CYC
The Channel Youth Centre is envisaged as a Soweto-based educational,
vocational training and social facility aimed at improving youth employment
and entrepreneurial prospects, while providing a space for young people
to hang out, listen to music, DJ, play sport and socialise.
Established by youths in Meadowlands, the Channel Youth Club (CYC) originally
operated from a container in the backyard of a church, from where they
visited schools, setting up debating clubs and running self-awareness
workshops. The Youth Learning Centre design was born out of their ambition
to formalise their operation and fill a gap left by inadequate apartheid
schooling. Situated on a plot once occupied by a council substation
burnt to the ground during the Soweto student uprising in 1976, the
site’s northern edge is occupied by a taxi stop and a small informal
market, which have both been integrated into the project. In this way
safety in a community marked by poverty and crime can be insured through
public surveillance. The design centres around a safe inner courtyard
that creates a variety of social spaces while providing a range of facilities,
like class rooms, a library, offices and a crèche. The courtyard
plan is deformed to create various hierarchies of spaces and entrances.
Cut into the slope of the site and at the centre of the courtyard is
a ‘youth cave’ catering for leisure activities outside of
the curriculum.
Project team: Thorsten Deckler, Anne Graupner, Gavin Armstrong
Featured in Daimler Chrysler publication and traveling exhibition 2007
Winner of a South African Institute for Architecture Project Award 2006
Featured in Architecture South Africa March/ April 2006
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