The Mamre Revitalization Project

The Mamre Revitalization Project is an initiative by the City of Cape Town to promote the preservation and restoration of Mamre’s rich heritage resources, while helping to alleviate poverty and promote skills transfer. Eco Design Architects was appointed by the City to assist the community with this project, which is now in it's third phase:

Phase 1 – Public Participation (2008): An extended process of community consultation and design workshops (Charettes) were undertaken to determine the wants & needs of a small project serving the community, while promoting heritage building skills knowledge and job creation. The community expressed their ideas for the location and type of project (i.e. guest house, tea room etc) would be of most benefit to the people of Mamre. Eco Design Architects then took all the ideas and created a blueprint that encompassed the full range of ideas and their locations for both infrastructure and building projects, within an order of priority.

Phase 2 – Design process & material procurement (2008/09): The city made available a limited amount of funds to develop the detail design of a small building with the help of the community. It was agreed that Info Centre for Mamre would be ideal & important to start with first. The site for the Info Centre would be a convenient and central location in the historical part of Mamre.  Eco Design Architects also oversaw the training and procurement of local and natural building materials for the building; such as the moon phase harvesting of timber, the collection of building stone and the production of 30 000 mud bricks.

Phase 3 – Heritage Building Project (2010): The building of the Info Centre went on to site with the awarding of the tender to Van Reenan Contractors in July. The idea has been that the building process has a strong focus on the reviving and transferring of old building techniques and skills. A local old master builder from Mamre – Herbert Arendse – trained in heritage building skills by his grandfather has been employed as the on-site trainer and most of the labor are local participants that were also involved in the material procurement phase of the project. Currently about half way complete, once complete the town of Mamre will have a new focal point where locals and visitors can meet, visit exhibitions and get informed about Mamre's rich heritage.

For more information about this project:  http://mamrerevitalization.wordpress.com

For current updates and pictures: Eco Design Project Gallery