Textile designer Jane Solomon, at the request of the Cape Craft and Design Institute, recently worked with women from the Saartjie Baartman Centre to transform their dining area. The one-stop centre in Manenberg caters for women and children who experience domestic and/or sexual violence. Besides a 24-hour emergency shelter, the centre also provides short and medium term residential care, childcare services, counselling, mental health support, and legal and economic empowerment services. About 18 women and 20-25 children are housed in the main shelter section with another nine women and 20 children living in the second stage housing section.

Due to limited resources, the main section had an underequipped and uninviting dining area. Synnov Skorge, director of the Saartjie Baartman Centre, says: “The women come here under extreme, emergency circumstances. Our funding covers the basic needs, but we wanted a welcoming, comfortable dining space where the women could enjoy their meals with their children and reconstruct their families.”

In an effort to enable and inspire, Jane worked with 10 women from the centre over four days. She applied her “body mapping” approach, which she developed 10 years ago as a form of memory work for people living with HIV.

After discussing the atmosphere the women wanted to create – calm, serene, welcoming, uplifting and warm – they each created personal colour palettes. These were put together to create a colour palette for the dining room.

The women then recalled quotes or texts – songs, religious texts, family sayings – that had helped them through difficult times. Using the colour palette, these were written on circles and cut out. Additional circular mandalas were created to express challenges, hopes, experiences and more. These paper circles – or flowers – were scanned and professionally printed as the “Flowers for Saartjie” wallpaper. (A portion of which was produced free of charge by ArtLab.)

“The wallpaper is both attractive and profound because of the messages about [the women’s] experiences,” says Synnov. “It is a testimony to their lives and where they are going, about the strength they have shown.”

Jane Solomon concurs, citing some of the feedback she received from the women:

The workshop was inspirational. It made me feel good about myself. It was nice to give my opinion – it made me feel helpful again.

The fact is it totally boosted the way I feel right now. It made me realise that there is a way you can share and express your feelings through art.

Thanks to a paint donation from Plascon, the remainder of the dining room was painted a “Petite and Perfect” pinky peach and the kitchen area a “Happy Day” orange. The community-based service club, Rotary, installed dining furniture to complete the transformation. Woven cotton and linen curtains with a brick-red border added the final touch.

For more about the Saartje Baartman Centre, start by visiting their website: www.saartjiebaartmancentre.org.za

Read more about Jane Solomon’s body mapping work here and then visit her website: www.fabricnation.co.za

Designer Jane Solomon, Councillor Beverley Cortje-Alcock, Centre Director Synnov Skorge and CCDI Director Erica Elk. Photo by Bruce Sutherland.

Beyond the obvious public health implications, according to policy coordinator of the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) Gavin Silber, the primary obstacle to safety in informal settlements is actually the toilet. “Residents of informal settlements must often walk for more than 10 minutes (often at night) to find a functioning toilet or empty clearing – rendering them particularly vulnerable to crime. People are assaulted, raped, robbed and murdered when conducting a very simple bodily function that many Capetonians take for granted,” he explains.

One toilet often services 50-100 households, without any formal maintenance programme. In March the SJC made a formal submission to the City of Cape Town outlining the need for a janitorial service to maintain the over 13 700 flush toilets that service the over 350 000 residents of Cape Town informal settlements.

Gavin says that the city has agreed that sanitation is a serious problem and that they will be instating a janitorial service, however the form it will take will only be announced in June. “What we’re saying is: ‘Let’s improve conditions in informal settlements by starting with the most basic service – sanitation – and if we can make marginal improvements there, we can make marginal improvements on other things,” Gavin explains.

Global problem

According to Fast Company, poor sanitation is a global problem that affects over 2.6 billion people – 40% of the world’s population! One would think that such a pressing problem that affects so many people would be high on the agenda for solutions. However, as Fast Company explains, it is not a simple case of “air-dropping flush toilets”.

The flush toilet has not been innovated on since 1775, when it was invented. One of the world’s most essential designs, it is also one of the most inefficient. Besides the extensive sewerage infrastructure required, each flush requires an average of 12 litres of water, which needs to be treated before it can be reused.

Designer toilets

At Design Indaba this year, Alfredo Brillembourg showed Urban Think-Tanks’s dry toilet solution for a favela in Caracas, Venezuela. A flat-pack constructible toilet solution for natural disasters was also shown by Rahim Bhimani.

Going beyond just the toilet, the Triratna Prerana Mandal group in Mumbai established a community-driven maintenance and service programme for the toilets in the slums. Above the toilets they also built child-care centres where children could learn computers and English, as well as get a healthy meal.

Seeking a more scalable, holistic solution, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation challenged 22 universities to submit proposals for safe, affordable, waterless, hygienic, sewer-less toilets last year. In July, eight of the universities were awarded grants to develop their ideas. Proposals include turning the waste into electricity and bio-charcoal, or simply dehydrating it.

Design by the people

This Saturday, 5 May, the SJC will be facilitating the first meeting between community organisations and designers who want to see Cape Town’s World Design Capital 2014 designation as a force for good. The meeting will be held in Khayelitsha and members of the community itself are also invited to attend.

“Particularly with things like the World Design Capital, very often we dictate how things should change and what improvements should be made without ever actually consulting with the affected communities,” explains Gavin. “It is important because very often you realise that what works in one community might not work in another when you speak to residents.”

The meeting will see the convening of a wide range of community-based organisations – focusing on everything from health to education, sanitation to day-care – who will seek to identify and frame the key challenges their constituents and communities face, and articulate these to designers, who in turn can help design solutions.

Be there for the community design brief:

DATE: Saturday 5 May 2012
TIME: 10h00 – 12h30 (light lunch after)
VENUE: Site C New Hall, Khayelitsha
RSVP: dalli@sjc.org.za

To find out more, read SJC’s open invitation.

Directions from Cape Town:

• Take the N2 towards Somerset-West
• Take the Mew Way off-ramp
• At the top of the off-ramp turn right onto Mew Way
• Turn right at the first set of traffic lights onto Lansdowne Road
• Drive down Lansdowne Road for about 50 metres (train tracks on your left)
• Turn right at the first petrol garage on your right
• Drive past the petrol station – now on your left
• Site C New Hall will be on your right

Speaking at the ceremony, CEO of Deutsche Bank Dr Josef Ackermann honoured local entrants: “I congratulate you all for this impressive demonstration of citizens who are not waiting for help but use their own creativity to overcome the problems of their daily lives. I hope that the projects awarded today will serve as an encouragement not only in Cape Town, but all over South Africa. These projects are South African ambassadors of good ideas and better solutions, not just for Cape Town but for all cities in the world. They are ambassadors of hope.”

Cape Town is the fifth city – after Mumbai, Sao Paulo, Istanbul and Mexico City – to host the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award. An all-time high of 254 local applications were received, of which only eight could be shortlisted, and only one awarded the prize of R750 000. Jury chair Professor Edgar Pieterse, director at the African Centre for Cities, hinted at the difficulties of the “exhausting but absolutely exhilirating” decision process with which the local and international jury were faced.

Who ultimately won the honour? A finalist described by jury member Malika Ndlovu as “the light in Lavender Hill”: Mothers Unite. (Pictured above: the Mothers Unite vegetable garden, below: a playing area at Mothers Unite)

The light in Lavender Hill

Mothers Unite – founded in 2007 in a mother’s home – is a kind of safe haven in Lavender Hill. Three afternoons a week, in an infrastructure village in the grounds of the city’s Seawinds Multipurpose Centre, 120 children between the ages of 3 and 15 are exposed to storytelling, computer literacy, food garden training, art therapy, sports and play – as an alternative to the gangsterism, drugs and violence they’re witness to on the streets. Built with donated shipping containers, the village is made up of a library, kitchen, office, sheltered area, playground and food garden. The Mothers Unite project addresses the family unit and encourages family participation and a shared commitment to community development, providing a support base for the family and a safe place for children to play, explore and develop.

What do Mothers Unite intend doing with the R750 000? They plan to obtain further educational resources for after-school programmes, revamp the playground, add to their toy and book libraries and purchase better kitchen equipment and nutritional ingredients for the children’s meals. They would like to buy a vehicle to overcome their biggest operational obstacle and be able to offer a small stipend to volunteers who have worked tirelessly. Prize money will also allow the organisation to purchase stationery and equipment for Emergency First Aid Response courses, and contribute to 160 computer literacy courses and 80 home garden start-ups to broaden their work in Lavender Hill.

Urban acupuncture for an urban age

In his press statement on the announcement of the eight finalists, Professor Edgar Pieterse spoke about the kind of sustainable intervention that Mothers Unite represents: “Durable urban change is often about carefully targeted micro interventions that can change the energies and dynamics of a surrounding neighbourhood. When one engages with the physical manifestations that the tenacity, blood, sweat, and tears of the protagonists of Mothers Unite and Masiphumelele Library [another of the eight finalists, the entrance of which is pictured above] have created, the power of urban acupuncture is apparent. These projects serve as reminders that through vision, commitment over the long haul, and principle-based partnerships, just about any problem can be confronted and addressed.”

Malika Ndlovu was similarly encouraged: “Mothers Unite is not only an outstanding example of a professional community-driven childcare and education initiative, it is a far greater vision of a bottom-up social and environmental transformation strategy already unfolding. In the face of multiple challenges and literally arid soil, the resilient women behind this work are reshaping their physical context and social environment, claiming their right to municipal resources, to safety and dignity for their community – a Cape Town community, like many others, stereotypically seen as violent and impoverished. Clearly Mothers Unite sees through different eyes and is driven by a commitment to a different future for Lavender Hill and its children. We honour their compassionate, insightful and innovative approaches to the daily obstacles they face. May their example and the DBUAA spotlight they now stand in, inform and inspire others working in similar conditions as well as open the way for increased collaboration with partners for the benefit of all involved.”

Image: Children at the Rocklands Urban Abundance Centre concentrate during a lesson

Where to next? The legacy of Urban Age

R750 000 is a wonderful windfall for Mothers Unite, but what of the other seven finalists and the 253 applicants? The Cape Town jury unanimously recommended the establishment of an offshoot legacy project to offer structured information, knowledge and communications support to all 254 projects that entered the 2012 award – for which Deutsche Bank South Africa and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society then offered the seed funding.

To be hosted by the African Centre for Cities, Cape Town Partnership and the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Legacy Project aims to ensure that the city as a whole benefits from all the exciting initiatives and ideas that came to light during the award process. It will operate under two main themes:

• Community place-making and identity: Initiatives that use space to achieve an improved economic, social and physical environment
• Local development partnerships: Initiatives that connect different projects with the public authorities to achieve greater impact

Inspired by Mothers Unite? Connect with these seven amabassadors of hope for yourself:

• Bicycle Empowerment Network  (a city-wide initiative “that goes to the heart of connectivity”)
• Masiphumelele Community Library (a Masiphumelele initiative “that goes to the heart of the challenge how to instil a culture and love of learning”)
• Regeneration of City and Soul (a project in Retreat “that speaks to the crisis of masculinity”)
• Rocklands Urban Abundance Centre (a Mitchells Plain project that uses “vision and imagination around how to use resources like school and turn them into magical places”)
• Social Justice Coalition (a Khayelitsha-based project that shows how there are “still some basic and profound questions that face Capetonians”)
• Thrive Recycling (an Imizamo Yethu/Hout Bay initiative that shows the “widespread potential for social entrepreneurship and innovation”)
• VPUU – Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading  (a Khayelitsha “torchbearer for the potential power of design”)

The Virtual Chemistry Lab is everything you’d expect of a conventional chemistry laboratory – just minus the laboratory and expensive (or explosive) equipment it requires.

How do you replace a chemistry lab?

The Virtual Chemistry Lab gets learners involved in a hands-on lesson on a 50″ high definition rear-projected screen backed up by pattern recognition technology. The table comes equipped with circular cards held in containers on either side of the table, each representing objects and materials commonly found in a real chemistry lab. When a card is placed on the glass surface of the table, a menu appears around it, and turning the card allows the user to direct which function it should perform – for example, to turn up the heat of a Bunsen burner. Chemical reactions are simulated when cards are brought together.

A multi-sensory learning environment

The first Virtual Chemistry Lab Table in South Africa was handed over to the Nelson Mandela Bay Science and Technology Centre in March as part of a partnership between the chemical company BASF and the Uitenhage Despatch Development Initiative.

“Multimedia learning environments are more effective than traditional learning media such as textbooks, since they engage multiple senses simultaneously,” says Michael Wolf, CEO of Formula D interactive, the creators of the table. “This is proven to stimulate learners, while making learning content more memorable.”

For schools with limited space and resources, Formula D is adapting the design. “The support of BASF has proven that our concepts are on the right track to innovate education in South Africa,” explains Michael. “Our classroom edition is a smaller, mobile and a much lower cost alternative to the large table – and works with standard PC and computer or television screens.”

Letting children’s curiosity run riot

This virtual departure from conventional science labs allows children to experiment unsupervised to their curiosity’s content, Marco Rosa, the managing director at Formula D interactive points out. When updates are issued, they would be available via download from the internet.

“One card activates a microscope and shows an animation of what the particular chemical reaction looks like at an atomic level, and the end result. Chemical formulas will be far easier to understand through their graphic display.

“Another card enables a virtual teacher, which explains what is occurring through each experiment. So even if nothing happens while experimenting blind, children will understand why. They’ll get the chance to do stuff they would never do in an actual lab,” he observes.

Challenges and opportunities

A challenge of introducing any new technology into a classroom environment includes the fact that traditional computer interfaces aren’t suited to collaborative learning – often built for a single user. Technology is also approached with a level of suspicion in some areas, especially where teachers themselves haven’t been exposed much to computer technology. Along with a cheaper, more accessible learning environment, the Virtual Chemistry Lab presents an opportunity for schools to introduce sophisticated technology that doesn’t require the operation of menus, or a mouse and keyboard.

Want to find out more about gamification in Cape Town?

Start by checking out local design firm Formula D interactive online.

As their home town, Cape Town gets a lot of coverage in the text (and is dealt with in detail in chapter nine). What do they have to say to local designers and urban planners? Mark and Eve warn against Cape Town simply looking at green urbanism – which seeks to minimise environmental impacts through techno-fixes and high-barrier economic programmes – rather than focusing on a truly socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable (or liveable, as they call it) urbanism. They propose a form of urbanism that goes beyond simply minimising damage, to designing systems and cities to actively restore life (both natural and social).

Bio gas test unit at the Sustainability Institute

Rising to sustainability challenges

Just Transitions highlights some of the technical, environmental, financial and social constraints Cape Town needs to overcome on its journey to sustainability. As dour as this sounds, Mark and Eve are hugely optimistic about our desire and ability to tackle these issues, particularly when we consider the broad spectrum of life in our approach.

Building an inclusive city

The City of Cape Town has made impressive strides since 1994 to provide all citizens with access to basic services (they have been particularly successful with regard to energy and water, less so with sanitation). However, because the City worked within existing spatial relations, determined by apartheid, this has led to what Mark and Eve call a “uniquely South African” outcome: spatially segmented inclusive urbanism.

The challenge for design professionals and social entrepreneurs is to avoid being seduced into creating products and services for a well-connected elite, and rather to work with a broader range of communities to come up with innovative ways to address their problems. In planning the city, designers must consider ways to connect communities, whether physically or by providing spaces or opportunities for different people to come together.

A learner at the Lynedoch EcoVillage primary school

Weaning off oil-dependence

Almost half (46%) of Cape Town’s energy use is petrol or diesel, siphoning about R2-billion a year out of the city and into oil companies, according to Mark and Eve’s calculations. Designers and planners can come up with new ways to move people around the city, and encourage walking and cycling (through, for example, human-scale design of buildings and spaces) – in fact, these kinds of initiatives have become more common in recent years (Cape Town’s MyCiTi bus and new cycle lanes are excellent examples).

Every drop counts

While in the Western Cape irrigation accounts for more than two-thirds of water use, in the City of Cape Town itself more than half of water demand is from homes. Considering Cape Town is notoriously water constrained, there are huge opportunities for design responses that could make a significant impact on our water useage. Eve and Mark point out that 61% of drinkable water in households is used for flushing toilets!

Mark Swilling talks about the adobe brick project during a World Design Capital 2014 tour at the Sustainability Institute in July 2011

Wealth from waste

Just 14.5% of households – Cape Town’s wealthiest – produce half of the city’s waste. Rich Capetonians produce 2kg of waste per person per day, compared with 500g per person for poor Capetonians. Half of this waste is easily recyclable glass, plastic, paper, and garden and organic waste. “In other words,” say Mark and Eve, “1.4 million kilograms per day of waste could be recycled and reused.” And there’s your design challenge right there.

They also point out that “the large bulk of existing sewage flow is not converted into reusable inputs” – composting, additives in brick-making and co-combustion in power stations are just three possibilities that have been explored by the City, according to Just Transitions. Fertile ground for design and entrepreneurial innovation!

Designers practicing leadership

When speaking to the role of design professionals in Just Transitions, Mark and Eve emphasise the need for adaptive leadership. In other words, when the problems are complex, professionals must try to avoid falling back on the technical solutions that they ‘know’ work: “new challenges [will] emerge that require niche innovations which are unlikely to be generated from within established knowledge networks.” Being open to debate and learning from a diverse range of people is essential to fostering the buy-in and innovation that will make sustainability work.

Know of designers tackling some of these sustainability challenges in interesting and compelling ways? Tell us about it on Facebook or on Twitter.

Just Transitions by Mark Swilling and Eve Annecke (2012) is published by UCT Press. It retails for R385, and is essential reading for serious sustainability practitioners. Order it online.

Text by Michelle Matthews
Photos by Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town

Why was Cape Town chosen for this award?

“Cape Town is home to almost four million inhabitants. One quarter of those live incredibly comfortable and enviable lives in one of the most alluring cities in the world. Another quarter face routine struggles amid living conditions that are as difficult and dispiriting as one gets: limited sanitation, precarious shelter, intermittent access to basic services, grave threats to personal safety, and the constant indignity of grinding poverty associated with unemployment. The other 50% of the population fall in between these extremes but certainly much closer to the bottom quarter, with lives marked by insecurity, uncertainty about work, inconvenience and the abiding fear that the ground could fall away at any time. Cape Town is thus a highly differentiated and malleable city, filled with almost endless promise but also continuously undermined by a variety of constraints and pressures.

“The Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award recognises and celebrates creative solutions to the problems and opportunities of city dwellers. The Cape Town Award was launched on 23 November 2011 and gave Cape Town organisations until 24 February 2012 to submit their entries to be considered for the 2012 prize of R750 000.”

How has Cape Town responded to the call for Urban Age entries?

“The response was overwhelming: 254 entries were received, which is the highest response rate since the award was launched. The jury believes this response reflects the rich reservoir of organisations, talent, energy and grassroots leadership across all segments of Cape Town’s neighbourhoods. This diversity of activism bodes well for the future of the city, especially if it can be incorporated into the unfolding City Development Strategy process of the City government. The city will also tackle its forthcoming year-long status as World Design Capital 2014, a biennial international title granted by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, amongst other opportunities. Moreover, this response made the adjudication process of the jury incredibly difficult but profoundly rewarding as well. All jury members felt deeply humbled and inspired by the range of quality initiatives sprouting all over the city.”

Who’s been shortlisted?

“The jury convened from 20-22 March to adjudicate the submissions and tour the city to meet a clutch of outstanding projects. The jury unanimously identified eight projects to shortlist, including the overall winner of the 2012 Award. The winner will be announced at the award ceremony on 19 April 2012. The eight outstanding projects are, in alphabetical order:

• Bicycle Empowerment Network (BEN) (city-wide)
• Masiphumelele Community Library (Masiphumelele)
• Mothers Unite (Lavender Hill)
• Regeneration of City and Soul (Retreat)
• Rocklands Urban Abundance Centre (Rocklands, Mitchells Plain)
• Social Justice Coalition (Khayelitsha)
• Thrive Recycling (Imizamo Yethu/Hout Bay)
• VPUU – Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading  (Khayelitsha)”

Why were these projects chosen?

“The jury was struck by the ingenuity of the Regeneration of City and Soul initiative to work with young men prone to the gangster’s lifestyle to find alternative, hands-on outlets that can reintegrate them back into their communities in ways that also improve the physical environment and create incomes. This work is echoed in the well-rounded and ever deepening methodologies of both Thrive and the Rocklands Urban Abundance Centre to use residents’ connection with nature to operationalise various regenerative urban services (recycling, food gardens, community trading systems, markets, and so on). The multi-dimensional work of the Bicycle Empowerment Network, which seeks to provide citizens greater means of mobility and access, deserves recognition and promotion. The jury believes that all these projects and numerous others related to greening and food security hold a key to address some of Cape Town’s most profound challenges, if more systematic ways can be found to connect grassroots innovations with citywide policies in order to scale-up.

“Durable urban change is often about carefully targeted micro interventions that can change the energies and dynamics of a surrounding neighbourhood. When one engages with the physical manifestations that the tenacity, blood, sweat, and tears of the protagonists of Mothers Unite and Masiphumelele Library have created, the power of ‘urban acupuncture’ is apparent. These projects serve as reminders that through vision, commitment over the long haul, and principle-based partnerships, just about any problem can be confronted and addressed.

“At a different scale, the jury was impressed with the efforts of the Social Justice Coalition to bring one of the toughest urban problems to the attention of both residents and public bodies. In its methodology, the organisation seems to strike a powerful balance between protest and proposition; i.e. being open to partner with government to operationalise the janitorial service that will ensure oversight and maintenance of communal toilets, while reserving the right to protest perceived injustices and poor service delivery.

“The jury wants to underscore that more attention must be paid to the transformative power of using the built form to alter social dynamics. VPUU convincingly proves that careful attention to the quality of public spaces and mobility corridors, especially in the harshest environments, can dramatically change the experience and horizons of a neighbourhood. We hope that the important lessons emerging from this vibrant experiment in place-making will be recognised and amplified across the city. We are encouraged by a recent decision of the City of Cape Town to roll out the approach across various other neighbourhoods in the city.”

Anything you feel Cape Town missed?

“The Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award foregrounds grassroots initiatives that connect social and economic well-being with improving the physical environment. In other words, the jury believes that improvement in the quality and experience of place is the gateway to urban opportunities and improved liveability in a city. In this regard, the jury was struck by the sheer absence of mature or advanced submissions that dealt directly with the unacceptable living conditions of the one million Cape Town citizens who live in highly inadequate shelter: backyards, freestanding informal dwellings and overcrowded public housing. This paucity of innovation to deal with structural urban exclusion is clearly compounded by the large-scale under-utilisation of (public) land – a visceral aftermath of apartheid spatial planning and social engineering, which has a debilitating impact on economic efficiency, inclusion and identity.”

Once the winner is announced and the prize handed over, is that it for Cape Town?

“In light of the impressive range of submissions, the jury is exploring a variety of ways to leave a more durable legacy than the awarding of a single prize alone. This initiative will establish a variety of mechanisms to facilitate the sharing of information and accessing of resources across all 254 projects. Most importantly, creative ways will be found to ensure that the World Design Capital 2014 movement incorporates the creativity and innovation that the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award has uncovered.”

View the Deutsche Bank Urban Age 2012 trailer: Cape Town

Image: The Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrade project in Khayelitsha

Piet Bakker of Stauch Vorster Architects, Mokena Makeka of Makeka Design Lab, and Anya van der Merwe – the first woman architect from South Africa to receive a lifetime achievement award from the world’s largest architecture association, the American Institute of Architecture – from Van der Merwe Miszewski Architects will be leading the project that will see the centre doubling in capacity over the next three years.

The CTICC expansion project falls into a broader plan to create a R1.4-billion convention precinct that includes connecting the CTICC with Artscape by regenerating the Founders’ Garden and developing a hub for Cape Town’s business, retail, cultural and events activity.

“The expansion will serve as a flagship architectural project in light of Cape Town’s 2014 designation,” says Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana, managing director of Cape Town Partnership, the coordinators of Cape Town’s World Design Capital bid. “Although work on the extension will not be completed until 2015, the progress made in implementing this bold concept and vision will certainly be showcased in a global spotlight and celebrated worldwide.”

Project 6211: Designing for a diverse city

The architectural concept itself also underscores values embodied in 2014 bid: diversity, inclusivity and sustainability. Entitled 6211, it is a design interpretation of the globally unique biodiversity of the Cape Floristic Kingdom, famous for being the smallest and most diverse of only six kingdoms in the world.

“Using the DNA code of the 6210 plant species endemic to the Cape Floristic kingdom, plus one dedicated to humanity,” explains Mokena, “6211 transforms the convention centre into an iconic living artwork that celebrates and raises awareness about humanity and nature for the passive enjoyment of local and global audiences.”

Turning the CTICC expansion into a “living art gallery and an expression of the Western Cape”, Mokena explains, “will help to connect mankind and nature in a poetic way, foster learning and establish a stronger connection with the public.”

Anya van der Merwe confirmed that the new building will be a seamless extension: Not only will it expand on existing exhibition and conference facilities, allowing for massive events, but it will also be able to function as an independent facility, allowing for simultaneous events.

Bulelwa also emphasises Anya’s reputation for sustainability motivated architectural interventions: “It’s clear from the design concepts presented that the expansion is being treated with the utmost sensitivity, both to the natural environment – the CTICC has a four-star green rating and is aiming for a six-star green rating – and to the spatial and human context of the city.”

Vision 2020: What being an events city means for the economy

The expansion is crucial to the CTICC’s goal of being the best long-haul convention centre in the world by 2020. Already home to world-famous events such as the Design Indaba and the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, the convention centre has already received 863 bookings between now and 2020, including a 10 000 delegate International Geological Conference in 2016.

What will hosting more international events mean for Cape Town?

The core mandate of the CTICC is to contribute to economic growth and job creation in the province – by attracting international meetings and events. Since opening its doors in 2003, the centre has contributed to the creation of more than 60 000 direct and indirect jobs and has played a pivotal role in raising the profile of Cape Town and the Western Cape as a leading, globally competitive meetings destination. The expansion is likely to increase the number of direct and indirect jobs created by the centre from about 7 000 to about over 10 000 per annum by 2018.

To find out more about the trio of Cape Town architects, connect with them online:

• Stauch Vorster Architects: www.svarchitects.com
• Makeka Design Lab: www.makekadesigns.com
• Van der Merwe Miszewski Architects: www.vdmma.com

To read up on the CTICC’s sustainability credentials, read their 2011 sustainability report.

Thousands of expo attendees participated, leaving behind valuable input that will help shape the vision for Cape Town as World Design Capital 2014. Watch how this crowdsourced, information seeking activity took place, and all the fun that was had while doing it!

Want to know the results of all this input? Read all about it here.

Share what design needs to solve for you. Join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter: @CapeTown2014 and use #WDC2014

Video produced by One.Dog.Chicken

Image: Anita Reed

“Everything around us is invented,” declared John Bielenberg, a graphic designer turned social activist, on the first day of the conference, “and it doesn’t have to be that way.”

A party (and pitch) to change the world

Johnny Anderton from EarthBagBuild, presenting at Common Pitch at City Hall. Photo by Jonx Pillemer.

The desire to accelerate positive social change while still having fun, is part of what drove Bielenberg to co-found Common Pitch, a social entrepreneurship initiative. The first Common Pitch event to be held outside of the US was hosted by Design Indaba later that evening, 29 February 2012, at City Hall. Subtitled “a party to change the world”, the event entailed 11 social entrepreneurs, shortlisted from over 100 entrants from across the globe, pitching their ideas to transform the world we live in.

Cape Town proved to be at the forefront of transformative design ideas that night: The winner of the event was the low-cost housing solution EarthBagBuild by Johnny Anderton from Hout Bay, who received R150 000 cash and R70 000 in business services. University of Cape Town student Ludwick Marishane’s water-free bath solvent, DryBath, got the judges so excited that MTN gave him a special cash prize of R100 000.

Design to change our cities

Y Tsai at Design Indaba 2012. Photo by Jonx Pillemer.

Back at the conference, talk of transformative design continued. Local advertising agency FoxP2 talked about their visceral campaign against drunk driving, while architect Heinrich Wolff showed how the school he designed in the informal settlement of De Noon increased the pass rate from 40% to 70%. Architect and product designer Y Tsai discussed a fire-retardant paint for shacks – as a way to address runaway fires in townships. “Shacks are someone’s home too,” said Tsai, echoing Venezuelean architect Alfredo Brillembourg’s ruminations, who spoke about the function of urban acupuncture within informal cities.

Although Danish architect Bjarke Ingels in particular stood out for his whimsically imaginative approach to sustainable building and urban design, it was Carlo Ratti and Assaf Biderman who took the cities discussion literally to the fourth dimension. Directors of the MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory, they showed how using sensors and data clouds can bring a deeper understanding of ourselves and our cities to the urban fabric. Biderman is also allegedly in discussion with Patricia de Lille about doing a project in Cape Town, so watch this space!

Bjarke Ingels at Design Indaba 2012. Photo by Jonx Pillemer.

Speaking of reinterpreting the city through a different framework, how about the nose? Smell expert Sissel Tolaas spent a week in Cape Town capturing a variety of smells from different areas including Long Street, Kirstenbosch and Sea Point Promenade. The smells were synthesised and reproduced to fragrance a number of postcards handed out to the audience as a smellscape of the Mother City.

Courage to change the world

Sissel Tolaas at Kirstenbosch Garden. Photo supplied by Design Indaba

Quite a radical idea, it must have taken Tolaas real guts to give up everything and decide to become the world’s only smell specialist some 20 years ago.

As Johannesburg designer Miguel Pinto tweeted, winning him the mantle of “most inspiring tweet” of Design Indaba 2012: “This conference has been summarised by courage – the courage to follow your heart and the courage to believe in an idea!”

Want to change the world?

• Read up on what Capetonians at Design Indaba Expo need design to solve for them.

• Email your name, organisation, contact information and details of how you’d like to be involved in World Design Capital 2014 – as a project, event, sponsor or volunteer – to yourwdc2014@capetown.gov.za.

What did they say?

• An overwhelming 46% of respondents called for design to address problems in the city of Cape Town.
• More abstract notions of world peace, beauty and self-expression were highlighted by 34% of respondents.
• Design advocacy was top of mind for 20% of respondents.

“Redesign Cape Town”

Of the 46% seeking to redesign Cape Town, 26% wanted more of a focus on environmental issues such as sustainable power solutions, viable recycling systems and urban farming initiatives. One post-it in particular called for “a move for awareness and involvement of the public in eco-friendly and sustainable ideas, not just isolated to industry professionals”.

Public transport solutions, including better infrastructure for cyclists, was highlighted as a concern by 15% of respondents. A number of fantastical suggestions stood out here, including inventing teleportation and flying cars, and building an underground superhighway between Simon’s Town and the CBD.

Reuniting a city divided by apartheid was another top concern for 12% of respondents, who mentioned not only geographical divisions, but also cultural and racial tolerance, and overall city accessibility. “Design needs to link our different economic sectors, cultures and living areas together in a fluid, functional way that beautifies and makes Cape Town the magnanimous, magnificent city it can be,” said one post-it particularly elegantly.

Public art, public spaces, social ills, poverty, housing, education, employment, health and food made up the remaining 47% of concerns that design can address in Cape Town. That the city is prioritising design in the wake of the WDC2014 acknowledgement is evidenced by Executive Mayor Patricia de Lille’s own humble post-it: “To solve how to use design to transform government to deliver services faster”.

“Note to self”

No one can deny the inspirational power of good design and for 34% of Design Indaba Expo, world peace, joy, ugliness, boredom, blandness, empowerment, self-expression, love and motivation are just some of the core human conditions that design can help address.

That 32% of these respondents wanted to redesign human behaviour and their own lives points to a deep understanding of the radical shift needed to achieve a completely sustainable planet. “Be the change,” one post-it quoted Gandhi, while many others said: “You are the ultimate design.”

“Turn post-its into ideas”

However, spreading the message of design as a means to improve the quality of life for all was seen as the first step for 20% of respondents. First get the message out there and everyone on the same page – or post-it in this case – said 67% of these respondents. “Creativity is not elitist,” surmised one post-it.

This 67% also included the 19% of people who wanted to use design to show off Africa, South Africa and Cape Town to the world, while forging a unique national design identity.

Once the message is out, the focus can turn to innovation and small tweaks to everyday objects – storage and clutter solutions, as well as affordable local fashion came up a lot.

Other wacky, poignant and inspiring post-its

“Design is inspired by people, the way we live and who we are. It’s about incorporating traditions of different cultures to bring new ideas.”

Art washes away the dust of everyday life.

“With great creativity comes great responsibility.”

Design a way to gently explain to people that you cannot solve anything by buying more stuff.

“Government needs to view civil engineering as design and not just a way to spend money.”

Loving design means loving the world you live in, means loving yourself, means love. And to love and be loved is the answer. Let’s clear our minds, we are a positive nation, let’s continue!

“Rechargeable cushioning on your favourite running shoes.”

Something to devalue rhino horns.

“Transform Beach Road/Paarden Island into a walkway, arcade, hiking trail and public gym.”

To be able to buy a single ticket for a single journey on the MyCiTi Bus, on the bus!

“Design should inspire, bring people together and be a vehicle for social and climate justice. Design needs to transform our image of ourselves as Africans.”

Design a way for the homeless to clean and dry their clothes.

“Design needs to solve the problem of bad design.”

Design products that do not jeopardise the lives of future generations.

“The time of resistance art is over, it’s time now for acceptance art.”

To provide the ultimate option of choice.

“Create ways for people to accept change.”

Affordable housing that goes up not out, with great green spaces surrounding it.

“No ticking for races (white/black/coloured/Indian) on application forms.”

Transform the common structures that are bruising the face of Cape Town.

“Urban gardening movement to ensure no-one is hungry.”

Design education programmes in our schools to inform kids about great design and its benefits.

What does design need to solve for you? Leave your comment below.

Images of the World Design Capital 2014 stand at Design Indaba Expo 2012 by Anita van Zyl