My interest in materials, networks, and the urban context of Johannesburg began quite a long time ago now. I’ve recently been doing some 3D scanning work, and thinking again about how we make the everyday city in light of recent events in Johannesburg around questions of informality and informal trading. I have been thinking about this little project, which feels like a lifetime ago now. But perhaps holds some clues to the way my later work and thinking have unfolded. It is now that I reflect on it, a complex thesis to mark. I should have held my ground on not designing a ‘building’; complexity can be found. I still believe in other modes and ways of being.