District Six is an infamous example of the forced-removals of the South African apartheid regime. The vibrant, integrated district was declared white and 66,000 people were forcibly removed over the course of two decades. Almost all traces of life were eliminated: buildings bulldozed, new roads built. Today, decades after the fall of apartheid, the site remains a visible scar on the landscape. Its redevelopment is contingent upon on the new generation of Capetonians' ability to critically engage and empathize with the history and heritage of the former District Six community. The identity of District Six will never be understood in a simple, concrete way. The fragmented landscape, however, provides the opportunity to look both forwards and backwards.
A year of research, both on and off site revealed multiple competing registers of District Six: the extent to which it is represented and misrepresented, contested and forgotten. The future of District Six depends on changing the perception of the site as a place and as a concept. Making the distinction between learning about and learning from District Six; this thesis takes the form of a book that catalogs and unpacks elements from the urban fabric that can contribute to future development and understanding of the broader city.
The perceived fear and size of District Six is a huge obstacle to its redevelopment and reintegration into the city. It’s regarded as a big vacant zone that feels far away. Physical voids run through the book: first the entire district boundary, then the true voids of the fragmented site, and finally the pedestrain scale voids of the original urban fabric.
This book is a piece of a toolkit that supports not design outreach, but design collaboration. The back cover contains an unfolded model of a viewfinder, which is designed so that people can identity streets that they want to reimagine and then superimpose drawings on those streets. It brings knowledge and action together by making people think about how they occupy their city while encouraging them to explore.
