Course: MArch
Studio/Unit Brief: Displace Non-Place
Project Title: Cape Coral Central

Project Description:
This award-winning postgraduate project, led by E Design Studio Architect Johan Visser, reimagines resilience and adaptability in Cape Coral, Florida. Cape Coral Central addresses the critical challenges of community displacement and the destruction of buildings caused by seasonal hurricanes. With a particular focus on the influx of Cuban migrants, the design introduces a series of transformable interior spaces that can rapidly shift between housing and educational facilities.

Empowering migrants with self-sufficiency, the project integrates a fast-construction cassette module system, enabling both spatial and programmatic flexibility. In times of crisis, the structure seamlessly transitions into an emergency evacuation hub. A robust 2m concrete plinth safeguards against storm surges while serving as a docking point for emergency boats, reinforcing the building’s dual role as a place of refuge and resilience.

This innovative approach was recognized with a prestigious award, celebrating its visionary contribution to architecture and humanitarian design.

Course: MArch
Studio/Unit Brief: FIELD WORKS Studio Brief
Project Title: Centre for Algae Harvesting

Project Description:
The project addresses ‘real’ issues related to climate change in the global south. In this case it deals with Algae bloom found in water bodies on and adjacent to the site, turning them into a resource – a ‘fertilizer’ for experimental organic farming at Matrikunj in south India.

The design is quietly ambitious, offering creative solutions to practical problems. The production spaces offer a dramatic yet comfortable environment for the community to work, meet and rest. There is design and technical innovation related to how the building is constructed using local resources and labour. The post tensioned vaults are constructed from a specially developed dry stacked modular unit – air dry / none fired perforated ‘brick’ made using earth from the excavations (for water courses and ponds) on site. The building can be easily adapted or dis-assembled.

The project absolutely responds to the brief offering innovative design solutions, working within the constraints of context, responding to climate extremes, and highly resourceful in using materials found on the site to make the buildings. The final outcome offers production spaces that have architectural qualities of materiality light and shade as illustrated in the final drawings. The spaces are both productive and qualitative – offering the community spaces they can appropriate related to seasonal changes. The project offers a template for architectural response to limited global material resources and our current climate emergency.