CUBES and a decade of city studios

CUBES, in collaboration with the School of Architecture and Planning, initiated the City Studio approach in 2010 with a collective and engaged focus on the inner-city residential area of Yeoville. The reflection on this experience culminated in the 2019 open access book Politics and Community-based Research: Perspectives from Yeoville Studio, Johannesburg, edited by Claire Benit-Gbaffou, Sarah Charlton, Sophie Didier, and Kirsten Dörmann (Wits University Press).

Following the Yeoville City Studio (in an inner city neighbourhood, from 2010 to 2012), the second City Studio was in the historic but rapidly transforming neighbourhood Rosettenville from 2013 to 2015, and the third from 2016 to 2018 in the inner city mixed-use, high-rise district Braamfontein, where Wits University is located.

CUBES is currently conceptualising a city studio for 2024-2026 in the Kelvin-Alexandra-Frankenwald area within the north-east of Johannesburg.