This research explores the role of school-spaces in the post-apartheid city. The impoverished quality of most state-subsidised schools in Cape Town presents a crisis for education. When South Africa became a democratic republic, transformation of the education system was prioritised with the intention of empowering people as agents of change. This ambition was reflected in the design of new schools. However, many schools remain socially and spatially isolated, a condition that reduces their transformative capacity.
As highly prevalent public institutions, schools have the potential to play a meaningful and possibly catalytic role in addressing apartheid’s legacy of spatial segregation through careful place-making which expands their civic role. This claim is examined through post-occupancy analysis of the design intentions and lived reality of state-subsidised schools in Cape Town, focusing on socio-spatial qualities. The methods engaged architects, school communities and government officials through interviews, site visits and observations of the school-spaces in use, as well as employing architectural techniques to analyse schools’ spatial configuration and built fabric.
In response to the prevalent condition of a-contextual school-spaces in Cape Town, it is appropriate for the research to be grounded in a southern perspective, which acknowledges the importance of context in shaping ideas. Collaborative workshops with school communities and architects were used as a tool to encourage co-production of knowledge in an essential move towards repositioning southern places as sites of knowledge production. This research looks beyond the basic provision of classrooms to the broader social and spatial role of schools in the city.
Juliet is a PhD researcher in the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, funded by doctoral scholarships from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust and the Skye Foundation. She holds a Masters in Architecture (MArch) from the University of Cape Town and is a registered architect (PrArch) in South Africa, with several years’ experience working in urban and architectural practice. Juliet supervises undergraduate architectural students and is a co-founder of the School Design Study Group at Cambridge University.