Abstract

This article examines the design-research of the white, South African, left-wing, liberal architect Elizabeth “Betty” Spence (1919–84) during early spatial apartheid. Building on Spence’s fragmented archive of publications and interviews, we explore how she worked for and with disenfranchised Black township inhabitants on materializing alternative housing options. Spence’s approach included careful observation of how different inhabitants—particularly women—used interior spaces. While her work responded pragmatically to distinct South African social, economic, and racial challenges, this article shows that her design-research was indebted to both European design thinking on the optimization of domestic space and American-South African debates on “race relations.” Her concern with incremental housing, self-construction, and the process of building and homemaking in the townships, we argue, should be understood as a form of political action that enabled self-determination within the framework of modern urban life.

摘要

本文考察了早期空间种族隔离期间南非白人左翼自由派建筑师伊丽莎白“贝蒂”斯彭斯（1919-84 年）的设计研究。在 Spence 零散的出版物和访谈档案的基础上，我们探讨了她如何为被剥夺权利的黑人乡镇居民工作并与他们一起实现替代住房选择。Spence 的方法包括仔细观察不同居民（尤其是女性）如何使用室内空间。虽然她的工作以务实的方式回应了南非独特的社会、经济和种族挑战，但本文表明，她的设计研究得益于欧洲关于优化国内空间的设计思想和美国-南非关于“种族关系”的辩论。她关注增量住房、自建、