Enkanini - Taken by Force.

Enkanini, South Africa

Can a water network support a neighbourhood?

In the Enkanini study, collecting water, finding a place to live, and coping with seasonal flooding are intertwined. This 20-hectare proposal begins with those everyday pressures. It brings water infrastructure together with housing, cultivation, and shared routes, asking how a basic service might support the places residents build and inhabit.

Aerial view of the proposed Enkanini intervention, with housing clusters, shared routes, and green spaces within the surrounding settlement — Enkanini / Infrastructure as a place to live
The proposal brings housing and public space into a common framework. Planted areas and routes connect the intervention to the wider settlement.

01 / Access to water

Begin with the journey to a tap.

The 2022 study identifies uneven access to public taps alongside drainage problems and flood exposure. For households without a water connection, supply depends on a journey through the settlement. The map places those journeys in the same field as streams, shared sanitation, and vulnerable buildings. Water is both something residents need to reach and something their homes need protection from.

Settlement map locating public taps, toilets, rainwater collection points, flood-affected buildings, flooding areas, and drainage streams — The existing condition / Access and exposure
Read the water points together with the blue flood areas and drainage lines. Their distribution establishes the spatial problem that the proposal responds to.

A water network can also organise a neighbourhood.

02 / A shared network

Connect the service to the spaces around it.

A grid shaped by the terrain provides the starting point. Water infrastructure follows that framework, while public routes, cultivation, and community facilities form overlapping layers. The proposal combines treatment and supply with places for gathering and growing, bringing household needs and shared space into the same plan.

Six strategy diagrams showing a terrain-based grid, water infrastructure, linear public space, cultivation, community clusters, and building programmes — Six layers / From terrain to programme
The diagrams separate the systems before bringing them together. Water, routes, planting, and buildings each contribute to the proposed neighbourhood structure.

Site plan combining blue-green water infrastructure, pink public routes, housing, cultivation spaces, and landscaped areas — The combined plan / Systems in relation
The plan places service infrastructure beside routes and planted spaces. Cultivation areas connect to a wider landscape intended to help manage flood exposure.

03 / A framework for homes

Build support for what residents can add.

The infrastructure is conceived as both a service network and a structural support for housing. The proposal reserves places where residents could build their homes, alongside spaces for cultivation. Its ambition is to supply a shared foundation while leaving room for individual construction and use. The drawings explore how pipes, supports, paths, and domestic spaces might meet at the scale of a cluster.

Detailed axonometric showing blue-green water pipes and a structural framework connecting homes, planted terraces, and shared pedestrian spaces — At the cluster / Water, structure, and occupation
The blue-green network runs through the housing and shared spaces. The drawing makes infrastructure visible as part of the inhabited environment, with places to grow, pass through, and gather around it.

Detailed plan of housing clusters, internal rooms, planted strips, and shared spaces arranged along the proposed network — At ground level / Making room for daily use
The plan translates the network into rooms, routes, and planted spaces. It studies how a common framework could accommodate a range of domestic and collective activities.

04 / Everyday public life

Let the route become a place to stay.

The linear public spaces follow the routes through the proposal. Steps, landings, planted edges, and entrances give them places to pause. The wider landscape is intended to support cultivation and flood management while connecting the neighbourhood to people beyond it. At the scale of the street, the project asks infrastructure to support the ordinary activities that make a place inhabited.

Street-level perspective of residents among homes, steps, planted edges, overhead connections, and visible water pipes — Between homes / An inhabited route
The perspective brings the network back to everyday scale. Entrances, planting, and places to sit or pass one another occupy the same space as the supporting infrastructure.

Water / Ground / Everyday life

Start with the essentials. Make room for life.

Enkanini proposes infrastructure as a shared starting point for housing and public space. Water supply, cultivation, and places to gather are considered together, with room for residents to shape the spaces they use.

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Location: Enkanini, South Africa
Studio: Urban design
Instructor: Mei Jiang
Collaboration: Individual
Area: 20ha

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