Memories in steel

Memories in steel

What do you do with a redundant steel mill and its blast furnaces, cranes and contamination? Level the land, cap the toxins and build new, erasing the memories of an industrial heritage that defined generations? Or repurpose symbols of a manufacturing past as...
Floating in happiness…  

Floating in happiness…  

    You’ve checked off the big five in the Kruger, witnessed the sudden gush of Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone and marvelled at the migrating antelope in the Serengeti. Why bother with the South Downs National Park in England’s congested south?  No...
Smoke triggers the fire

Smoke triggers the fire

Wildfires favour non-indigenous species – but not always. In the Cape Fold Mountains of South Africa there’s a patient native of the Fynbos. Its bulbs will wait in darkness, sometimes for many years, until bushfire jump-starts germination. Or more precisely it...
How to manage aliens in the landscape

How to manage aliens in the landscape

My late mother, a schoolteacher in rural South Africa, always carried a large knife in the glove box.  We called it the Alien Killer. Driving home from school with a bunch of sweaty kids and a supportive Staffordshire Terrier she would often stop suddenly and reach...
Living without electricity

Living without electricity

  An array of sunscreen brands in the discount pharmacy dazzles with its bright packaging sparkling under spotlights. Then everything goes black as the store’s lights fail. For a foreigner this is alarming, but not to locals.  They continue shopping by phone...