Emma Skudder

Situated in a sea of grass alongside the Johannesburg railway lines, lie rows of graves lost in an overgrown landscape. Some marked, some unmarked, all invisible to the passer-by. Paarlshoop and Langlaagte-North border its edges, establishing the core of this research—the site. To understand the intricacies of the site, is to understand the project intent. Where there are graves, there is abandoned heritage and forgotten stories. Where there are railway buildings, there is community claim to be enriched. Where there are grasses and shrubbery there is connection to agricultural pasts. Heirloom between the tracks, bridges the urban lifeways of the site with a heritage-focussed centre, weaving together old and new and inciting memory. And so, the beacon of this thesis was using methods of remembrance and contextually tying back through revealing and re-inscribing. Commemorative spaces and recreational landscapes stitch new narratives onto the site. Narratives that juxtapose archiving, storytelling and making spaces, with spaces of skills-development, nurturing the existing conditions upon which they reside, and establishing an architectural tapestry; an heirloom.