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EMPLOYED: An Urban Centre for Temporary Workers

Part 2 Project 2004
André van der Westhuizen
Elizabeth Flower
University of Pretoria | South Africa
An unemployment rate of approximately 40% has forced many South Africans to become temporary, and often migrant, workers. Uncertainty, caused by a fluctuating economy, reflects in the built environment, which have become "temporary", displaying a lack of workmanship. This project is a result of intensive planning on the site, in collaboration with the proposed Hatfield Gautrans Station. The functions of the project, a stable centre acting as a datum point and haven for temporary workers, resulted out of this planning process. This thesis aims at re-establishing a trust in the built environment through quality architecture, by promoting work and workmanship.
André van der Westhuizen
Elizabeth Flower


The design is based on a rigorous investigation of the issues informing the design process. It addresses aspects reflecting local conditions and universal concerns. It effectively defines the guiding themes of work and labour and the relationship between production and fabrication contextualized within a society where job creation is paramount. This is successfully translated into design principles resulting in a product of architecture reflecting both necessity and artifice. The merit of the work resides in the author’s ability to manipulate and apply the theoretical concerns in the design process from the conceptual phase to the meticulous resolution of tectonic detail.

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2004
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