This studio brought together the diverse worlds of academia, professional practice, government, and the private sector to analyze urban processes in order to generate new housing typologies for Johannesburg’s Eastern Gateway Area. Johannesburg embodies the South African paradox at its most acute. A city shaped by the rise, fall, and reconstruction of legally sanctioned segregation, today it is one of the world’s most unequal and spatially polarized urban landscapes. By observing, reading, listening, and drawing, the studio confronted these challenges and opportunities while broadening the understanding of the economic, social, and spatial dynamics of the selected site.

Students designed housing projects that encompass both temporary and longer-term interventions at the scale of a city block, while generating an overall urban vision that challenges conventional approaches to issues related to public space, mobility, environment, and culture. With support from the Swiss Embassy in South Africa, the Johannesburg Housing Development Agency, and the University of Johannesburg.