HOUSING

In Johannesburg as in many cities around the world, the absence of an inner city housing strategy that is able to provide households with affordable housing, while maintaining a balance between different income levels, leads to serious housing and urban challenges: overcrowding, slum-lording, living with limited or no access to basic services and urban decay. Yeoville Studio's aim was to imagine and develop, together with residents and local activists,proposals on various layers of housing design and policy: at the house or flat, at the building, at the neighbourhood levels. The re-design of housing in an existing neighbourhood in a prime location next to the city centre could become a new South African prototype: multicultural and inclusive, dense, green, and respectful of its citizens - a neighbourhood that is fair and affordable.

These ideas were debated with local activists, urban professionnals and municipal officials through a series of housing roundtables. Yeoville Studio researchers and staff continue today, through CUBES, to interact with interested officials and activists, making input into housing policies and projects. Furthermore, several students having participated in the Studio became City officials themselves, actively working towards building policy instruments that can efficiently and appropriately respond to some of the challenges experienced and researched in Yeoville.