Diedericks’ thesis, entitled ‘An Interminable Living Machine’, explores and addresses the re-appropriation of the vacant Mangaung Intermodal Transport Facility (MITF) into a living, micro-enterprise factory of change. The reintegration of MITF, otherwise known as the Bloemfontein Taxi Terminal, with its immediate urban context is a fundamental requirement to ensure that the intervention links back into the urban context, thus humanising it.

The site was once home to Bloemfontein’s first power station. It is this concept of power generation that leads to the catalyst of an ‘economic power generator’ by enabling microenterprise development within the reappropriated building. The building recycles itself and reuses these elements elsewhere for traders and business owners. It filters water through biofilters, creating a living building with people that act as a sustainable energy source that creates an interminable system of change and economic growth in Bloemfontein and the Free State.