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Afro Urban Generator

Part 0 Project 2006
Sophie Atkinson
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University | South Africa
Ramaphosa Township in Port Elizabeth is a South African Urban Township – a landscape marked by poverty and poor infrastructure. The project proposes a celebration of the existing tectonic, using materials and ways of making inherent to the place.

The Afro Urban Generator comes about through the weaving together and elevating of “as-found” (waste) materials. In so doing making a place of delight, providing infrastructure, and a place for collaborative thinking, creativity and play. Here throwaways are recycled in an uplifting and useful architectural sculpture that generates enough electricity to charge batteries used for household appliances and mobile telephones.

Sophie Atkinson


The Third year design course focuses on developing an understanding of the spatial and physical aspects of the urban realm, with particular emphasis on issues regarding context, identity and the making of place.

Programmes for projects are developed in line with the above; recognising that the peculiarities that distinguish regional architectures from one another might stem at least as much from the particularities of activity-need being met, as by any formal physical characteristics.

The Afro Urban Generator engages thoroughly with the issues outlined above, providing a delightful urban place with a specific programmatic and physical identity borne of its context.

Tutor(s)

2006
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