The Bo-Kaap, one of Cape Town’s oldest residential neighborhoods, stands as one of the city’s most significant cultural heritage sites, reflecting a layered and a rich living heritage. It is home to the earliest Muslim community in South Africa and continues to sustain its vibrant social and cultural traditions. The market site is located at the top of Wale Street one of the primary access routes into the neighbourhood and serves as a cultural and tourism “entrance foyer” to the Bo-Kaap and is an important catalytic lever to create informal trading and socio-economic development opportunities for small local vendors.

Central to the area’s development, the proposed Bo-Kaap Informal Trading Area aims to enhance socio-economic opportunities for small local vendors while respecting the neighborhood’s cultural and historical identity. Strategically located at Pentz Street and Yusuf Drive, the site attracts significant foot traffic and tourists, yet its current state—with informal structures and limited infrastructure—necessitates improvement. By engaging stakeholders throughout the planning process, the project ensures that community needs are met while enhancing accessibility, preserving the site’s leafy character, and creating a vibrant, regulated trade hub. Building on prior work by TKLA and VPUU, the initiative aligns with existing designs to create a space that integrates Bo-Kaap’s historical legacy with its economic future.

The design comprises a series of timber trade platforms that step up the sloped site, creating a public court and living stair. The use of lightweight timber and steel structures is designed to protect the mature trees on the site and create a visually permeable park like feel. The trade stalls are double sided, and both open into the shared court space and outwards towards Yusuf Drive. A small support building is tucked into the slope of the site and new sidewalks and a pedestrian refuge are introduced to improve the safety of tourists and locals moving through the space.