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LABOUR OF TIDES | Sunrise Beach, Muizenberg Thamsa Donald What would it mean for architecture to move with labour — and with the tide? Located along the False Bay coastline between Muizenberg and Strandfontein Pavilion, this project responds to the spatial and regulatory pressures shaping trek net fishing at Sunrise Beach. Through ethnographic fieldwork, walking, drawing, and direct engagement with fishermen, the design emerges from observation rather than imposition. Mapping revealed a precise choreography structured by tide, cooperation, and restricted access zones. What appears informal is in fact highly coordinated, adaptive infrastructure — operating without architectural support. The project stands for visibility, access, and continuity. It argues that coastal space must accommodate working practices that predate contemporary redevelopment and tourism economies. Rather than reinstating a fixed pavilion, the proposal introduces a mobile architectural system that moves with labour and tide. Organised as head, body, and tail, the structure assembles and disperses according to daily workflow. It supports: – Launching – Sorting and cleaning – Net repair and storage – Selling and exchange Timber sled bases and an integrated axle system allow relocation across sand and firmer ground, positioning architecture as responsive infrastructure rather than static object. Atmospherically influenced by the adaptive logic of Theo Jansen, movement becomes the spatial principle. The structure clusters during exchange, stretches during transition, and returns to the parking edge after work — mirroring the sequence of arrival, pull, and distribution. Repair here is not fixing what is broken. It is recognising what already works. Labour of Tides positions architecture as companion to existing practice. It supports labour already embedded in the coastline. Designing with the tide — not against it. #SunriseBeach #Muizenberg #TrekNetFishing #CoastalLabour #RepairativeArchitectures #MobileInfrastructure #SouthernUrbanism #DesignWithTheTide #CapeTown @apg_uct
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Trek Net Fishing At Sunrise Beach, just east of Muizenberg, I began tracing the layered rhythms of trek-net fishing. What first seemed like an abandoned, empty edge revealed itself as a site alive with movement — fishermen, birds, tides, and exchanges unfolding in relation. Through my project I’ve worked across film, animation, collage, and mapping to capture these dynamics. My video Labour & Tide documents the embodied choreography of fishermen hauling, sorting, and selling fish on the shore. The animation maps these flows in plan, showing how people, fish, and birds move together in shared patterns. Collages and traces highlight moments of exchange — between labour and livelihood, ocean and ecology, people and place. What emerges is not just a practice, but a system: social, economic, and ecological layers constantly feeding into one another. This raises a key question: could the act of exchange itself become a point of repair. @thamsa_designs_ @tham_donald
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✨ Wrapping up Review 1 ✨ A big thank you to everyone who joined us for our first review of the year! 🙌 The students shared their initial mappings, group explorations, and early ideas on how they want to engage with the socio-spatial systems they’ve identified. It was inspiring to see the range of approaches emerging and the ways students are beginning to connect their research, design, and critical reflections. A huge thanks to our reviewers for their time and insights, and to the broader year group for contributing thoughtful feedback and energy to the discussions. @amy.leibbrandt @hashim.tarm @stellasofiap #fadleyisaacs @ryanvonruben @thalia.archidesigns We’re looking forward to seeing how these early directions grow as the projects develop. 🚀 #RepairativeArchitectures #SocioSpatialSystems #DesignStudio #UCTArchitecture
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Our UCT Honours in Architecture students began their inquiry into repair with a simple, grounding exercise: to notice what is broken, overlooked, or worn — and to imagine how it might be repaired through producing a repair manual. This first task was about slowing down, looking closely, and reframing repair not only as fixing, but as a practice of attention, relation, and possibility. Through sketches, notes, and shared conversations, the students started to map out what a Reparative Architecture could mean in practice — opening the path for future site-based explorations. #ReparativeArchitecture #UCTHonours #DesignAsRepair #LearningThroughMaking
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Strandlooping Part 2: Walking the two hour stretch from Strandfontein to Muizenberg, our students closed the day’s first inquiry on the coast. The return walk gave time to reflect on the site, the methods shared, and the ideas of repair that will guide the work ahead. #ReparativeArchitecture #UCTHonours #MuizenbergCommons #WalkingAsInquiry
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Part 1 Strandlooping: Between the Muizenberg and Strandfontein pavilions, our UCT Honours in Architecture students began their first Reparative Architectures Inquiry. @apg_uct Guided by @contemporary_strandloper, Aaniyah Martin, we stepped into strand-looping—a way of knowing the coast by walking with it, listening to its rhythms, and noticing the overlooked details that speak of repair. Supported by the generosity and grounding of the @the_commons_muizenberg, the day unfolded as a shared act of learning—walking, noticing, and walking with the beach. #ReparativeArchitecture #UCTHonours #StrandLooping #MuizenbergCommons #ArchitectureOfRepair
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