Design Indaba’s Your Street challenge – an invitation to design for your #1 client, your community – was launched during the World Design Capital 2014 organising committee’s visit to Cape Town in July this year. Now the seven finalists have been selected, and word (on the street) is that the winners will be announced this Wednesday, the same day we hear whether Cape Town is World Design Capital 2014. Who and what’s up for the winner’s pot? In no particular order:
- Matchbox by Verena Grips proposes repurposing shipping containers into crèches for disadvantaged communities. (Read about it here)
- Violet’s Walk by Luke, Jenny and Jess Pedersen, Kirsty Rielly and Katherine Spindler is a clearly marked walking route in Woodstock with resting benches placed strategically along the way. (Read about it here)
- Acre Road by Lorena Pasquini, Mark Henning and Hannah Williams is a community-based design solution to improve the lives of the Acre Road community in Kensington using low-cost facilities to cater for positive community activities. (Read about it here)
- Let Us Grow by Andrew Cole, Rene Bakker, Andrea Ferry and Pieter H Botha is an urban farming initiative that supplies fresh produce to urban dwellers, while also creating employment. (Read about it here)
- Urban Mosaic by Ashley Stemmet, Porky Hefer and Y Tsai is an aesthetically pleasing way to the solve the problem of shack fires, by painting their exteriors with fire retardant paint. (Read about it here)
- Kids-Up City with Sonja Spamer is a project that rethinks traditional playground furniture to make it more inclusive and with forms better suited to learning while playing. (Read about it here)
- Jamshack by Joe Schutzer-Weissmann and Gerald van Wyk is a licensed stage where pre-selected performers will play to a busy Cape Town street. (Read about it here)
The winner’s pot had R250 000 in it, with first prize of R100 000 to go to the designer with not only the best idea, but who can also present a reasonable business model demonstrating how the idea can be achieved. Three second-place prizes of R50 000 will be awarded, with these prioneering projects be implemented immediately.
We’ll be catching up with all the contributors over the next few days to find out how they’re looking to transform our urban environments, one street at a time. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, a few closing thoughts from Design Indaba:
“It was inspiring to see so many good ideas for ways in which to make the City of Cape Town a friendlier and more accessible urban environment. Design Indaba would like to encourage everybody who entered, and those with ingenious ideas still mulling in their heads, to still go out and make their ideas happen. Find a commercial partner, infect others with your enthusiasm for the city and make that city change happen.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Related post: Turning Cape Town’s shipping containers into schools
