Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.	Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		Slava Village Boksburg, Gauteng SAVAGE + DODD ARCHITECTS: Architect

Date: 2023 Type: Housing scheme Status: Extant   Click to view map Coordinates: 26°13'18.85" S 28°15'14.82" E Alt: 1620m

A shopping centre located in the mining city of Boksburg, outside Johannesburg, was converted into 50 low-cost homes on a tight budget in as a Social Housing Revival project case study. Slava Village uses a series of incisions and infills to revive the 1980s shopping mall as a complex of modular residential units. Savage + Dodd was commissioned by property investor Leroy Slavaand supported by TUHF, a banking institution that provides commercial financing for affordable housing in urbanised South Africa. The studio prioritised techniques that would maximise habitable space within the building without making major changes to the structure. To break down the deep spaces of the original plan, The existing plan layout was punctured by two new walkways as well as courtyards while making rectangular cuts through the building's gabled roofs to create skylit communal spaces. "[Slava Village is about] maximising the envelope of the building through two ways: through insertion and by maximising the complete vertical envelope of the building, then asking what you need to take away to make sure that you can get to all of your units and create quality indoor or indoor-outdoor spaces," said Dodd. "We've actually created a different kind of housing that has a sense of publicness to it. It's private, but you're not locked in your units and I think that's important." The residential units were conceived as uniform and equitable modules, with additional floorspace achieved through the insertion of upper-level mezzanine lofts. These mezzanines are an example of Savage + Dodd's attempts to find opportunities within the existing structure, which had a high roof but lower ceilings. At Slava Village, the limited fittings and fixtures were designed for personalisation and change, including a simple 1.8-metre-long "starter unit" kitchen that is intended to be easily replaced or extended. The studio also placed brick fins between units externally in the hope that residents will use these small divisions to create their own patio spaces. "These sort of skeletal spatial moves are really important," said Dodd. "What we're hoping is that we will set the preconditions for change – as people use it, it will change and grow." (Extracted and adapted from dezeen)