Transforming the city by design

(The following article appeared in the Cape Argus newspaper, 5 April 2011)

The above image is of the Percy Bartley House rejuvenation project which saw the Percy Bartley home for boys being transformed from a derelict and sad building to one of bright colour and hope. The writing on the wall says: “You are searching your world for treasure. The real treasue is you.” It’s projects like these which represent Cape Town’s theme of “Live design. Transform Life.”
(Photo courtesy of Rowan Pybus of Makhulu productions).

Cape Town’s bid for the World Design Capital 2014 award acknowledges design as a catalyst, writes Carola Koblitz

Cape Town’s submission of its World Design Capital (WDC) bid at the end of last month was more than just an application, but an opportunity highlighting the importance of creative industries to the City and positions it as a globally significant Design City for the future.

The 465-page bid book, which has been sent to the International Council for Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid) in Canada, has as its theme, “Live design. Transform Life”. The year 2014 marks 20 years of democracy in South Africa and is a significant moment for people to embrace such a theme.

The bi-annual WDC award is bestowed by Icsid on cities that use design for their social, economic and cultural development. The story at the heart of Cape Town’s bid theme is about the City’s use of design to overturn the negative legacies of its colonial and apartheid past that saw design dividing people, disconnecting the city, and relegating both people of colour and the urban poor to its fringes. This both denied these people equitable access to resources and opportunities, not least the opportunity of making their own contributions to a better city. It also made the country a pariah in the eyes of the world, and excluded it from many opportunities to engage in the globalizing economy.

The WDC designation enables a year-long programme of design-focused events that attract the attention of design communities across the globe. Previous winners include Torino in Italy in 2008, the South Korean capital Seoul last year, and the 2012 recipient, Helsinki in Finland. Cape Town expects to hear by June whether it has made the shortlist, and can then expect a visit from the international Icsid judging panel in July. The 2014 title-holder will be announced in October 2011, allowing the winning city just over two years to prepare.

At Seoul’s closing ceremony in December last year, mayor Oh Se-hoon, reflecting on the city’s year as the title holder under the theme of “Design for All”, emphasized that urban design was not merely a matter of “convenience, aesthetics and safety” but an “essential element for survival in the 21st century” in view of the “competition between cities for investment, tourism and talent as well as maintaining and raising the happiness index among its residents and visitors.”

Icsid president, Mark Breitenberg, echoed Oh’s sentiments: “WDC is more than just a project or a programme – it’s a global movement towards an understanding that design does impact and affect quality of human life.”

With cities generally keeping their bids close to their chest, it is believed that, along with Cape Town, Dublin and Bilbao are in the running, together with cities in China and South America. However, with two of the last three titles going to cities in Europe, it is hoped that Icsid may well turn its attention towards a developing country for 2014.

This thought is shared by Dr Mugendi M’Rithaa, a senior lecturer at the Department of Industrial Design at the Cape Peninsular University of Technology (CPUT) as well as a member of the local WDC bidding committee.

M’Rithaa says: “However we should look at the possibility of Cape Town winning not just in terms of us being in a developing country but, rather, as us being part of the ‘majority world’. Cities that have won in the past were those that are part of the developed world – and yet those cities form less than 10% of the global population; they are part of the ‘minority world’. Far more relevant today is where design is heading for the other 90%. The entire global trend in design today is changing towards socially conscious design, and we are already, as a city, in complete alignment with this. In many ways, our bid could be seen as a template for bids in the future. We speak on behalf of the ‘majority world’ with a powerful voice that resonates across the globe.”

Even if Cape Town does not win the bid, considerable benefits accrue from the bidding process itself, not least the 465-page bid book, which delivers a compelling statement about local design capacity. In itself, this is a valuable resource for creative industries and an educational tool for the public at large.

Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana, managing director of the Cape Town Partnership, co-ordinator of the bid on behalf of the City, explains: “We are currently looking at ways to get this information into the public domain and this will happen via the World Design Capital website within the next few weeks. This bid book is the first of its kind to consolidate information ranging from organizational support and design courses offered in the region, to the City’s design achievements and projects planned for the future.”

The bid book can also be used as a “forward-moving” plan of action for design initiatives, dedicated as it has been to demonstrating how designers can play a fundamental role in meeting the challenges of “socially responsible design”.

“Even though we have thousands of people engaged in creative industries in the city, to date there has been no collective vision,” says M’Rithaa. “The bid process gives us a common platform for acknowledging design as an asset and is a massive catalyst to align creative narratives. Cape Town’s bid is not about claiming that we are already an established ‘design capital brand’, but instead we are bidding to acknowledge that we are using design thinking as a tool for transformation. We want to show what design can do for us and that investment in design is an investment in our future.”

Zayd Minty, the Partnership’s Creative Cape Town programme director, elaborates further: “Bidding for World Design Capital 2014 is our city’s opportunity to use the energy of our present to reimagine and reposition ourselves as a city that can use design to overcome our past, reconnect as people, and take us into a new future – a city poised to make an impact economically and socially. Thus the theme ‘Live Design. Transform Life.’

“It’s also about growing a common vision for Cape Town as an inclusive, innovative, entrepreneurial, sustainable and African city.”

The long-term benefits of the title can best be examined in hindsight by looking at the successes of previous title-holders. According to Sarah Fortunati, a member of the 2008 Turin WDC Organising Committee, Turin experienced more visitor numbers in 2008 than in any other year over the half-century, including 2006 when it hosted the Winter Olympics. Furthermore, Turin is today identified and recognized as a major Italian design city.

In turn, the City of Seoul – last year’s title holder – has, as a result of its newly recognized status as World Design Capital, adopted a new city-wide design policy which it is calling its “grand renaissance project” and that will incorporate a softer approach to the design of buildings to add a new aesthetic edge to its traditionally hard, skyscraper-dominated cityscape. While Seoul is till busy tallying up its final visitor figures for the year, its World Design Capital status also saw the city ranked by the New York Times as third in a list of “The 31 Places to go in 2010”, and was described by the newspaper as “a city where design enthusiasts are flocking” for the year.

In many ways, Cape Town has embodied the theme of “Live Design. Transform Life.” for more than two decades already. “For the past 20 years, we’ve been using design across all sectors to transform lives and make the reconnections,” says Minty. “We’ve seen significant positive change not only in Cape Town but in South Africa as a whole – an increased self-confidence, economic growth, better infrastructure and the repositioning of us as a place that can deliver. Cape Town has in particular begun to be seen by many as a city of inspiration and has begun to shine as a creative city. Through the many processes that design embraces, we are therefore rebuilding, reconnecting and repositioning ourselves as a city – and these are an important theme that runs throughout our bidding process and into the future of design in this city.”

It is a realisable vision: in terms of being a design city, Capetonians have begun to see evidence of design thinking emerging in all areas of design – design that is increasingly socially relevant. New urban design and architecture is transforming neglected spaces in to habitable places while infrastructure such as the IRT is reconnecting the City; organizational initiatives are designing new programmes and policies to move us forward while industrial design is finding solutions for our specific needs; and graphic, product and surface design is increasingly finding a local voice.

M’Rithaa says: “Investment in design is investment in our future.”

• Carola Koblitz is a freelance journalist and one of the editors of the World Design Capital Bid Book.

Support Cape Town’s World Design Capital 2014 Bid by joining our Facebook Fan Page and receive regular bid progress reports, World Design Capital 2014 event invitations and updates