It should come as no surprise that most people in Egor are not happy – will this "fact"- i.e.  that these areas are mapped, make any difference to the problems these people  experience in their daily lives -or is this just another type of academic past time ?

Truly amazing hand-made playgrounds

Maybe thers someone here in Cape Town whos preppared to sponsor this?

Great Graphics

Freehand drawing is as neccessasary now as it ever was – digital photos, computers, 3d graphics might have the day in recording annd rendering , but ideas and feelings and images of place are more readily encoded in us when we record them in  in sketches – our observatiosn in allsenses are enriched by them.

Chris Reed’s Stoss again an inspiratoinal design and different view of what streets can be.

The problems of Green Building Rating systems, with buildings that are rated on their own, is that the context and location of the site are not taken sufficiently into account – the same problem exists with the South African Green Star rating, where a high star rating can be given to a large building that is located in an urban situation where it ignores the street-level  environment and turns its back on the city and people who must pass by it, and even discourages use of its plazas and pavements to avoid vagrants and undersirables, as it is focused on car driving office occupants whose daily commute form the suburbs further increase congestion and CO2 emissions on the overcrowded roads of the city which still has inadequate and unsafe public transport.  

This is not to say these rating systems are of no value, but rather that they  need further refinement and tailoring – maybe one size doesn’t fit all and a more locally based process of sustainability evaluation would benefit  the urban fabric and all its actors – not just the developers and property owners.