Ritual threads: between land and lake: a cultural and nature edge place articulating, facilitating, and preserving the traditional and natural ecotones in the Kosi Bay Nature Reserve
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Date
2023
Authors
Swarts, Karmen
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
The Kosi Bay Thonga fish traps are a culturally significant landmark in South Africa. The traps can be described as finely woven “fences” or “kraals” spread around the lake system. These spectacular structures are what enable Kosi Bay’s sustainable fishery. And with these activities, a temporary link between land and lake is formed within the wetland ecotone, interweaving specific ways of human movement, living, and working. The thesis outlines the design of a cultural and nature edge place articulating, facilitating, and preserving the traditional and natural ecotones in the Kosi Bay Nature Reserve. The research focuses on the preservation of the natural and human ecologies situated within the wetland ecotone, guided by the emplaced site phenomena and the community’s particular needs and activities. The focus of the dissertation stems from redefining the edge place has the potential to integrate social and cultural factors by way of an architectural approach. Architecture has the potential to sensitively affect how people use their surroundings, leading to the extension of existing rituals and everyday living that eventually become part of the interweaved phenomena of the park. This idea is implemented into the edge place to connect these concepts with Kosi Bay’s culture. Thus, the dissertation questions if an architectural response to vernacular routines, rituals, and orders, will articulate and preserve the existing cultural and natural ecotones within the coastal community of Kosi Bay. In order to create an interweaved relationship between culture and nature, the proposal grows on the existing chain of memories and ecological grid of the water edge. The theoretical methodologies of a shifting ecological grid and a chain of memories are a representation of a transparent axis that creates a roadmap for the design. The investigation gave form to a variety of methods of making which preserve indigenous knowledge and make use of environmentally friendly materials, assuring a generous and sustainable integration that lightly touches the earth and reduces the built impact on the natural environment.
Description
Dissertation (M.Arch. (Architecture))--University of the Free State, 2023