A UCT student-driven initiative to improve water and sanitation services in Imizamo Yethu has set its focus on installing a network of platforms for water towers.
UCT’s School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics has three 5 000-litre tanks that have already been pledged by a large water tank manufacturer.
Their initiative, which has been running for over the seven years, has helped to introduce innovations that improve daily lives for residents of the informal settlement, while simultaneously giving students hands-on experience of design and construction.
It forms part of both the second-year design and theory course and the technology course, where students first design and then manufacture physical prototypes of components.
The project was started in 2008 by Cape Town architect Luis Mira and Associate Professor Nic Coetzer. It evolved from 2011 when second-year students started designing and prototyping platforms aimed at improving communal spaces for water collection and clothes washing as part of their course curriculum, then building them during their June holidays.
One of the institution’s senior lecturers, Michael Louw, who has led the project since 2012, said the service ratio of people to taps in Imizamo Yethu is exceptionally low.
“That was really the motivation, to go there and try and add more taps. When we started, there were 24 taps in the informal portion of Imizamo Yethu and we have managed to increase that by 50%,” Louw said.
The type of infrastructure the students have created over the years include components such as furniture, tiles, wash tops and shade structures.