SUBDIVISIONS AND VACANT LOTS

Second year Architecture students sent on a research to understand the conditions of the housing stock in Yeoville.Several groups were affected to various themes, and each group was allocated a section of Yeoville to conduct their survey (North and South of Rockey Raleighs street).

Two groups researched an important housing dynamic in Yeoville: the subdivision of houses and flats, leading to an important residential densification of Yeoville: allowing for responding to housing demand in affordable and well located space, but potentially leading to overcrowding, rapid decay of infrastructure and buidlings if management and maintenance are not in par with densification.

Two groups surveyed and mapped other housing dynamics in the neighborhood: vacant buildings or plots, and properties for sale in Yeoville. These too can be conceived as a "sinkhole" for a neighborhood - a place where the absence of continuous presence might lead to absent management and possible hijack; or, as an opportunity for change and building alternative futures.

A project facilitated by Kirsten Doermann and Mpho Matsipa