Council presentation

Mood: Unsettled
Song in mind: Boys 2 Men-4 seasons of loneliness

Site: Civic Centre
Mission: Present Concepts to Council

I felt unease and unsettled because my group mates and I had not completed our work, yet. We had to present our final concept and design of the Chess Park project and the Paired Project, which I began to put together in Powerpoint format at the council during the preparations, somehow I managed to finish.

The presentation ultimately went well and our intentions in Kwa-Thema were made clear to councillors from different departments that we are not to trying to change the entire Kwa-Thema, but to have small intervention throughout Kwa-Thema to bring about an awareness and motivation of how the residents can improve their immediate surroundings and environment; maybe even create interventions that are sustainable and may bring about certain levels of employment.
This is what makes me passionate about the project and the idea of working and interacting with the community, not as an architect, but as one of the "resident" fascinates me. We presented our scheme as the Chess Park group and this group consisted of Sifiso Hadebe, Tom Chapman, Ahaka Tseki and Kasia Kwiecinska and myself, Karabo Masia. Our intentions are to build a giant chessboard, a hawker stand, putt-putt course, Kgotla (gathering space), sandpit and a jungle gym, create seating out of old tyres and pave the pedestrian path. It is to be mentioned that some of these interventions will be done at a later stage. Our focus will be on the chessboard and hawker stand.

We would like to see the space become a community gathering space, where both young and old, male and female unite not only to discuss critical issues facing society today, but also to play.

d-day deliria

after two long days of never-ending presentation work and no sleep the night before, deliria set in. my return home for a 5:30am shower gave me another few hours of sanity. our group left for kwa thema at 8am.

after problems with the council chambers venue and the annoying delay caused by the late arrival of the chess parkers and hannah, the crowd that had so attentively and timeously gathered was finally welcomed just after 10am. the wait had brought on another lapse of deliria – red bull psychosis!

the presentation was successful. the anc youth league made fair and reasonable comments. many suggestions arose and we felt positive and thankful that we had stayed up all night.
in a trance, we took nico to our beerhall briefly to discuss historical graphics. i didn’t partake but rather tried to gather my tired mind.

our journey back was… well… short… as i slept… head hanging and tired eyes resting.