FACULTY OF INFORMATICS AND DESIGN

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURAL TECHNOLOGY AND INTERIOR DESIGN

THIRD YEAR AT: 2024

Year Coordinator: Dr June Jordaan

Lecturers: Gingirikani Maswanganye WELCOME TO STUDIO 7 + 8
ATHLONE POWER STATION PRECINCT
 STUDIO 7: URBAN AGRICULTURE PRECINCT
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to your two design projects located at the Athlone Power Station in Kewtown, Cape Town, South Africa. This distinctive project is dedicated to exploring the realms of
adaptive reuse, social infrastructure, and the seamless fusion of soft and hard infrastructure elements. Our vision unfolds with the transformation of this iconic site into a dynamic
Urban Agriculture and Arts precinct, developing an industrial landmark.

BACKGROUND
The Athlone Power Station is an abandoned Industrial Precinct that is situated on the outskirts of the Cape Town CBD. Cape Town has in recent years become a place of rapid urbanization and
densification is in high demand to facilitate sustainable development. Mass migration to the city from the Eastern Cape, neighboring countries and provinces up country (semi-gration) is inceasingly
contributing to this phenomenon. The site and the architectural artefacts of this precinct is of particular significance as it is wedged between a suburban and an informal settlements area, and
stands testament to the legacy of apartheid’s spatialities. The spatial practice of undoing these fragmented urban precincts have been to the focus of architects and urban designers for three
decades but the challenges are as pertinent as ever. To the north-west of the site is Pinelands, based on the Garden Cities and to the east is Langa. These areas are vastly different in terms of
scale and density, with Langa having a much finer grain urban fabric. The power station precinct also sits on the N2, one of two national roads from which one enters the city by car, and acts as
a gateway to the city in its stereotomic and monolithic architecture.

Power stations are generally perceived as unhealthy environments. Producing high levels of smoke and large amounts of carbon emissions. Remediation and ecological restoration are often
required; without representing real threat to human health. Construction methods are focused on containment and power generation rather than human experience. As a result, these assets
require material redevelopment in order to meet modern minimum health and safety standards. Without substantial redevelopment, the interior spatial composition of these buildings often
perpetuates poor employee welfare, such as poor indoor environmental quality. Well-known phenomena related to human health and flourishing, such as access to natural light, suitable acoustic
experience, temperature and humidity often do not meet minimum standards required by local legislation, let alone the emerging findings on the link between indoor environment quality, objective
measures of health, wellbeing and cognition. Recent studies within the neuroarchitectural genera’s highlights compelling evidence of enhanced neurophysiological health and cognition when
humans are exposed to adequate and intentional design of unimodal sensory experience, such as access to natural light, supporting circadian and neuroendocrine functioning.

However, the experience of architecture is a complex phenomenon, based on a wider array of biopsychosocial inputs. The psychological perception of Power Stations often symbolizes connotations
of work that are associated with poor health, be it through intensity, environmental quality or economic oppression. There is a negative, intangible, phenomenological ‘health halo’, around such
assets. There is potentially no greater architectural symbol of ill-health, than industrial buildings such as Power Stations. Yet they represent a backbone of modern societies and economic
progression, electricity. [add something here about public buildings to bring it back to this element?? Their industrial architectural environments, however, have in recent years become the subject
of both industrial and cultural heritage. Globally we find examples of these redundant power stations that have been re-adapted, becoming important public facilities. Recontextualizing historic
notions of poor human health and contemporary association of societies and our reliant on ‘non-clean’ energy. This precinct thus provides us with multiple interdisciplinary avenues of enquiry and
opportunities. Town and Regional Planning, Urban Design, Mobility Studies, Architecture, and Interior Design are disciplines that can help us address the challenges this site provides.
Furthermore, this site is in close proximity to both formal (Philippi) and informal (occurring in informal settlements) farming areas. This industry forms a large part of the local economy. Organic
markets have in recent years also proliferated with the most well known and successful precent being the Oranjezicht City Farm Market at the V+A Waterfront in Cape

Through a preliminary desktop review of the Athlone Power Station Precinct three pertinent avenues of inquiry has presented itself. Firstly, it sits in a significant socio-economic location in Cape
Town’s metropolis and asserts the fragmentation of the city, as per previous spatial planning policies. Secondly, the buildings and surrounding landscapes have been abandoned and are predictably
unhealthy environments for occupation. Thirdly, with its proximity to farming, and the advent of the organic food economy in Cape Town, there is a need for an intervention on this site that promotes
the production and trade of agriculture.

1. How does this precinct fragment the city, and what are mobility, urban, and architectural ways in which this fragmentation can be undone, unity/cohesion and social
health be achieved?
2. To what extent is this precinct an ‘unhealthy’ physical environment? What might be the potential pathways of ill health, including physical health, wellbeing and
flourishing? How might sensory experience contribute to these pathways and what strategies can be employed to make this a public environment that is conducive to
mental and physical health?
3. How can a public agricultural precinct be developed on this site, that comprises of farming and trading, that promotes the healthy socio economic and recreational
healthy public space?
4. How can a performative arts precinct be developed on this site, that promotes the healthy socio economic and recreational healthy public space?
SITE INFORMATION
1. PROGRAMME + DESIGN PROMPTS
PROGRAMME
For Studio 7 you will be required to design an Urban Agriculture precinct. In the advent of rapid urbanization, there has been a trend in cities in recent years to
promote sustainable local farming precincts in which members of its direct community can benefit from local food production. As opposed to food being
imported. Urban agriculture is thus seen as a movement to make our cities more economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable. To do so you are
required think on a macro and micro scale. How does your precinct contribute to the city at large? How do you activate interstitial spaces, connect a segregated
districts, create spaces for families that are both playful and walkable? How do you articulate urban thresholds and articulate circulation? And finally, how to
you incorporate agricultural systems and seasonal climates. Your site is located on the main CPUT campus. The land was previously district 6 residential land
and thus has a sensitive history. Some fragments of the previous settlement still remain on the site. Surrounding the site are new developments starting as part
of the land reparation process. Your site also has a slope and views toward the city and the mountain. Also consider all climatic impacts in the site, that ranges
seasonally.

TECHNOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS
For this design you will be required to design with a portal steel frame and cladding of your choice. Please refer to Technology lectures on

CONCEPTUAL DESIGN PROMPTS ACCOMMODATION SCHEDULE

1. Adaptive re‐use (public organic market)
Farming
2. Urban and Historical Considerations
1. Outdoor farming spaces
3. Urban regeneration in a scarred landscape 2. Indoor farming spaces (housed in 2 existing steel structures
4. Activating interstitial spaces 3. Vertical hydroponic wall
4. Bee‐keeping Space
5. Urban Living Rooms
5. Common Storage Space (Equipment / Seeds)
6. Connecting Segregated district 6. Workshop Space
7. Playfulness and Landscape
Thinking
8. Walkability
1. Offices
9. Urban thresholds 2. Kitchen (Food Lab)
10. Wayfinding 3. One large dividable class room Trading
4. Retail space / food exhibition space
11.Agricultural Systems
5. Restaurant space
12. Interior – Exterior Relationships
6. Ablutions
13. Renewable Energy
3. PRECEDENTS

1. Shed Architecture (urban / rural)

2. Makers Landing, Cape Town
3. Watershed, Cape Town
4. The Shed, Jensen Architects
5. Canal Hub 1958,
6. The Electric, Cape Town
7. Werkspoor Fabriek, Zecc Architects
8. Urban Agriculture: Babylonstoren, Oranjezicht City Farm
9. Urban Regeneration through landscape: Highline, NYC
10. Australian Precedents: Glen Murcutt, Peter Stutchbury, Wardle
11. Battersea Power Station.

Battersea Power Station, London

Watershed, Cape Town