Practice ·
Foresight on the Foreshore
The City’s new plan finally links transport, land, housing and waterfront access. The difficult part starts where the renderings end.
Read the note34 Degrees Design
Field Notes
Working notes on landscape, cartography, urban design and the trees that shape South African places. Written from the studio, not for an algorithm.
Practice ·
Cape Town: Foreshore Freeway Dilemma
Cape Town's unfinished Foreshore Freeways present a difficult urban-design question: complete them, bury them, demolish them, or transform them into something altogether more deliberate?
Read the noteCartography ·
A Map Is Not Finished When the GIS Export Is Done
A map can be geographically correct and still feel generic. The difference lies in what happens after the data arrives: the layers kept, the labels moved, the colours adjusted, the hierarchy resolved and the print process chosen to hold the detail.
Read the noteArbeau ·
Failed Winter: Cape Town’s 2026 Warning Before the Next Day Zero
May delivered an extraordinary deluge. Then the Cape’s normal winter rhythm largely broke down. The 2026 season points to a recurring South Atlantic ridge pattern that SAM alone cannot explain, with important implications for drought and Day Zero planning.
Read the noteCartography ·
The Province Where the Subtropics Meet the Alpine
KwaZulu-Natal compresses a remarkable climatic journey into one province, from Durban's humid subtropical coast through the green Midlands to the high, snow-prone Drakensberg.
Read the noteArbeau ·
Cape Town Canopy Creativity Crunch
Cape Town does not simply have a tree-number problem. It has a tree-selection problem. Building a resilient urban canopy means moving beyond simplistic indigenous-versus-exotic thinking towards climate fit, diversity, spatial performance and ecological responsibility.
Read the noteCartography ·
Gauteng Is Larger Than Gauteng: Reading the Highveld City-Region
Gauteng is routinely mapped as infrastructure rather than landscape. Look beyond the provincial border and a distinctive Highveld city-region appears, shaped by ridges, watersheds, mining and more than a century of settlement.
Read the noteCartography ·
Why Cape Town and the Winelands Look the Way They Do
Cape Town and the Winelands are remarkably compressed: mountains, plains, vineyards, cities and two coastlines repeatedly collide. A map reveals how strongly the landscape still dictates where everything goes.
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