Urban morphology on the southern African periphery

Abstract

Urban form in African cities is dynamic, unpredictable and in constant flux. Urban morphology remains mostly undocumented in Southern Africa as an emerging region. Current processes of informal land occupation, changing suburbia and incremental settlement transformation patterns present fragile, yet interesting morphological characteristics that are worthy of interpretation. How are we understanding, representing, and anticipating changing southern urban form and what is the value-add of understanding urban morphology in Southern Africa? In the absence of any formalised network of ISUF in Southern Africa, there is the potential to make a meaningful contribution to urban morphology and its associated processes and agents. Three case study perspectives from practice, research and teaching are explained to understand urban form in South Africa, as follows: 1). community-led data collection on urban form and social practice based on evidence from experiences in Cape Town townships; 2). area-based partnerships based on examples from informal settlement upgrading in Khayelitsha; and 3). deliberate and engaged teaching and learning currently taking place in the urban design programme at the University of Cape Town. Urban morphological approaches in the global south must be multi-scalar, relevant, valuable, and most importantly, affordable. This requires stripping out of irrelevant principles and techniques and focusing on low-cost, low maintenance and sustainable AI and labour-intensive of understanding the changing city. The future development of African cities needs to take a significant stand on the role of socio-economic realities, political action, local agency, and their relationships with urban form.