Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies (CUBES)

It focuses on ’urban materialities’ and the place of the poor in South African cities: how material realities of contemporary cities (their built environments at different scales, access to urban goods and central spaces, contestations about urban physical and political orders) affect urban citizens and in particular the marginalized groups. It builds on (but differs from) dominant approaches on cities in the South, which have progressed towards understanding urban subjectivities, diversities and cultures, but have tended to forget the lived realities of ‘most of the people’ (Chatterjee 2004). It aims at critically reflecting on existing practices of planning and architecture, constantly at risk of excluding the poor in their quest to order and formalize contemporary cities.

Therefore CUBES has, and is developing, expertise on the following five thematic fields:
1)    Planning with informality
2)    Building sustainable cities
3)    Building integrated cities
4)    Building democratic cities
5)    Building urban cultures and meanings

It relates to a unique variety of post-graduate city studies such as Urban Design, Housing, Development Planning, Urban Sustainability, Urban Politics and Governance. This places the Centre in an ideal position to build research capacity amongst academics and young future scholars, as well as to initiate innovative thinking around issues of South African cities such as equality, informality and governance. Its three key pillars are:
1)    Grounded and excellent research
2)    Education and mentoring
3)    Civic engagement and activism

These pillars are manifest through CUBES activities, which include collective research programmes, individual members’ expertise and institutional partnerships:

• CUBES organizes conferences, exhibitions and the Faces of the City Seminar series (run weekly, jointly with the NRF Chair on Spatial Change and the Gauteng City Region Observatory, GCRO).
• CUBES thematic teams run regular workshops including junior and senior researchers for focused discussions.
• CUBES central activity is community-oriented City Studios, which link research, engagement/activism and teaching/learning.

(Last updated on 20 July 2012)