Andrew Boraine

Infrastructure for 2010 and beyond: Hospital Bend upgrade

Andrew — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:26:28 +0000

For those of you who are wondering just how the new Hospital Bend pre-selection scheme is going to work, here it is (inbound example): Download a larger PDF (1,8MB) version Hosp_Bend_INBOUND

Alejandro Aravena: design for social change

Andrew — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:44:59 +0000

Many delegates to the recent Design Indaba conference in Cape Town have told me how impressed they were with the presentation by Alejandro Aravena, a Chilean architect, on the design and financing of affordable housing. I unfortunately missed the presentation, but here are two views worth reading: one by Bruce Nussbaum (who I had the pleasure [...]

Spier Contemporary coming soon to a large City Hall near you

Andrew — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:48:31 +0000

I’ve been given the honour by the Africa Centre of opening the Spier Contemporary 2010, the largest biennale art exhibition in South Africa, this coming Saturday (13 March) at the Cape Town City Hall. Hmmm, what to say to a daunting array of artists, art critics, journalists, politicians and business leaders? Today, in order to prepare myself, I was given a [...]

New forum for urban debate

Andrew — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:49:03 +0000

“Urban place-making can’t be left to the professionals”. With that bold statement, two Capetonians, Mokena Makeka and Rory Williams, have launched a new weekly column on urban issues in the Cape Times newspaper. Read their first column and check out www.men-about-town.co.za for more information. Better still, write a letter to the Cape Times and tell them your views.

Inclusive memorialisation?

Andrew — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:19:10 +0000

There’s been quite a bit of discussion recently on the issue of street renaming. My colleague, Ryland Fisher, writing in the Cape Argus on 22 February, asked what has happened to the working group leading a renaming process set up by the City of Cape Town a few years ago: “This group, under the leadership [...]

New people’s park

Andrew — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:13:20 +0000

Ella Smook of the Cape Argus wrote an article this week on the new Green Point Urban Park, which describes the facilities being planned for the area after the 2010 World Cup. Located next to the new Green Point IRT station, the park will become more accessible to communities throughout the city as the IRT system is rolled [...]

2010 Fan Walk takes shape

Andrew — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:29:41 +0000

The 2010 FIFA Football World Cup Fan Walk in Cape Town is taking shape. This is the route that creates a pedestrian-priority route from the CT Station in the CBD to the CT Stadium to be used by an estimated 18 000 fans on match days.

Cape Town World Design Capital 2014?

Andrew — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:36:44 +0000

As we head into the last 100 days to the 2010 FIFA Football World Cup, a bunch of creative Capetonians have been looking at ways to sustain the momentum beyond 2010. One idea is a campaign to bid for Cape Town as World Design Capital in 2014 to be launched this week at the Design [...]

Local Government Turnaround Strategy

Andrew — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:00:29 +0000

Last year, the South African Government launched a review of local government, and came up with some pretty damning findings. This has resulted in the launch of an ambitious Local Government Turnaround Strategy aimed at addressing the internal factors (e.g. quality of decision-making by Councillors, quality of appointments, transparency of tender and procurement systems, and levels of [...]

Imagine City Hall

Andrew — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:12:47 +0000

I’ve never been a fan of the Cape Town City Hall from an architectural and aesthetic point of view. I always find it a bit gloomy – two buildings in one rather awkwardly joined together with a rabbit-warren of corridors and rooms. However, there is no denying its symbolic and historical significance, and its imposing [...]