Uploaded on 2016-10-21 by Markus C. Michel

My Name is Markus Michel, I’m a Suisse surgeon currently living in South Africa and studying in my spare time architecture in the USA. I selected this picture because it is clearly visible why Cape Town has been voted many times as one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I took this picture on my own from Lion’s Head, my favorite spot in, or at least close to the city. 1. We get lots of visible information out of this picture like the position of the city between see and mountains, the distribution of the buildings, the main access axes as well as the restrictions regarding the future expansion of the city. I would like to explore some of this information a little bit more. a. Position: On the right side of the picture we can see Signal Hill which is still a untouched area even expanding into the city center. This shows that the city planer have done exceptionally well, keeping Signal Hill as a nature park improving the livable urban space. In extension of Signal Hill you can see a green area (Green Point), which is a big park area in the city center as well. So the challenge for the future will be to keep this areas untouched. b. Distribution of Buildings: On this picture we see two main building areas one is left and one is right of signal Hill. On the right side we see some higher buildings where we can guess to find the main city center. But we also see that the buildings closer to the sea are higher. c. Main axes: Two of the main access axes we can very well see. One must come form the right side towards the city center, which is most probably the main access direction. Then we have a second axes which runs parallel to the sea, in the picture from left to right. d. Future expansion of the city: on the picture we do see very well the natural boundaries of the city, mainly the see on one side and the mountains on the other side. 2. Invisible Information a. and d. If we now have a look into the invisible information we understand the main touristic advantage of the city (the position) can very well be a disadvantage at the same time. As mentioned in 1d the position gives very strict natural expansion boundaries. Having in mind that the population of Cape Town is actually about 1.8 millions inhabitants and the expectation is that the city will grow by 4 to 8 millions in the next 10 years this will be one of the big challenges for the future. b. The invisible information we get from the distribution of the buildings is that the ground close to the main city center and close to the shore is more expensive and therefore it capitalizes to build higher structures. The pattern of the building is to some extent similar on both sides of Signal Hill. The invisible information we receive from this visible information is, that there must be similar type of activities on both side like workplaces, housing and schools. If you know think that many people live on one side, bring their kids to school to the other side and come back to work again on the original side this increases the traffic enormously. At the moment being some parents spend up to two hours a day in their car just to bring the kids to school. c. Already for a 2 million city it is an enormous problem to only have one major access axes axis and only one mayor connection axis. If the city is expanding in the future this problem will even accentuate. The picture shows very well the natural bottom neck given by Signal Hill expanding into the city. The invisible information you get out of this is that traffic must be the big issue for the city. We can also see that the main access to the city is given by one axis coming in from the central valley. The invisible information is that the city must therefore behave like a station where trains cannot pass through but must enter and exit via the same direction. This increases the density of traffic even more. Public transportation systems are mostly inexistent and when they exist most people are afraid of using them. 3. I select 1c / 2c because mobility and traffic is already now a major subject for the city and will be the big challenge for the future. a. First of all it is very important to collect data in order to understand the traffic pattern better. We will nee to measure the traffic and its distribution over the day. b. But basic traffic information like number of cars and distribution over time will not be enough, we need also to get data about the people travelling and specially their reason for travelling. One option to get this additional data would be to collect the place of residence of as many school kids and workers/employees as possible. c. By collecting data and analyzing the date the invisible information can become knowledge in order to contribute to the planning, improve traffic (public and private) and help creating a more livable urban space.