This project is about a wall in the south part of Capetown, South Africa. Inside the wall there is Lake Michelle property, an eco-estate that offers upmarket lifestyle for young families in Capetown to live a life surrounded by plants and wildlife. Outside the wall is an informal township started decades ago by a group of people who refused to live within the constraints of the Apartheid laws. And when they set up their life here, they named it Masiphumelele, which means “we will succeed”. Between them is a swap site that spans over a hundred feed wide, where neither side of the community has a reason to access.

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BEYOND THE WALL is a school and a supermarket located on the existing wall. The two programs are packed into a scaffolding set up along the wall, with the supermarket on the ground floor, the school on the second, and a communal courtyard in the center, sitting directly over the wall. Without ever actually touching the existing wall, this building dissolves the division by bringing the outlines of houses to the other façade, reminding each community of what’s beyond the wall that divides them.