lecture on March 1st 2010, 18:00, attention new venue!

"Readymix Architecture" is the term Tusnovics has coined for his extremely rapid construction of community buildings in rural and township areas. This idea runs in counterpoint to the usual "solutions" to "Poverty Relief", as it sets up apolemic which directly engages the contemporary South African "roll-out" of non-urban RDP housing that currently holds us hostage. Tusnovics's are inventive and climatologically sensitive buildings that are consciously “communityforming”.
These projects are not the usual run of the mill NGO fare, but demonstrate a sustainability and design integrity that are able to mount an instant critique of the way most things are "provided" to townships and rural areas.
All these projects directly engage the "public" realm, a realm that is notably unconstructed in most low-cost South African 'urban' developments.

text by Sarah Calburn

workday 4: sand bag workshop starts

Sand from the foundations is moved to the space of the courtyard, as the entire area was freed of all elements, like the JoJo, the plants,
















and Neville, our Vinn partner for the sand bag structure,
















together with his partner Carl,
















and we took of for the clay testing phase, getting samples,
















and trying out what a wall cover could look like,
















getting involved in serious discussions on techniques and methods,
















on adding materials and consistency as well as finishes,
















to apply some samples to see what will happen in the next days,
















finding that the elder ladies had some specific experience on the traditional use of clay!

workday 3: getting the bottles for the facade

whilst the foundation work proceeded,
















another group started to collect bottles, to insert into the walls,
















various bottle stores where plundered,
















and the bottles where brought to the site,
















with three cars,

















transport was sorted quickly, and we started sorting the bottles, and cleaning them,
















the pile grew bigger and bigger,
















in the meantime the digging was finished.

workday 2: digging the foundations

February 5, 2010

the second day was dedicated to the initial digging of foundations, as well as getting all the gardening area re situated as partly covered by the new building,
















the happy face of Motebang,
















and Jason, who both enjoyed there involvement a lot,
















the building site turned into a real one,
















as more and more volunteers came on the scene,
















the first foundations started to look well done and gave more and more of an idea of the entire project,
















Peters was assigned to be the first leader of the building group, that will be getting the training to eventually set up their own business for building,
















but also the ladies of Humana where set up for heavy duty building/digging/working,
















the harder labour was to be done by men, but in the volunteer group, ladies are welcome,
















the emotion was very high as slowly the entire dimension of skills transfer as well as the project dimension become reality,
















towards the end of day two,
















so relaxing in the shade of a tree was a good idea,

workday 1: Measuring the plot

February 4, 2010

as we arrived on the building site, Dustin, Jason and Matiban, (two collaborators from Sarah's office in Jo'burg) we started to explain the projekct and the layout as well as the process of working for the next weeks.

day one: putting the plan on the ground!
















the situation of the varous spaces and the concept of shading under the FBR,

















with professional traduction we managed to explain with Matiban's help to explain everything to the community, that was more then attent to follow every detail,

















we then proceeded on the measuring phase, getting each and every corner of the entire building on the plot!!

















we had a good reaction from the community as they started to see the actual dimension of the project!