


Talya Michaels
Migrant-Childhoods
Finding Permanence in Children’s Homes in Braamfontein


Each individual in this world is born, without selection, into a family. The lucky ones live without worries - their primary focus can be their own personal development. However, this is not the story of vulnerable children who exist in survival mode, fighting against the world’s hardships. The present study is an ode to the character of these humans – their courage and strength. It is an attempt to understand how childhood impacts one’s sense of self and ability to succeed. And it is an attempt to answer a question I regard as deeply significant: can architecture become a medium of change that facilitates a better world?
South Africa is currently facing a crisis of migrant childhoods caused by fractured households. The everyday lives of travelling children lay bare many of the breakdowns in our society. This loss of domestic permanence leads to children functioning in survival mode and moving through life in a state of household disequilibrium.
As parents become migrant workers, children are forced to experience migrant childhoods.
This project recognises the architecture of a children’s home as a means for providing a safe haven for children under the age of eighteen who have been affected by a broken momentum in their childhood, necessitating their leaving home involuntarily. The acknowledgment that these children need to be resettled, exposes the fact that temporality is a condition of living in a children’s home, since the duration of their stay there is not defined. How best are architects to design spaces for children who are constantly having to move and regularly have to envision a new environment to call home?