The Johannesburg, Cottesloe, Gas Works is located within the Witwatersrand zone of integration, between the University of Johannesburg and Witwatersrand.
Open Narrative approach will be used which implies multiple interpretations by users and recognizes the presence of embedded narratives inscribed by past and future cultural practices and natural processes.
A new narrative is inscribed onto the site and provides multiple experiences with each visit to the site through a phased intervention that opens up areas and processes for experience as they become decontaminated. To facilitate the palimpsest of tangible and intangible meaning, the user experience is proposed to consist of three realities: a lower, in-between and upper reality with increasing elements of transience. The essence of the design and its programme becomes mutualistic (as opposed to exploitative), based on the principles outlined by Klein (2014) namely, “interdependence, reciprocity and cooperation”.
