Urban design education as integral to ‘real-time’ urban revitalization processes: Salvokop, Pretoria

Abstract

The article outlines an attempt at teaching urban design by integrating urban revitalisation processes. Salvokop, an historical but derelict railway precinct in the inner city of Pretoria, provides the site for a long-term, inter-disciplinary laboratory in which a real urban precinct revitalisation project is used as a vehicle for teaching and practical studio work. The site is studied from a variety of focal areas within the Department of Architecture. The project provides a mechanism for feedback among practitioners, the local council and the academic environment. Owing to its history as a century old, urban railway town that was part of a wider, ideologically driven socio-economic process, Salvokop has the potential for development. Its proximity to major transport facilities, its growing status as a place of refuge for newcomers and its intimate relation to the important Freedom Park heritage site make it particularly suitable for a multifaceted inquiry into issues such as urban sustainability, inner city housing, appropriate technology, heritage conservation and urban renewal, as a vehicle for directing teaching in a transforming, developing environment.