Concept

Serendicity

[ser-uhn-dis-i-tee]

Serendicity is a word I use to describe the serendipitous routes through the city. These are routes that: differ from person to person, could be planned or intuitive, well used or neglected and include any mode of transport/movement; but they are all experiential and engaging to the specific user, on either one or many levels.

If you were to take a random group of people and give them the task of making their way through the city to a specified destination on foot, what would they do? Some people would take out their cellphones and use them to navigate themselves, others would just take-off and 'wing it' and a few might know the way already.

If you took that same group of people but this time gave them the task of finding the most interesting place/object in the city, what would they do? Again some people would take out their cellphones and web search for something, some would just walk until they found something and the same few would know where something interesting is.

In both these situations above there were very different solutions to the task, but which was correct? One could say that, in the first situation, the person who reached the destination first won, but did he? Perhaps he walked right past the free coffee stand because he was so focused on getting to the destination first. In the second situation, how do you judge what the most interesting object or place is? Interest is a personal experience, that being said everyone would have found the most interesting object/place. However, what if they stopped looking as they found something mildly interesting, what are they missing out on?

This idea of engaging with a route/space in the city and coming across something that intrigues you, or something that you have never experienced before is an notion that, I feel, Braamfontein - around Juta Street - has begun to take on.

In Braamfontein there are alleys in the middle of city blocks, paved and lawn open spaces, avenues of trees, education institutes/offices, commercial offices, retail stores, exhibition spaces, coffee shops and markets. Some of these are open to the street with parking and a front door, well others are up a ramp, around the corner, through the alley or 'landlocked' by shops.