Silent Borders will take the emerging megacity of Johannesburg as a case study to investigate the spatial and mental borderlines

THEME

Point of departure
In the rapid pace of global urbanization slums are today providing shelters for one billion people, which is equivalent to one-sixth of the planet's population. Without actions the number is expected to double by 2030. Parallel to this critical situation the profession of Architecture contributes to less than 5% of the annual building construction world-wide. This problematic gap suggests that Architecture immediatley expands its field of action and thus claimes new grounds with increased responsibility concerning the development of political and social content.

Silent Borders will take the emerging megacity of Johannesburg as a case study to investigate the spatial and mental borderlines, generated by diverse social, economic, cultural and technological conditions that meet, mix and clash within the city.
Johannesburg is an elusive, fragmented, and fast growing city, radically transforming its spatial and social configurations. This complex urban situation, that alternates between informal and formal, is an urgent and challenging field of research.

Building upon the wake of the 2010 soccer world cup in South Africa, Silent Borders contextualizes the impact of global events on the premises of urban construction (infrastructure, tourism, economy, resources), especially in terms of sustainability. What will remain after the event? What happens with the numerous temporary infrastructures, installations and materials? How can the flow of the invested energies and resources be re-used?

Silent Borders will investigate a set of different border conditions in the city of Johannesburg. The spine of these investigations is the newly established Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT). The issue of mobility (and infrastrucure) describes a significant instrument of spatial and social regulations, interactions and urban developement. In South Africa this has been the case, both in the previous Apartheid regime and in the current Post-Apartheid city. The BRT network bridges previous deconnected zones and thus becomes an instrument of Crossing Borders. The BRT serves as a macrosystem for the workshop interconnecting specific areas of investigations and interventions, which raises different aspects and subthemes to the overall workshop topic.


TASK
Designing systems for border- and edge conditions, interconnecting the Social, Political, Technological, Economical and Cultural

"Today it is necessary to make the Therapeutic Policy, which implies to consider the conditions of the coexistence; it is necessary to learn how to coexist, and in that sense, the favelas teaches us."Jacques Derrida
Borderlines
The urban landscape of Johannesburg holds a scattered number of critical zones. These zones are characterized by the uneven distribution of living necessities and possibilities. In the critical zones, hence, the inequality of contemporary urbanization becomes explicit.
Silent Borders investigates the conditions of the borders and the edges of the critical zones in terms of spatial morphology, architecture, and the operative systems of urbanism (social, political, economical, and technical). How can we define the borderline, its conditions, and its properties in terms of architecture? How can we re-conceptualize the transition zone, the threshold, and the no man's land? How can we re-think the edge condition and its role within the urban landscape of Johannesburg? How can we operate with divergent forces? How can we transform the borderline into a vibrant and generative instrument of communication, integration, connectivity, and urban development?

Silent Qualities, Silent Knowledge
In recent years strategies for adressing informal settlements and low-income communities have shifted away from large-scale slum clearance and relocation, which previously have caused massiv social disruptions and didn't approach sustainable solutions of the problem at all. Therefore different concepts, like on-site upgrading and improvement, with focus on integration of low-income communities within their larger context, have the fundamental advantage of supporting the local, site specific economic and social networks. Therefore the task is to initiate processes which involve and develop existing networks, the silent qualities and knowledge of the ground, to evoke sustainable developments which remain adaptible to dynamic conditions.

Technology
An important issue is the implementation of technology in relation to local resources. New production technologies, 4-D simulations, parametric design, in situ construction etc. are no garantee for solutions adressing the socially critical and dramatic issues of slums. In the field of architecture, various attemps have been made to develop ways of responding to these dramatic conditions, mainly focusing on issues of modulated living, educational or sanitary units. These responces have certainly helped to improve the living condition of informal settlements. The technological progresses of material and production processes certainly allows high-tech and first aid solutions but they fail to incoorporate the diversity of site-specific conditions such as cultural behavour, grass root urbanism and socio-economic structures. Hence, can we optimize the benefit of all these “wonderful“ global new skills by confronting them with local socio-economic and cultural conditions?

Resources
Silent Borders describes the interaction of two contradictory statements: "It works well to have a collection of materials and design around them" and "It does not work well to design a structure, then go out and try to find the material". This edge, carrying the potential role of an intermediary can only be activated by collaboration and interaction, where certain parts of the momentum are predefined and predictable, and where others are driven by unpredictability, invention and experimentation.
This critical edge of prefabrication and local reused building material is one of the central issues of the workshop. It defines technical, socio-economic as well as socio-cultural momentums of the process.

Sustainability
The impact of the soccer world cup 2010 is directly linked to the issue of resources. Building and construction companies make enormous profit out of the economic attention which is created by the huge temporary event of the soccer world cup. When the event evaporates some traces remains. First, the economic attraction created by increased infrastructural projects and service facilities, such as newly built hotels, business buildings and tourist attractors. Secondly, the surplus of building and construction material provides an alternative economy viable for processing and recycling.
Silent Borders picks up the edge between global events and the emerging conditions afterwards, with focus on designing systems, where surplus material plays an evident role and is an integrated part of the design process and of sustainable design thinking.

Broken cities
Following questions to the topic were brought up by Jorge Mario Jáuregui, one of the most experienced architects within the topic of slums and urban design:

- How to achieve the participation of the citizens? (reinterpretation of borders)
- How to efficiently use the available, always scarce resources? (socio-economic, socio-cultural)
- How to introduce elements of “prestige” in the extended peripheries, that constituting alternatives to “junk spaces” (thematic parks, shopping centers, closed condominiums)?
- How to conceive and put in action strategic plans (long term) that include actions of exemplar character, capable of generating adhesion from the beginning? It is to say, how to articulate the “tactic” and the “strategic” from a vision that considers the productivity of the territory, the social capital, and the local development, as innate elements?
- How to produce connectivity in broken cities?


PROGRAMME
Design Thinking
Silent Borders describes an interdisciplinary and experimental workshop where various reference systems will be elaborated in a Design Thinking process. The Design Thinking process is a human-centered set of methods and tools that combines approaches found in design and ethnography with technology and business skills. The process ensures the simultaneous correlation of different issues and players.

Phases
1. Mapping Borders (spatial, social, economic and technological borders)
2. System Evaluation
3. Consequences, Project Proposals

Lectures and critics from local universities and institutions will attend the workshop, providing insights and readings of the urban dynamics of Johannesburg.


Exhibition and Publication
A publication published by Springer Wien New York and an exhibition covering the workshop process and results is plannend.

Credits
RIEAch is collaborating with a number of institutions in Europe and the U.S. Depending on your department, the workshop may be subject for credits.

Infrastructure
General infrastructure will be provided. Participants are required to provide own working equipment, materials and digital hard- and software.

Costs
Participation fee for the workshop is 450 Euro.
Living accomodations and travel costs are not included in the fee. A list of inexpensive lodgings will be provided.

Application
Due to the high expectations and the limited number of participants, the application process will precede due to a selection process based on submitted work samples. For further informations see application guidelines

Application Deadline
May 31, 2010

Insurances
Each participant is responsible for its own insurances. RIEAch does not take any personal responsibilities.

Coaching Team and Experts
RIEAch staff:
- Guy Lafranchi , Bern University of Applied Sciences, Architecture Department
- Lars Kordetzky, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Architecture Department
- Per-Johan Dahl, UCLA Department of Architecture & Urban Desing
- Donatella Cusma', Woodbury University School of Architecture, Department of Interior Architecture
- Corrado Curti, Polytechic of Torino School of Architecture
- Mikael Pedersen
- Jitendra Jain

and:
- Thorsten Deckler, 26'10 South Architects, Johannesburg
- Lone Poulsen, Director of Architecture, School of Architecture & Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Lecturers from University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and other Institutions