In the inner city of Pretoria, daily commuters in the public realm are confined to the sidewalk – a space of transition that promotes anonymity, indifference, and transience. The intention of this dissertation was to explore how a place of urban refuge can be created in the public realm by facilitating new and existing temporary acts of refuge of mobile urban dwellers.

New approaches to space-making were developed to explore how architecture can influence the behaviour of users and their everyday spatial practices by manipulating their perception of space, in order to mediate between the lived and conceived dimensions of space.

The use of bricks also played a significant role in how the building responds to the existing urban context of Pretoria. The Montana Travertine facebrick was specifically used to complement the existing building’s blue-and-grey bricks. Bricks can be an expression of time, place and the process of making. Aspects often neglected in contemporary architecture.