If the sun does not shine, I do not grow. If there is no rain, I do not drink. A life spent in the dark underbelly of the mines.

First year architecture was a path towards being fully aware of my context. Immersing myself within it, enjoying it, and yet also critiquing it. As my awareness grew, I became more informed. Architectural design became a tool for expression and for the extension of my thoughts in a new medium.

For the project ‘Fanakalo’, I considered the history of Johannesburg in relation to its foundation as a mining town during the gold rush. Braamfontein, became a place of residence for people who worked in the mines, and spoke Fanakalo. It was a language of capture, a colonial era pidgin developed for instructing mine workers. In the Johannesburg mines there were two groups of protagonists: the colonial overlords and the indigenous workers. A difference existed between these two groups, that used Fanakaloto communicate. For the colonial oppressors, the language was a means to communicate their power in the shaping of an environment which fed on the lives of the workers. This project devours its users. Its construction and form derive from this experience of the mines.

The project ‘Inyoka: The Sepent’ explores the magical powers of the snake in indigenous folklore as a design generator for a contoured path in the landscape.