Evaluating the Sustainability of a High-Density Affordable Housing Development in Johannesburg

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Work on innovative approaches to affordable high-density mixed-use housing projects was presented at the South African Energy Efficiency Conference in Pretoria. The abstract for the paper is below, please contact us for the full paper.

Increasing housing backlogs in all of the large cities of South African mean there is an urgent need to develop additional sustainable and affordable urban accommodation. Existing approaches suffer from high costs of development, poor locations, unaffordable rental or purchase costs, high utility costs and poor environmental impacts. A new development proposed for Alexandra, Johannesburg attempts to address these shortcomings by being well located and applying innovative design and operational models. The paper describes the project and applies the Sustainable Building Assessment Tool (SBAT) to critically evaluate it. It concludes that the project provides useful models that can be applied to improve the affordability and sustainability of housing projects and makes recommendations for further development.

Public Infrastructure Project Management

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What is public infrastructure project management? Public infrastructure project management involves the development of government projects, such as schools, clinics, and housing. Very few of these projects are completed on time, on budget and fully achieve the envisaged outcomes.

So why does this happen? This happens because these projects can be complex. It also happens because project management capacity, systems and processes have not been sufficiently developed to meet the specific demands of these types of projects.

To address this Gauge is working on a public project management guide and training material for infrastructure projects. This is designed to provide practical guidance that can be used by both technical and non-technical managers and is based on the following definition of project management:

Public project management can be defined as:

A structured, shared, process of delivering well-defined projects on time, on budget, within specification, and ensuring that these generate their required benefits.

The unique approach developed in the guide can be illustrated through reference to the ‘shared’, ‘well-defined’ and ‘generating benefits’ characteristics referred to in the definition.

Shared means that project management processes must be readily understood and shared so that everyone working on the project understand what is required and is empowered to make a suitable contribution.


Well-defined means that sufficient work has been done early in the project to fully understand the implications and requirements of the project so that uncertainties and risks are minimised.


Generating benefits means the project must achieve its intended outcome. Projects are not undertaken for their own sake but must be completed in a way that ensures that the envisaged benefits of the project are actually generated.

Five questions to ask when choosing a building sustainability rating system

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There are an increasing number of sustainability and green building rating systems. So how do you choose?

This was a topic Gauge was asked to address in a recent international webinar organised by the United Nations.

A presentation with 5 simple questions was prepared and elicited interesting questions. The presentation can be downloaded here.

How targets and indicators can help achieve ‘impossible’ goals

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Recently, Eliud Kipchoge ran the marathon in under two hours. This is the first time this has ever been done. As well as the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly running shoes and 41 pace-makers, a support car beamed a green laser mark on the road in front of Kipchoge representing 20 seconds below the two-hour pace. So what time did Kipchoge run the marathon? 1 hour 59 minutes and 40 seconds.

This is a powerful lesson in how targets and indicators can be used to achieve what may seem to be impossible goals. Can this thinking be applied elsewhere?

What about climate change and the SDGs?

Can local targets be set for communities, businesses, cities and countries and live feedback be provided on whether they are being achieved or not?

If this is done we may be able to integrate the urgency of addressing these targets into everyday decisions in a way that creates the level of change required..

Onsite Service Enterprises

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Affordable high-density housing has a bad reputation. Often it is managed and maintained poorly and can have a poor reputation for safety and unreliable services. To address this in a number of projects on the drawing board I am developing the idea of Onsite Service Enterprises, or OSEs.

Onsite service enterprises are enterprises that install and maintain systems that provide services to occupants of a development. Examples of onsite services include hot water, energy, lighting, waste and recycling, mobility, food retail, food preparation and delivery, childcare, exercise, education, and personal care services

The full capital and operating costs of providing these services, including installing and maintaining these systems, equipment, and facilities, are borne by the enterprises. Service level agreements are signed between the development and service enterprises which define performance requirements related to quality, nature of services, responsiveness, and costs.

Enterprises are required to have a presence on-site so that services are well maintained and that problems and account queries can be dealt with easily and quickly. Transparent fair costing models are used to determine fees charged for these services to ensure there is a reasonable return for the enterprises and that services are affordable.

The example in the diagram is high-density housing development in Johannesburg where services, such as the renewable energy, hot water, and grey and rainwater harvesting systems as well as the solid waste recycling systems are all designed around technology which is installed, managed and maintained by small onsite service enterprises (OSEs). Metering these services is then used to pay for their installation and maintenance. Solid waste collection is largely financed through and efficient recycling system to minimize costs for residents. Similarly, small onsite service enterprises will be established to carry out management and maintenance of the development and are catered for in rental costs.

Onsite service enterprises can reduce the initial capital costs of a project and ensure that installations are well maintained and are affordable. Small onsite enterprises take up commercial units on the ground floor, creating local employment and increased diversity of economic activity. Effective onsite entities will contribute to ensuring that the development is well cared for, high quality of services are provided and that the development provides a secure pleasant living and working environments.

Modular prefabricated buildings

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Increasing housing backlogs and rising house prices mean that self-build may be an increasingly attractive option for many households. Building on timber frame self-build project experience, Gauge is developing a simple modular prefabricated timber unit that can be readily assembled to build housing and other small buildings easily and affordably. A lightweight approach means that the building only requires pad foundations and therefore can be built in awkward sites and on sloping ground. Designs will be rapidly developed with users based on modular components. A parts list will then be used to transport components to site where they can be assembled following instructions in a manual.

How Cape Town Avoided Running Out of Water 

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South Africa has been celebrating dams in the Western Cape filling up with the recent rains. Soon, it is likely that the real possibility that Cape Town would run out of water will be forgotten.

Before this happens it is important that lessons are learnt. In particular, it is valuable to understand how Cape Town was able to radically reduce water consumption (from 1.2 billion litres per day to 516 million litres) within very short time frames.

This has been attributed to:

  • Walking the talk: Leaders in Cape Town not only urged people to use less water but also shared their personal experiences on how they were reducing water consumption.
  • Water restrictions: Gradually ramping up water restrictions which provided very clear requirements such as a ban on using drinking water for irrigation, a ban on washing cars and limiting personal water use to 87 litres a day.
  • Enforcement: Enforcement of water restrictions was carried out through patrols and fines for infringements.
  • Water Management Devices: Ongoing disregard for restrictions was addressed by installing water management devices at properties. These cut off water supplies after 350litres per day had been used and 18,000 of these devices were installed.
  • Throttling water supplies: The City substantially reduced water pressure in many areas at specific times. This caused some high lying area to be without water at some points during the day.
  • Day Zero: The city ran a well-publicised campaign indicating what would happen if water ran out. This included demonstrating how people would have to travel to standpipes for their ration of water and transport this back to their homes.
  • Media campaigns: Water saving tips, such as “If it is yellow, let it mellow” were widely shared to encourage people to reduce water consumption, for instance by not flushing toilets after every use.
  • Tourists: Tourist were encouraged to behave like locals and reduce water use. In many hotels, baths were plugged to avoid them being used and showers encouraged.
  • Swimming pools: Municipal swimming pools were closed and topping up of private swimming pools was only allowed if the water was transported from other areas.
  • Business: The City’s investment agency engaged business regularly on how water could be reduced in large businesses.
  • Restaurants: Many restaurants radically transformed how food was prepared and served.  For instance, the Test Kitchen developed a “Drought Kitchen” and reducing washing by serving food on cardboard in picture frames.
  • Residents: Residents started water saving groups to share water saving tips and how to access technologies such as composting toilets and greywater systems which could save water. Many of these groups grew rapidly through Facebook and other social media.
  • Water Ambassadors: Water ambassadors were appointed that publically supported reductions in water and shared new ways water could be saved.
  • Equality: Restrictions were applied across all households evenly and as a result, very wealthy households used the same amount of water as very poor households who were already relatively water efficient.
  • NGOs: NGOs like the World Wildlife Fund developed guides and updates that could be easily accessed with information on the current situation and how households could reduce water consumption.
  • Monitoring: Websites were developed that provided up-to-date information on water levels and current water consumption which enabled ‘Ground Zero’ dates (when water would run out) to be predicted.
  • Maps: The City developed online water maps that showed water consumption at a household level. This showed whether households were meeting their quota of water or going above it.

More detail can be accessed here, here and here.

Water in Buildings Bylaw

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Gauge has been appointed to develop water in building bylaws. The bylaw aims to support the development of water systems in buildings that are more efficient and resilient. It includes a requirement to use more efficient water fittings and measures to capture and use rainwater. The development process is rapid and bylaws development, including reviews, will be undertaken in a few months.

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