c a e s e r s t o n e [ c o m p e t i t i o n ]

 

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN [THREE] - REAL AND SIMPLE

 

The COUPLE _ It’s been a while since Kevin and Susan Peters completed their course at UCT in fine arts. Funny to think they decided to get married in the same year. Soon after starting a company specializing in street and visual art [reverse graffiti, green graffiti, lighting arts, etc.] they had the professional world raving and were invited to present their first years work at a exhibition at Design Indaba and OCMA. Later on, as a family they decided to move to Pretoria and create a workshop which allows the community to be taught of art and how it could change our world.

 

THE SITE _ The site is located in Andries Street, Pretoria. Its behind the Transvaal Museum and has a spectacular view of the sun rise over Burgers park. It is close to many historical nodes such as church square, Paul Kruger’s house and the Gautrain Station. A six storey open plan apartment building with a small outside parking area and jacaranda trees on the street edge. It allows for a comfortable, private  living within the city.

 

The BUILDING [BOX-IN-A-BOX] _ Parasite according to the dictionary: “smaller organism that feeds of larger host” ..or.. In architectural terms: “Prototypes for Advanced Ready-made Amphibious Small-scale Individual Temporary Ecological houses”.

 

Parasitic architecture can be defined as an adaptable, transient form of architecture that links itself to a host building in order to function. Its existence is not possible without siphoning resources from its host’s surplus supply. 

 

If possible it must be portable, space flexible and  easily dismantled and re-assembled.

 

The idea was to use movable box rooms [parasite] within any existing building as its outer shell [host], if the floor space allowed it. It offers protection to these rooms and a non-physical connection between rooms. The rooms could change and adapt daily, making space for art class simple and innovative, as too can each box be explored to suite the clients characteristics.