People! I’m back again!

We’ve had a very busy schedule but I finally found some time to update my blog.
I’ve got so much to tell about the last weeks, so let me just start from the beginning!

We’ve been to a real Rugby match! There we saw the Blue Bulls from Pretoria against the Stormers from Cape Town. Of course we were supporting the Blue Bulls:-D!


But in the end I actually didn’t understand a single bit of the game and the sport in itself…

First we had to finish our design projects then in way too little time, but luckily we succeeded.
In the mean time we were busy with our intervention in Mamelodi. We’ve had many different ideas like for example cleaning the garbage dumps that cause a lot of problems, but then we didn’t find a proper location to show people how to deal with the garbage.
Eventually we found that in Denneboom railway station there were a lot of informal market stands. The owners built them with pallets and crates, but not very stable. This reminded me of our design assignment in second year for the food-mobile. Then I also designed the stand using just pallets and some connection materials. As such we decided to show people what the potential of these pallets actually is so they can make their lives a lot easier.
We designed 3 different types of foldable market stands with these pallets and made them on site at Denneboom station in Mamelodi using the help of the local people.


Our mission was a great success, because in the end people actually came to us to thank us for showing them what one can do with these pallets. They told us they would design a couple of market stands themselves, so we hope to see their progress when we return!

The next 2 weeks were tough with the design assignment, but of course we’re used to working, it’s the same in Belgium.
The weekend right after this period the leaders of Tuksdorp (the residence where we live) organised a tour to Sun City. This is like a huge artificial entertainment park with hotels, game lodges, casino’s, a waterpark, … It was really hot that they so we went to the water park of course and that was the first day since we were in South Africa that we really got a nice tan:-D!


I also got the privilege of receiving a massage from the Sun City bear!


Our visit to Sun City was on Saturday and 3 days later on Tuesday our easter break started and we left for Cape Town.
The first 9 days of easter break Marijke visited us in South Africa and the last week An visited us.
Cape Town was magnificent. If people told you it’s the most beautiful city in South Africa, you better believe them because they’re right! Here a view of the place in Cape Town to which we stayed close to, it’s the Waterfront:


This is the place where a lot of night life is going on and where most of the nice restaurants are located.
Our week in Cape Town was completely filled. We rented a car and the day after we arrived we did a great tour to the Cape Peninsula (with Cape of Good Hope). On the way we visited several wonderful beaches. The first one was Clifton Beach which had a lot of rocks in the water:


The next one was Camps Bay which wasn’t really that beautiful but it was a very nice place with cosy cafés and restaurants:


The next beach was Hout Bay on which we had some magnificent views from the top of Chapman’s Peak, but more about that later on:


Our next stop was the National Park of Cape of Good Hope. Here we went to the most southern point of the Cape Peninsula, being Cape Point and it was really funny. From there we saw this beautiful cliff a bit further from Cape Point and we were all the time wandering what that was. Later on we looked on the map and it turned out to be Cape of Good Hope:


View from Cape Point:


We also climbed Cape of Good Hope of Course, which is the most south-western point of Africa:


The next day we did an organised tour in Cape Town. First we went to the District Six Museum which was built in District Six, the last district in Cape Town which has been completely wiped out during the Apartheid regime. Afterwards we visited the township Langa which was the first township of Cape Town. Here we visited a shebeen, which is some kind of illegal beer brewer, and we tasted the beer. Let me tell you, I don’t like beer in any case, but that beer was really the worst beer you can imagine. It looked like dishwater and it was really sour!


In the afternoon we visited Robben Island, the prison island where Nelson Mandela was locked up for 18 years. It gives you a funny feeling actually because it’s actually a very nice island and all the buildings have been perfectly maintained. Gardens have been laid out and this gives it a very peaceful look which it wasn’t in any case.


In the evening we went out in a club called Hemisphere, which is located on the 31st floor of the Absa building in Long Street (in the CBD of Cape Town). It was a nice club, but clubs in Belgium are better:-D!


Though we went out there was of course again no time for a long night’s rest. We got up early to climb Table Mountain. We actually didn’t have much luck then, because we missed the first directions for the hiking tour we were following and as such we took the wrong trail, had a detour of one hour and we eventually arrived again at the same point where we should’ve gone left instead of right. The problem was that it was over 40 degrees that day and it’s not like there’s any shade on Table Mountain where you can seek some protection against the sun.
At that point Marijke and Haike were overtired and couldn’t go on anymore which was a pity, because without the detour they would’ve made it to the top. I wasn’t really tired so I went on. In the beginning it was a bit scary because I was alone and although I was hiking on a mountain it was still South Africa. But on Table Mountain you’re never alone and as such I soon met 3 people, 2 Dutch guys and a French girl, so I wasn’t alone anymore.
The hike on Table Mountain itself was pretty tough, the last part was pretty steep, but luckily there the pathway went between a crack in the mountain, se there we were in the shade:


When I arrived at the top I can assure you I was pretty tired and I can tell you, I slept like a baby that night:-D!

Next they was quite funny. We went to Stellenbosch and did a wine tour. We visited 4 wine farms in 1 day and tasted 32 wines in total! Let me just give you guys some advice, don’t take an example from us, because too much is too much, this was just an attack on our senses! But nevertheless, we enjoyed it. Especially the second wine farm, they also made different goat cheeses which were so nice!


Afterwards the problem was that we still had to drive back from Stellenbosch to Cape Town. So we first went for a walk in Stellenbosch, ate a snack and then drove back after we got sober again:-D!


Our second last day (next day) we did the hiking tour on Chapman’s Peak. This hill is near Hout Bay and as such provided some really nice views on Hout Bay.


It was a nice climb on Chapman’s Peak, but nothing compared to Table Mountain!

On our last day we visited the Cape Town Castle which has an enormous amount of canons of which none ever fired even 1 shot.


Right after we visited the castle we had to hurry back to get in time to the airport to catch our plane back to Pretoria.
In the evening we arrived back in Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport and An arrived together with us.
Again no time to rest, next day we got up early to get our next rental car to leave for the wild park Pilanesberg. We drove around in the park for 2 days and the most spectacular beasts we saw were definitely the elephants. One time we had an elephant crossing the street right in front or our car:


The next day in the evening we even had some trouble with the elephants, because there was a large herd on the road and they didn’t feel like moving on. Problem was, it was closing time and because of the elephants we couldn’t get to the exit because they blocked the road to the closest exit and the next exit was 50 km further. We didn’t have much choice though then return to find another exit, because the elephants even started closing onto the cars that wanted to exit.
So then we returned, but then there was an angry elephant bull blocking the road on the other side and as such we were enclosed… Problem… Luckily then after a while the herd decided to move on and we could get out of the park after all.

Next day we went back to Pretoria, spent a quiet day there and in the evening we dropped Marijke at the airport, because then she was going back to Belgium. After we dropped Marijke, we drove on to the Drakensbergen. Our first stop there was Amphitheatre and we arrived there late in the evening around midnight (Drakensbergen is really far away from Pretoria, some 500 km!). There we did a waterfall hiking tour and we saw 2 beautiful waterfalls.


It was a pity though that the sun wasn’t really shining that day…

The day after we had to move on again and we visited the city of Pietermaritzburg on our way to Giant’s Castle (our next stop in the Drakensbergen). Pietermairitzburg is a very nice little city with a lot of Victorian Architecture, but we didn’t stay there very long, because we didn’t feel very comfortable there…
Our hiking tour the next day in Giant’s Castle was really magnificent. The landscape there is so beautiful, it’s as if it’s draped around you!


It was a very exhausting hiking tour though, it was 21 km long and it went all the way up and down… But we survived!
Next day we went back home and that was our last day of the easter break. On our way back we dropped An at the airport and we drove on to Pretoria, resuming class the very next day!
But, we won’t complain, our holidays were brilliant!

Now a little bit about our new design assignment. We’re working around the Pretoria Railway Station, the place where the South African railway came to be.
We are working on an existing urban framework and our assignment is to work in, around and with heritage structures. We chose this time to design a bridge, because there is a pedestrian bridge spanning a distance of 220 m which could use some renovation and some upgrading.


As you can see this is a typical Apartheid Bridge, 2 parallel bridges, the one for coloureds and the other one for whites. The bridges are very narrow and not very pleasing to the eye, but still they have heritage significance and we can’t just replace them completely. We can add onto them though, so, although it’s heritage we’re dealing with, we still have quite some design freedom.
We’ll see how it turns out, but it’s interesting in any case.

In the mean time we also took part in a charity event. We went to a school in Mamelodi and our mission was to transform an unused plot of land (full of weeds, bumps, wholes and very hard soil) into a vegetable garden. We worked really hard all day and finally we succeeded in our mission!
It was a really cool experience and of course we ended it with a braai:-D!


That’s it for today people, I hope you enjoyed the reading and when you find the time, let me know how you’re doing;-)!

Bye bye!!!

Hey!

Finally some time to update my blog again!

I hope you are all doing fine??? We are very busy, a lot of work for university, but it's very interesting! Especially our research visits to Mamelodi. Last week we visited Mamelodi 4 times! We talked a lot to the people, went inside their houses to see how they lived, ... Sometimes the situation is really poor, we visited for example a hostel complex which was completely built with asbestos panels...

On the other hand you also have many people living in matchboxes (by way of speaking) and they are very happy with what they have, because most probably they lived in the informal settlements before.

Our site for our design project is very interesting. It's a transport node on the border between the 2 townships Mamelodi and Nellmapius. Only the link has never really been established and the environment has never been developed. So now we actually just finished designing an urban framework for the site in which we established several links on different levels (physical, educational, residential, transport, industrial, heritage) wich makes it quite interesting!

Now we need to design a housing development whithin this framework. So basically we choose 1 block of the framework which we will fully design.

I chose to establish a new pedestrian tunnel under the tracks as a physical link, which is also used as a sort of history museum/architectural walk and which incorporates some existing nice buildings that aren't being used momentarily, except for some homeless people who are living in there. How I will link that to housing is still a big question mark, but we'll figure it out. In 2 weeks time the design must be finished anyway so not too much time to think about it anymore.

2 weeks ago we visited downtown Pretoria again. This was very interesting. We visited a Mosque and a Hindu temple. It was interesting to see how they were pulled out of their original context and just implemented in the urban framework of the city of Pretoria (which is very American).

Well that's all again for today folks!

Hope to hear from you soon!

Bye!

Hey you guys!

First I will show you some pictures of my house, on the first picture you can see my fence and on the second pictures you can see the house I'm staying in:

Furthermore Haike and me are now finally fully registered and we recieved our student cards.

On Thursday we payed a first visit to the township Mamelodi here in Pretoria. We saw their art center (which was quite humble) and went to their shopping center, which was completely pulled out of it's context...
Here some images of how poor these people actually are...

On Friday Amira gave us all 2 books to read for next Friday, so this week we won't do many other things then reading those books...

This weekend on Saturday we went to explore downtown Pretoria with Minette, a friend of ours in our class. She showed us around on the black market and took us for a snack on the Church Square (the very heart of Pretoria where it all started).

And finally to end this post some photographs of our campus.
First the piazza (the central square) and the Client Service Center:

This is the building of the department of Architecture:

This is the building of the department of Engineering:

That was about it for today, people!

Take care!!!

Bye!!!

First post

Hi everybody!

Here my first post on my brand new blog! (Monday 9/2/2009)

I'm writing in English so my family in Cyprus can also attend this blog and see what I'm doing here.

Last week on Tuesday we arrived in South Africa. Fortunately we could leave for South Africa. The snow problem in Heathrow London on Monday only caused a delay of 1 hour. British Airways had rebooked our flights with Lufthansa via Frankfurt so they solved our problem really good!

When Haike and me arrived in Pretoria the next day we had 30 degrees and the sun was shining (next day we had rain, thunder and lightning though...).

We have a really nice room in a seperate house and like 4 keys to get inside the house! First we have to open a fence, then another fence before the front door, then the front door itself and then the door of our room.

Pictures will follow later...

On Wednesday we attended our first classes and it's also the only day in the week we have classes (the rest of the week we have group work though). We attended Landscape Architecture, but actually the classes are all crossing each other. The class was about town planning and it was really interesting!

Unfortunately then we didn't meet Amira Osman yet, because she was on Sabbattical leave.

In the weekend we already visited Johannesburg with some other international students (most international students here are from the Netherlands, some from Germany and we're about the only ones from Belgium).

Jo'burg was interesting to see, but it's really a dangerous city. Luckily we could arranged a guided tour to the most important places there so we were safe. The first day (Saturday) we visited the Apartheid Museum which was really interesting, but also really tiring (too much information in one time).

The museum building was really nice as you can see on the second picture!
In the evening of course we went to explore the night life of Johannesburg (again accompanied by someone from Jo'burg who knew where to go and where not!
The next day in the morning we did a guided tour around the city (by car). We visited the Top of Africa (the tallest building in Africa and it's 'only' 228m), here a view over Johannesburg:

Afterwards we visited Constitutional Hill (the new court house of Jo'burg), which was built in a wonderful architecture:

Today we finally met Amira Osman and she's such a nice lady, she gave us a real warm welcome. Normally tomorrow we will arrange with her the classes we wish to attend so we can finally complete our registration and recieve our student cards!

Well, that's about it for now!

I hope you'll hear again soon from me!

Take care you all!