This document profiles several young urbanists working in Cape Town who are helping to reshape the city through their respective fields of architecture, urban planning, publishing, cycling advocacy, and photography. It discusses their projects and goals, which include making the city more inclusive, equitable, and integrated through efforts like developing public spaces, advocating for non-motorized transportation like cycling, and challenging perceptions of the built environment through events and publications. It also highlights the challenges facing South African cities like spatial and economic divides as well as issues of governance and bureaucracy.

1. YOUNG URBANISTS
www.realestatemagazine.co.za NOVEMBER 2015 49
STREET
VIEWCAPE TOWN’S YOUNG
URBANISTS ARE, IN THEIR
RESPECTIVE FIELDS,
REVOLUTIONISING THE
CITYSCAPE – AND
THE PERCEPTIONS
ASSOCIATED WITH IT
Compiled by Genevieve Putter
Ilze Wolff, architect
and facilitator of new
understandings of the
built environment

2. YOUNG URBANISTS
MARCO MORGAN | PLANNER IN THE WESTERN CAPE
GOVERNMENT AND SKATER Photographed by David East @daveast
Marco has been working at the Department of
Transport and Public Works as a planner for the
last eight years. More recently he’s moved to the
Regeneration Directorate to assist rethinking
the use and development of public land and
properties. He’s also a member of the National
Skate Collective, an advocacy group for the
skateboarding community, and was instrumental
in the development of the city’s first skatepark
in Mill Street, Gardens. facebook.com/National-
Skate-Collective-313344875389908
Q: What projects fall under your new position?
A: I’m the newest member and part of a really
diverse team of dreamers and pragmatists who
approach each project collectively. I’m currently
working on the Two Rivers Urban Park project
and Tygerberg Hospital Estate, among others.
The work I do is a bit transversal, and I still find
my way back to strategy and planning from
time to time, most often to check up on and
nurture the projects I really got stuck into, like the
Western Cape Infrastructure Framework 2040.
Q: Tell us about the Skate Collective.
A: Our passion for skateboarding is deep-rooted,
and our thoughts centre on the possibilities that
this simple piece of wood can engage in the
urban landscape. For most skaters, the objective
is as simple as ‘skate every damn day’, but to do
this, we need to advance the skate culture and
community. The Skate Collective is a vehicle to
help with these plans, creating a single loud voice
and platform for skaters to engage on issues
affecting them. One of the projects the National
Skate Collective is currently busy with is the
formation of the South African Skateboarding
Federation, a collective body to govern the
sport of skateboarding, unite fragmented
pockets of skaters and guide the development
of this choice sport for South African urban
kids. While my knowledge of advocacy and the
ability to navigate the systems and networks of
Government does help a lot, I’m just a skater.
Q: What’s the current policy of the city towards
skateboarding?
A: At the moment the lines are blurred. The city
is charging ahead with policy and infrastructure
to encourage a non-motorised-friendly city,
and public spaces are being redeveloped to
satisfy a broader spectrum of users. However,
skateboarding is still plagued by outdated
legislation and planning methodologies relating
to the use of streets and public space. The
Skate Collective has been working with the city
of Cape Town’s Skateboarding Task Team on
identifying these obstacles and addressing them,
but the process has been a long and perplexing
journey. After three or four years of meetings, it
seems that we’ll soon finally have a position on
skateboarding as a mode of transport, and we’ve
set up a working group with skaters and city
officials to develop and guide skateparks in
and around the city.
Q: What’s the most memorable project you’ve
worked on?
A: Beyondtheskatepark, a programme of projects
that has set out to challenge the perception
that most people have of skateboarding. The
programme included performances in the public
arts festival Infecting the City, which symbolised
the reclamation of space, to unlocking the
Western Cape Government’s entrance halls for
a once-in-a-lifetime skate event called Redbull
Unlocked. Each project undertaken as part
of Beyondtheskatepark has been incredibly
memorable in that it challenged the status
quo and inspired others to do so as well.
www.realestatemagazine.co.za NOVEMBER 2015 51
As the founder of multimedia publishing and
research company The City, Zahira’s newest
venture is the much-anticipated anthologies,
Movement, on the cities of Johannesburg and
Cape Town, with a ‘posterzine’ for Durban. Her
interests in design for socioeconomic change
have led her to work on innovative projects such
as her first book, Reflections & Opportunities:
Design, Cities and the World Cup (2012: The
City), as well as a ‘place-making’ project in
collaboration with architect David Adjaye at
Jozi’s Park Station. thecityagency.co.za
Q: How did The City publishing company
come about?
A: Given the fact that South African cities have
the highest Gini coefficient (which means our
cities are the most socioeconomically and
spatially divided in the world), yet 64% of our
population reside in them, I wanted to gauge
the attempts to make them more integrated
and inclusive. I also wanted to understand the
influence of design in these city-making efforts
– in the private, public and academic sectors –
in order to plan for a more considered way of
developing our cities and ultimately to influence
policy on urban regeneration. In February 2010
I founded The City for these purposes; and to
produce a multimedia report, a book and a series
of seminars and tours on city-making and design
developments in our democracy. With particular
reference to the 2010 Fifa World Cup, the bigger
aim was to service Designing South Africa (DZA),
a social organisation and programme I initiated
in 2009.
Q: Talk us through your two books, Movement
Cape Town and Movement Johannesburg.
A: This innovative series of publications and
experiences uses movement as a conceptual
device through which to read three major
South African cities: Durban, Cape Town and
Johannesburg. While Durban was presented
as a graphic posterzine, Cape Town and
Johannesburg have been explored in greater
depth. Functioning as both a guide for visitors
and a resource for residents, the Cape Town and
Johannesburg books re-read the historical and
contemporary forces that continue to shape
these cities. They explore fraught histories,
poetically question contemporary decisions,
and critically reflect on social change, thereby
allowing for an engaging and inspired reading
of each city. What’s more, all the content
is presented by these cities’ accomplished
residents – authors, academics, photographers,
researchers, designers and artists.
Q: What are the biggest challenges facing
South African cities?
A: Something to consider when understanding
our cities is to look at what we all inherited and
what we feel entitled to; there’s a distinction
between the two. In 1994, depending what
race and level of privilege we were and had,
we inherited a set of circumstances that in turn
caused us to behave in a certain way in our cities
today. It plays out in service-delivery protest, in
crime, in complacency, in the brain drain, etc.
At the moment, we feel entitled to a number
of things that are causing us to be complacent
rather than being engaged urban citizens. Yes,
there are some mavericks out there but not a
sufficient number to turn South African cities
around. We need to make some bold moves –
not just government but all of us – to make our
cities more equitable and more inclusive for
residents as well as visitors.
ZAHIRA ASMAL | PUBLISHER AND CURATOR Photographed by Grant Payne @mynameisgrant_
50 NOVEMBER 2015 www.realestatemagazine.co.za
‘Our concepts of identity are
being reimagined. It’s not about
nationalism any longer but more,
in my view, about a sense of
place and belonging. When this is
secure, people are free to express
themselves socially, politically
and culturally but also to create,
reimagine and develop the cities
they wish to live in’ – Zahira Asmal

3. YOUNG URBANISTS
KIRSTEN WILKINS | URBAN DESIGNER AND
URBAN CYCLING ADVOCATE Photographed by Jessica Stafford @jessbinxx
Having recently taken up a position created
just for her at the Cape Town Partnership,
Kirsten is looking forward to bringing some
strategic planning to the various projects in
her portfolio as well as creating synergy
between them – all the while advocating for
urban cycling and the overall benefits it has not
just for individuals but for the city as a whole.
capetownpartnership.co.za, bicyclecapetown.org
Q: You’re an urban designer and an urban
cyclist. How do the two tie together?
A: With almost half of the city living under the
poverty line, and the average cost of transport
being roughly 30% of monthly income (often
more), we need to be looking at how to change
this and not simply tweaking old methods of
development and urbanism. Urban design by
its very nature is a public-good profession,
and so bicycles as a tool for social justice ties
these two aspects together well. There’s a
strong economic case for bicycle-friendly
cities, which the private sector understands, and
we’re seeing more developers and corporates
getting involved in some wonderfully practical
projects. Easing congestion, lowering carbon
emissions and cultivating a healthier population
are all ancillary benefits of an uptake in bicycle
usage, but without giving people a chance
to escape the poverty trap, these paybacks
mean very little.
Q: What was the most memorable project you
have worked on?
A: For the past 18 months I’ve been assisting with
rethinking the East City Precinct with the team
from 75 Harrington Street (see page 44 of the
October issue where we featured the co-working
hub of 75 Harrington Street). We wanted to
create a thriving open-source co-working
space, but to do so we’ve had to put substantial
effort into understanding the neighbourhood
and its rhythms. This is tactical urbanism at its
finest. We’ve been very agile and open to new
ideas, and experimented with all manner of
urban interventions, in order to attract young
creative thinkers, revive street culture and
create opportunities for urban upgrade. The
outcome can best be explained as creating
‘engineered serendipity’.
Q: What is the biggest challenge facing
South African cities, and Cape Town
in particular?
A: A lack of agility. The people, businesses
and ideas that are thriving are those that
are underpinned by a robust and transparent
leadership style that can quickly absorb and
adapt to change. Our governance structures,
both within cities and regionally, simply can’t
cope with curve balls, be they economic,
social or structural. There are talented and
committed people drowning in our bureaucracy.
It saddens me – but there is a positive side:
citizen engagement is undergoing an incredible
metamorphosis, sloughing off complacency
and getting involved in practical change.
It’s an exciting time to be in advocacy.
Q: What are your hopes for the future
of this city?
A: An immediate fascination of mine is
disrupting the tourist/local nexus. What I hope
for the short term and going into the holiday
season is that the city pushes for a more
authentic representation of our urban reality.
The thinking is that if it works for locals, it
will draw tourists.
52 NOVEMBER 2015 www.realestatemagazine.co.za www.realestatemagazine.co.za NOVEMBER 2015 53
‘The exhibitions, tours, documentaries and publications we
create through OHA stimulate our curiosity about our built
environment. OHA is a vehicle to explore and produce our
reflections, and runs parallel with the work of Wolff Architects
to encourage a deepened creative architectural practice of
consequence’ – Ilze Wolff
ILZE WOLFF | ARCHITECT
AND FACILITATOR OF
NEW UNDERSTANDINGS
OF THE BUILT
ENVIRONMENT
Photographed by Thoban Jappie @thoban
Ilze is a founding member of Cape Town-based
Wolff Architects (her husband Heinrich is the
other), and is also at the helm of Open House
Architecture (OHA). The latter is concerned with
the coordination of various events, publications
and other forms of communication about Cape
Town’s built environment. wolffarchitects.co.za,
oharchitecture.blogspot.com
Q: To what do you attribute your fascination
with the built environment?
A: I developed an interest in the politics of space
during graduate work in African Studies at UCT.
I learnt that buildings and architectural space are
never neutral but signifiers of power, privilege and
exclusion. Architectural interventions could subvert
social conditions to produce positive change – but
only through the will to dispel one’s blindness, see
things for what they are, and critically engage with
the challenges to change conditions.
Q: What have been your biggest insights since
you began hosting the OHA events in 2007?
A: The events encourage a different way of
looking at architecture. We try and contextualise,
and in some cases re-contextualise, the buildings
that make up our city. History has a huge role
to play but even more powerful is how historic
perspectives can inform contemporary practices.
The events can raise interesting questions, some
obvious but not often discussed. For instance, why
are there so many vacant industrial buildings along
Salt River Main Road? What does it say about
global economies and the spaces that it produced?
How were these spaces shaped in the conditions
of racialised labour and gendered practices of the
past? Have the conditions remained the same or
morphed into new ways of building? The OHA
events establish a platform for discussion and
conversation about how buildings came to be as
they are and what they currently represent.
Q: What changes would you like to see to this
city in the years to come?
A: There’s an urgent need for the repair of the
segregated city. The city administration should
lead and enable this agenda and, as architects,
private investors and ordinary citizens, we should
all perpetuate an agenda to reduce structural
poverty and urban exclusion. I’d like to see the
same focus on and investment in the development
of the public urban sphere (parks, public transport,
inclusive housing) as there currently is in the
private urban domain (office parks, security
housing estates, gentrified industrial zones).

4. YOUNG URBANISTS
www.realestatemagazine.co.za NOVEMBER 2015 55
OCKIE FOURIE |
@THEWORLDSYOUNGESTMAN
As brand manager for international surfwear
company Hurley, Ockie believes that Instagram
provides another platform for people to interact
with brands. While he loves portraits (and the
stories they come with), he also has a keen eye for
everyday details – check out his #ManholeMondays
series. ‘People now send me images of manholes
from Canada, Iceland, Amsterdam – all over.’
Gear of choice: iPhone 6 Plus, Canon 5D MKIII
and Fujifilm X-T1.
Interesting fact: Ockie is colour-blind and
struggles to edit colour-heavy images.
MEET THE IGERS
Instagram is the perfect
platform to capture
the energy of today’s
continuously evolving
contemporary cities, their
people and their buildings.
It’s for this reason that we
chose some of Cape Town’s
most creative Igers, with
burgeoning careers in
photography, film and
social marketing, to capture
the urbanists in their
respective contexts
DAVID EAST |
@DAVEAST
David is a freelance film director and
cinematographer with a particular fondness
for street photography and portraiture. He
has a distinctive urban shooting style, and
enjoys the visual effects that come from
playing with perspective. He sees Instagram
as a means to get good practice in honing
his photographic skills.
Gear of choice: iPhone 5s, Panasonic GH4
and Sigma 18-35 1.8 Art.
Interesting fact: He shoots for a lot of local
bands and footwear brands.
JESSICA STAFFORD |
@JESSBINXX
Jessica, who’s studying full time at UCT towards
a medical degree, has a style with a distinctly
feminine touch, and her aesthetic has garnered
her a relatively large following. She uses the social-
media platform as a means to not only expand her
photography skills but meet interesting people,
and her Instagram feed is full of fashion,
architecture and nature.
Gear of choice: Samsung S4 Zoom and
Canon 100D.
Interesting fact: She’s a final-year Medical
Bioscience student.
THOBAN JAPPIE |
@THOBAN
Thoban co-founded his content-production and
visual-communication agency Mobile Media Mob
(MMM) based on his and partner Roy Wrensch’s
love of Instagram. Their real-time live social-media
broadcasting and production have brought them
success as well as big-brand clients like Samsung,
Gallo Music and Johnnie Walker.
Gear of choice: iPhone 6S and Fuji XT1.
Interesting fact: Thoban was a winner in last year’s
iPhonenography competition. Although he uses his
Fuji XT1 to shoot, he still edits images on his phone
with VSCOCam, Afterlight and Snapseed.
GRANT PAYNE |
@MYNAMEISGRANT_
This professional photographer shoots from the
hip with an edgy editorial style that has gained
him recognition from the fashion community and
earned him gigs like the Kluk/CGDT’s Big in Japan
2015 campaign, a collaborative editorial with
Levi Strauss, and seen him featured in Gaschette
and Elle magazines. He feels Instagram and its
networking opportunities have been instrumental
in his career. He especially relishes being able to get
a portrait shot without the subject even knowing it.
Gear of choice: iPhone 6 and Fuji x100.
Interesting fact: He’s only in his 20s.
54 NOVEMBER 2015 www.realestatemagazine.co.za
From a young age Sizwe always wanted to know
what it would take to transform an informal
settlement into a formal one. His story and
the work he does with NGO the Community
Organisation Resource Centre (CORC) have helped
him get closer to an answer. His approach critiques
traditional town planning as a profession that
has always focused on space as opposed to the
people who use it. His methodology of subverting
this when applied to informal settlement planning
(focusing on how people use the space and what
the habits are that form around it) won him the
South African Planning Institute (SAPI) Young
Planner of the Year Award in 2014, and secured
him a spot on this year’s programme for TedX
Cape Town. sasdialliance.org.za
Q: What have been the most memorable
projects you’ve worked on with CORC?
A: The first reblocking project (repositioning
shacks in very densely populated informal
settlements) I did in 2012 and 2013 will always
stand out. It was to restructure a whole community
in the informal settlement of Mshini Wam outside
Milnerton. I project managed it, not just from the
design and the actual planning side but from
the implementation of these and getting the
community involved. There was a lot of pressure on
us to make it work and the biggest lessons I learnt
during this project were firstly, the importance of
empowering the community so they could drive
the project and eventually take ownership of it,
and secondly, the line between the technical or
scientific side of town planning and the human
and social side of it is becoming ever more blurred,
especially in the context of informal settlements.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges
facing the city of Cape Town?
A: Post 1994, we still value buildings more than
people; and, even more so than during apartheid,
we place more importance on the financial value
of land rather than its social value. Cape Town
was structured to serve apartheid and it broke
our society. Today we’re still reeling from this and
nothing is being done to change this structure.
Q: How should we address these issues?
A: We need to try to find core values that are
socially inclusive and begin the process of
planning our cities around them. Apartheid
fragmented our society and we need to
find cohesiveness again for a new, inclusive
definition of what being South African means.
In an interview with the Shack/Slum Dwellers
International (SDI) South African Alliance, I
summed up a key element of the role of a planner
as being to ensure the relationship between
people and land: ‘Public participation should
be more than drawing up plans and asking for
a community’s approval. It should be about
supporting people to come up with their own
development plans for their communities.’
SIZWE MXOBO | TOWN PLANNER AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPER
Photographed by Ockie Fourie @theworldsyoungestman
‘It’s amazing the power people have to change their
situations just with the knowledge that they have
someone on their side to help them’ – Sizwe Mxobo