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PROJECT

New buildings in old landscapes. Architecture, soft landing and mutualism. A case for Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

PROJECT SUMMARY

This project investigates how engagements with landscapes can retain distinctive qualities and characteristic spirits of place. It explores how architecture embodies localized ideas of identity, place and experience. The project explores the layered memory of its setting Mosi-oa-Tunya, the smoke that thunders (Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe) to address the profound loss of its fundamental qualities and experiential depth as human activities increasingly encroach its sensitive natural and cultural attributes. The project experientially reinforces intangible attributes of this context making architecture a tool for sensitive and rehabilitative ecological and cultural experiences. The project also looks at how colonial establishments disrupted indigenous cultural narratives and attempts to re-contextualize the setting back into its original cultural framework, addressing erasure of local histories and facilitating the reconciliation of place with pre-colonial identities, practices and spatial experiences. Finally, the project reiterates architecture’s potential to complement natural environments by fostering reciprocal relationships between buildings and surrounding landscapes.

VIEW PROJECT

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Tinashe Madzivire

representing 

University of Cape Town

why did you choose to study architecture?

I initially chose architecture with a goal of contributing to the urban development of Masvingo, my hometown, a modest yet slightly underdeveloped town where the focus often falls on the Great Zimbabwe monuments, leaving its people and surrounding communities in the background, often disconnected from this legacy. Without these monuments, many reduce Masvingo to a pit stop between Johannesburg and Harare, undeserving of more than a passing glance, a narrative that continues to shape its development trajectory. Realizing that being overlooked holds communities back just as much as lack of development, my motivation evolved towards leveraging architecture to ensure that people from communities like these are seen, heard, and meaningfully represented in developments that shape their surroundings, spaces of daily life and the broader landscapes of their origins. Partaking in this transformative power of architecture then became my most meaningful reason for pursuing it.

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