WESTBURY
FINAL SUBMISSION
Video Presentation
Poster Presentation
Stage one video submission
Westbury Mapping - Land Use and Key Nodes
Westbury Mapping - Roads and Edge Conditions
Westbury infographic - positives and negatives
REFLECTIONS
The Project
When I first received the brief for the FADA Joint
Community Project "Design for and with Local Communities" I was a bit
hesitant to be collaborating with 3rd year students from various design
disciplines in UJ. My past experiences with group projects in undergrad, with
other architecture students, were never good and here was a project that crossed
four design disciplines and focused on a site that I never knew existed, so I
had my reservations.
While doing some desktop research on
Westbury, in order to locate the site and to get a brief understanding of this
area's rich history, I found many news articles and websites depicting Westbury
in a very negative light. The sources portrayed Westbury as a dangerous area, labeled
it as a 'no-go' area and described the area and its people as 'helpless and
hopeless'(Gangsterism and
drugs do not define the Westbury nation, 2014).
Westbury's history is one of crime, gangs, violence, murder and drugs. No
community is without its issues but Westbury seemed to have an overwhelming
number of serious issues.
After meeting with my group and going to site for the first
time, all my reservations about working in a multidiscipline group as well as the
connotations and negative perspectives I acquired about Westbury as an area and
its people, based on the research I did, had started to fade. After meeting
people during the first site visit, I felt inspired by their testimonies and I
was looking forward to working on this project and getting involved within the
community of Westbury.
As design practitioners we all brought many different
aspects and views to the table and with a collaboration of our various skill
sets we set out to achieve our goal of uplifting the Westbury area and its
image. We all viewed and interpreted the things we saw and heard about Westbury
in a different manner as we are all brought up in different ways and each of us
have developed a scope or lens that we perceive things through based on our
design disciplines and what we focus on. Design can have a powerful impact on a
community, in both a negative and a positive way, through engagement and
interactions. If members of the community are involved in the design process,
many lessons can be learnt on both sides.
The members of the community learn about the basic
principles involved in design and in terms of architecture they can learn trade
skills, like brick laying or plumbing, which widens people's skill sets which
will help to open up job opportunities and in-turn reduce the level of
unemployment in the area. Design also has the ability to affect the physical
and mental health of people who are using or interacting with a specific
intervention. On the other hand, I would say that community engagement and
experience when working in an area like Westbury is essential to creating a
design that relates to and works effectively in the community. Skills like
presentation and communication techniques can be learnt through a collaborative
process when there is a language barrier, we as designers need to be able to
communicate our design or ideas in a clear and simple way that everyone
involved can understand what exactly is happening and what the possible
outcomes of the project or intervention may be.
Through the community engagement and experience, long term
relationships may form between the designers and members of the community which
brings about a deeper trust between the two. Through long-term relationships,
communication becomes easier as we, as designers, have learnt how to
communicate to specific people and we have a better idea of what the people
need or expect to get through the project or design, so we are better prepared
for the process of the design to be able to design in order to achieve that
solution. When relationships form it allows for further collaboration in the
future and opens up opportunities to help out in any way possible, whether
helping people find jobs, getting scholarships for school or varsity studies
and further skills development.
Although we heard about drugs, crime and gangs in the
majority of the interviews that we conducted, I never got the feeling that the
area was that bad or dangerous. The way of gathering information from people
needs to be respectful and clear as we are entering into their space and we
should be respectful of that. I believe that the best process or approach to
research is one where you get involved in what is happening and get immersed in
the site and the people. Our group gathered information predominantly through
interviews and observations but both of those are very subjective as the
through the interviews the information can be construed towards an individual
perspective or interpretation of an event.
I think that it is important to keep visiting the site to
continue record information and involve members of the community or
organisations in that process to inform collaboration in the area. If we can
get an outcome that influences two parties then there is a possibility that
they will work together for one outcome. But if we cannot work together with an
organisation or person then how will we be able to get others to work with
them. When working in communities like Westbury, there are many different
people with different interactional dynamics. It is hard if not impossible to
collaborate and interact fully with certain people or organisations as there
are many different demographics, there are students, lecturers, activists,
community leaders and many more trying to collaborate.
I feel that dealing with the vast array of demographics was
much easier with students from different disciplines as it allowed for a
broader demographic within our group that could relate to the demographics of
the area, thus making interaction and communication a lot easier.
Conclusion
This project has been an eye opening experience in that I
never knew Westbury existed and it is an area that is full of promise but just
needs so help getting there. The people there and their testimonies are
inspiring which make it easy to work with them and help them out where
possible. Everyone in Westbury seems to be striving for same end goal so why
not work together to be able to achieve that goal sooner.
Like my reservations at the beginning of the project the
people of Westbury have reservations about working together, when you really
get stuck into it is when you learn to work together. Sometimes working
together does not work well while other times it works like a well oiled
machine and the outcomes are phenomenal and have a great influence on the area
and the people. The only way to find out how it is going to work is by just
getting involved and working together. I believe that if people truly share a
desire or an end goal then they will be able to work together as the desire is
greater than the struggles of getting there.
This project and working with other disciplines has been
enormously beneficial to me in the way that I have gone about doing things and
how I will start doing things in different ways in order to achieve different
outcomes and solutions.
Recommendations
Need to have set timetables for when each faculty is
available and try to move lectures around so that everyone from the group can
meet at once. Having specific time slots when every member of the group is
available for site visits or meetings or consultations.
Contact details supplied at the beginning of the project.
Have informal discussions across the groups in the same
area so that ideas and reflections can be shared so that a more in-depth
interrogation can happen.
Visit our Facebook page to read more about the project
https://www.facebook.com/groups/668005863330413/
