House Selina | indlu selinah
Port Elizabeth, South Africa / gqeberha, emzantsi afrika
2020 - 21
Client: Gogo Selinah, Michelle
Collaborators/ Team: Kevin Kimwelle, Hlwati Sigqibo, Living Lab, Indalo World, Isuzu Motors
Location: Port Elizabeth
Status: Built/ Occupied
Tags: innovation, indigenous, steel, wood, concrete, alternate, culture, urban, sustainable, housing + interiors
Is building with waste the future of upcycling?
To design in and for the age of Anthropocene, it has now become inevitable to harness waste into building materials. Inspired by Lego Toys, we wondered how this metaphor can be extrapolated to systems thinking. Typically, industries like automobiles and refrigeration see the production of scraps, lots of it. Usually thrown away, such trash may be infused with new context and life, by the principles of Circular Economics.
Gogo Selinah grew up in an era where Apartheid was prevalent in South Africa. It is one of the reasons she has had to live all her life, in a dilapidated house amidst a gentrified urban fabric. But, she has a different vision for her granddaughter, Michelle. Our response was to design in dialogue with the social history embedded in the old house, making a saddlebag which links and unifies it with the innovative.
The biggest challenge this project faced was also the exact place from which the most unprecedented opportunities emerged. All through the COVID-19 Pandemic, we discovered how rapid feedback, calibration and improvising became intrinsic to our remote collaboration. Instances of up-cycling based design thinking are scattered throughout the House, embodied by its details and atmosphere.
The new volume emerges from the old space, under one roof, punctuated in acrylic to invite daylight within. Clerestories secure the whole interiors while amplifying cross-ventilation. Even old car seats reincarnate as sofas. It matures into an institution of cultural justice rooted in the commonplace poetry of daily life.
