the office to earn our money, but if we put in too much time we will break down, so we must take some of that money to buy “leisure”. That leisure must not involve doing anything productive or meaningful.  We may choose from a vast array on mindless sporting or cultural pursuits. We may participate or spectate. If the mindlessness of the leisure becomes unbearable, we may numb ourselves with alcohol, sugar or nicotine. This is just how it is.

I can see how in the headlong rush to get to the ‘top of my game” I have moved further and further in my career, away from actually doing any work. Like lifting a pencil, to sketch a chimney detail or calculating the fall and cover of a drainage installation. All of that is “outsourced”, because that is the law of competition and the law of competition says that, if I am an expert at running an architectural practice, I can’t be “wasting” my time actually being an Architect. I must spend my time delegating , checking what others have done, motivating, admonishing, fighting with debtors, apologising to creditors because that’s what we do when we get to the top of our game.

Does any of this ring true for you in your life? Perhaps, what each of us needs to do is sit back and look at the route we have walked to get where we are in our careers. Each of us needs to get down and do the dirty work of thinking through how we have been conditioned to look down on anyone doing physical work. Even in our homes, when we can’t resist the instinct to get our hands in the soil that we are married to, we make every attempt to dress up our gardening activities as “leisure”. We call gardening a “hobby”; we don’t call it “work”. When we can absolutely not resist the instinct to grow fruit and vegetables, a productive pursuit, we hide these away in the back yard. 

So, what I am doing in my life about my dysfunctional relationship with work? I suppose, I am slowly beginning to participate, wherever I can, in actually doing stuff. I am also looking for family traditions and practices that involve real work, even if it just taking the time to cook the mother’s day meal.  Some families in our region are fortunate to belong to a tradition where work is still honoured. If you drive through the streets of New Brighton or NU 7, on any given Saturday you will find clan groups participating in “Imisibenzi” (literally translated as “works”). These traditional functions mark a range of special occasions, but what is interesting, is that everybody attending the function, works. From the slaughtering of the beast, to the processing of the meat to the brewing of the beer and the peeling of the carrots. Hosts and guests work together. Honouring tradition and honouring the idea of work and how it is in fact not separate from leisure. To a lesser degree, but not entirely dissimilar, on any given Sunday in the suburban backyards of Summerstrand and Sherwood we find  family groups around the braai, spicing the meat, turning it on the flames. The hosts and the guests working together, some in the kitchen with the potato salad and toasted sandwiches and others outside with the chops and the wors. These are important traditions to hold onto, where the tendency is toward the American situation where 43% of all meals are no longer prepared at home and where work is generally regarded as something you sell in exchange for cash.

So more and more I come to see that any activity that helps me understand that work is not separate from leisure and that work is more than just a commodity for sale, is where I want to be spending my time.

In fact, I think I am going to braai tonight. It’s the least I can do!

Look after what we have got.

(I wrote this Column for the 9 April 2014 edition of Port Elizabeth's daily newspaper, "THE HERALD")

It was a windy, wet Wednesday. The sound of the angry sea crashing over the rocks was not even audible over the noise of the lone excavator as it crushed and smashed the last remains of what was the Seaview Hotel. Like a deranged beast, like an angry elephant, swinging left and right with its devastating mechanical trunk. The once gracious and manicured Minhetti was no more.

My son sat in the car, dry from the rain, as I stood by the gate, by the sign “Dangerous – Demolition in Progress”. I was not sad nor sentimental, not angry nor frustrated. I did not really even like the Seaview Hotel all that much the once or twice that I had been there. But I was filled with and uneasiness that stirred somewhere deep inside my innards. Over the course of my short life I have not yet been able to figure out what these deep feelings of uneasiness mean, or even whether they are of any significance. I have learned though, that it is normally I sign that I should step back and ponder. So here I sit, this morning, pondering over a fine Cappuccino in an average mall café.

I ponder over how we commit large amounts of energy into showing how frustrated “we” are that “they” demolished “our” hotel, or made potholes in “our” roads. Or how “they” built Greenacres, killing “our” beloved, historical Main Street. We know that it is too late, but still we commit the energy to raise our voice. Like the English complaining about the weather. Is this not a form of insanity? (Knowing nothing can come of our whinging, yet whinging anyhow!) But then I ask myself: ”If it is too late to save the Seaview Hotel, then what is it not too late for?”

I am sure each and every one of us has a best building or favourite neighbourhood, about which we are sentimental. But not each of us has a newspaper column in which to talk about it!

I do.

So, without any shame, I tell you: “Now is the time to take action to save Central, Port Elizabeth.” Framed by Govan Mbeki Avenue, the Baakens Valley, Rink Street and Russell Road, Central is home to the most extraordinary collection of rich and poor, young and old, sinner and saint. All framed in beautiful avenues, delightful squares, quaint lanes and irreplaceable buildings. How long will those of us that find meaning in Central wait before we find the energy to stand up, make a noise and take action? Will we wait for the last heritage cottage to be burned by damp and freezing vagrants? Will we wait for the last antique shop to flee to Walmer? Will we wait for the last coffee shop to tire of hastily hosing vagrant urine of its veranda every morning before the first customers arrive? Will we wait for the last office dweller to driven to Newton Park by the grime, dirt and continuous harassment by street people, drug dealers and petty thieves? When the last housewife, loses her last child in the hip high grass in any number of once perfect parks and playgrounds? Will it be after the bulldozers come, to clear the land, to flatten the monuments? Will it be then that we say “But how could “they” do this to “us”? How can “they” rob “us” of this enduring example of how city living can be tolerable, bearable and even enriching. How can “they” rob “us” of this model of authentic living that was our only contribution to the country’s emerging thinking on the future of the city?

I am sorry my friends, but I must offer to you that we are all delusional. Sadly we have come under the spell of a compelling lie, a myth that there exists such a thing as an “us” and a “them”. We can understand why the politically powerful may find it useful to perpetuate this myth, but it serves no purpose when we are needing to get things done. Right now, the thing that I am motivating, needs to get done, is that we save Central. If you are with me, then let us agree on one action we can take right now, as you put down this newspaper. Go find out more about the excellent initiative underway right now to establish a Special Rating Area (SRA) for Central (basically you pay a bit more rates to get better cleansing, security maintenance etc.)  It’s a “no brainer. SRA’s have been set up all over South Africa and the world.  Jo’burg’s got them. Richmond Hill has just set up an SRA, proving it can be done in our region.

If you do not live, work or invest in Central, all is not lost. Make a point of having a coffee in Parliament Street once a week. Make a point of buying an antique in Lawrence Street once a month, make a point of taking your kids to the Donkin Reserve once a term, make a point on attending a church service once a year in any one of the most beautiful Gothic revival churches. The point I make is, that our energy can be much better spent by expending it before the demolition than after the demolition.

Now that you are clear about what needs to be done: get out and do it! (Please)