Conservation of archaeological daga (adobe) structures, Domboshaba National Monument, Botswana

Domboshaba is a Zimbabwe culture site in eastern Botswana. It had been suffering from neglect until an Africa 2009 documentation workshop was held there. This workshop recommended remedial conservation to arrest the deterioration of the dry stone walls and daga (abode) structures at the site. This paper presents some of the accomplishments of the workshop and the methods used to preserve the daga structures at Domboshaba. It also offers recommendations for others managing these types of sites in southern Africa.

Weissenhof siedlung exhibition

UK sound-artist Scanner (whom we met on the program earlier this year) has been Artist-in-Residence for BBC Radio 4's 'Front Row' arts program where he's been experimenting with the medium of broadcasting. We heard one piece which explores the idea of social spaces in the city - associated with the visionary architectural ideas of Buckminster Fuller.

This morning we are staying with ideas of housing for the modern world.

Stuttgart, Germany, is our place of disembarkation - where in 1927 a modern housing estate - the Weissenhof Seidlung - was built to showcase the very latest work from the biggest names in modern architecture. 33 houses and apartments of all shapes and sizes - unified by their white, cubic streamlined forms.

The Estate is now a national monument and is a site of pilgrimage for architecture fans the world over.

Melbourne's Span Gallery is showing photographs of the Weissenhof Seidlung - and waiting in the wings to take us through it is historian Judith Trimble, joined by our own Rhiannon Brown, and - making a few guest appearances - the master of the modern movement, Le Corbusier, caught on tape here in the late 1950s.