Dutch designer Dirk Vander Kooij uses a large-scale 3D printer to produce chairs and other furniture from recycled synthetics – a method that enables him to keep his design process fluid without producing the cookie-cut products typical of other methods of manufacturing.

Every time a chair is printed, Vander Kooij can make small adjustments to the design without having to invest in new moulds. His 3D printed furniture is characterised by strong, thick lines and bright coloured plastics.

3D printing is going to change the world of prototyping.

“I am just really fascinated by the lines – the thick lines [in which] you can see the flowing of how it’s been made; you can follow the process," says Vander Kooij, in an exclusive video interview with us. "It's not about creat[ing] everything with the same technique – you have this vision that you can 3D print the whole world. It’s more about just the tactility of the material, and the aesthetics of the thick lines.”

While the 3D printer produces predefined, accurate designs, the studio also produces a range of tables and chairs made of flawed experimental prototypes that are melted down and transformed into new, solid pieces that are pressed into shapes. 

“The melting pot table, which I am rather proud of, is a very simple process. The idea was to create pieces that are almost indestructible out of the waste you throw away.”

Vander Kooij also talks about the Fresnel lamp, a suspended transparent lamp made from recycled synthetics, inspired by the Fresnel lens. This champagne coloured LED light is something like a dentist's lamp: emitting plenty of light without being difficult to look into.

Vander Kooij studied at Design Academy Eindhoven and recently moved his design studio to the edge of Amsterdam.

I really don’t have a plan that I use for the future to develop new things, he says. I just do stuff, test things, be in the workshop and discover something which I get fascinated by.

While completing her Masters in Architecture at the University of Cape Town, Nikki Onderstall started exploring the idea of architectural model making as sculpture.

Onderstall, who is one of Design Indaba Expo's 2015 Emerging Creatives, has used laser cut card to create topographical models, using contextual maps of the City of Cape Town. We talked to Onderstall about her models and what she would like to do in the future. Onderstall's work sits somewhere between art and architecture; she is interested how the two fields interact. 

Where did the idea for your laser cut models come from? 

At the University of Cape Town School of Architecture, all the students have to produce working models of their designs. Recently the workshop has been upgraded with some cutting edge technology such as a 3D printer, milling machine and laser cutter. Since then, the quality of models coming from the students has changed significantly. The most exciting, in my opinion, are the landscaped terrain models we were previously unable to produce. Soon enough we were building 1:20 000 scale models of the entire city bowl – completely redefining how we could read the built environment.

In 2014 the masters class hosted an art auction at The Bank in Harrington Street to raise funds for our research trip to Morocco. The laser cut models turned out to be the star attraction at the auction and orders started rolling in. As beautiful as our models are, they are rarely given the opportunity to be showcased beyond the classroom. Part of the joy of a model is how accessible they are to everyone, unlike an architect's (sometimes) confusing drawings.  

The city seems to lie only in the lowest level of your models. Is that true to scale or did you choose to have the natural elements stand out more?

The reason the city appears to lie on the lowest level is because that is exactly where it is in reality. The site data I used to generate the model comes from the City of Cape Town’s geographic information system (GIS) database, and is therefore considered accurate. Cape Town has a remarkable ascent from sea level to mountain peak; each contour or card layer is half a millimetre in thickness and represents a 10-metre level change.

How long does one of your models take?

In order to make a model, the original drawing needs to be scaled and configured into a framed format. From there, each contour is mapped as an individual layer to be cut and site detail engraved. Putting one model together is a laborious process, not just in terms of how long it takes to cut over 150 pieces, but also in hand gluing each layer together and pressing them to make sure they sit perfectly in place without lifting.



Your training is in architecture. Is that where your interests lie too?

I have just graduated with my Masters in Architecture, but I remain interested in all facets of design. I am most interested in architects who manage to retain their artistic integrity when it comes to executing their designs. 

 

Are these "architectural models" or are they sculpture?

I think they are somewhere in between: they are architectural in their reliable accuracy but artistic in their enlightening wonder. I like to think of them as "tactile maps". 



Do you often try to document what you see?

All architects sketch; it’s the most important design skill for us to master. Le Corbusier says he prefers drawing to talking because "drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies". Beyond that I enjoy art and keep an art blog that I fill with inspiring work. Blogging is an interesting way to distil what you like and find links between your particular attractions. 



Who and what do you find inspiring?

South Africa, as being a place with untapped potential and endless opportunity. 



Have you seen anything recently that’s blown your mind?

I have a new obsession with drone videos: seeing things from never-before-realised angles. Perhaps that ties in with my fascination with alternative methods of terrain mapping. 

What’s next for you? 

I have just graduated with my Masters in Architecture so I’m excited to get started working as a full time architect: making drawings that become buildings. However, I’m having fun getting ready for the Design Indaba 2015 by experimenting with new technology and trying out some alternative model-making techniques. 

I'm very excited to take part this year; I'll now be able to make some new models I might not have had the opportunity to have built before. And I’m excited to meet other creatives and talk about design beyond the built environment for a change.

Last year, Franco-Austrian design studio Celia-Hannes collaborated with local craftsmen from Cape Town in a skills exchange programme that resulted in the Frugal Collection. It's a collection of small household items that marry traditional South African crafts with contemporary design.

The Frugal Collection comprises a metal wire stool, a rope and steel hanging system, grass mat “wall tiles” and grass “wall mats” that incorporate steel hanging elements – the latter two produced with Design Afrika. It was conceptualised to work in the contexts of both the northern and southern hemispheres.

“How do we effect radical change in behaviours and ways of working so that our companies can be equipped for dealing with the rapid changes happening in our era?”

That was the question oft asked of South African-born architect Clive Wilkinson. In this talk from the Design Indaba Conference 2014, he explains how he answered this question to clients such as Google, Mother and the Macquarie Group.

Wilkinson looked at the office environment and saw a “thinly conceived” space thought about in “thin financial terms”, where the other spaces in our lives such as our homes had been so “well-considered”. He identified the office space as having been built up from fractured communities. His approach to office spaces is to create for their inhabitants a sense of belonging to something valuable.

His firm employed a six-part strategy to build innovative interior office design:

Culture Model

Wilkinson discusses the transition our culture is undergoing from a mature one – represented by a chain of patronage from rich, older people – to a more open system represented by youthfulness and naivety. "Having an immature condition is actually much freer and more open to experiment and change," he says.

An example of the freeing effects of immaturity is the design project Wilkinson was commissioned to do for the Disney Store in Los Angeles. He designed a monumental modular honeycomb structure (no doubt inspired by Winnie the Poo), which serves as both furniture and as an architectural wall dividing two spaces.

The Urban Paradigm

This aspect of Wilkinson’s approach translates urban thinking, design and the lexicon of the city into the interiors of large buildings.

He favours this approach because “people understand the cues of the city … it’s a familiar environment and therefore one that one can play with in a meaningful way that creates conversation,” he says.

Wilkinson translates urban spaces in buildings by creating arteries, public connection spots and landmarks in the spaces which makes the space meaningful. The Australian headquarters of the financial services firm Macquarie Group is one such example.

Wilkinson created a vertical village from the traditional high-rise office space by cutting an atrium through the building, connecting different floors with a zigzag red staircase.

The aim is to increase the speed of connection between floors and connect points of meaningful destinations across the buildings. The result is something both fascinating and functional at the same time.

Disruption and Play

Influenced by the notion of  “serious play” in the workplace, Wilkinson attempts to build environments and workspaces that foster play and excite people rather than lull them into being overly comfortable. This is achieved through colour and fun that make the spaces feel like alternate realities and shift employee perspectives as a result.

Wilkinson is the architect behind Googleplex, Google’s head offices in Silicon Valley, where the notion of play was vital to the design process.

Fluidity and Transparency

Wilkinson’s approach to constructing office spaces is built on the idea that if you know what is going on around you in the workplace, you will feel more connected to the workplace. The fear with this approach, which does away with cubicles, is that it will be distracting. But Wilkinson has found that it in fact engenders accountability and engagement.

For the London-based advertising agency, Mother, Wilkinson created a monumental 200-seater worktable inspired by the racetrack on top of the Fiat Factory in Turin, Italy.

He convinced the client to erect the large circular table in concrete:

It was completely ridiculous and everyone loved it for that reason. It could have driven a car had it not had breaks in it, he says.

Choice and Diversity

Wilkinson creates environments that suit different types of work and provides a diverse spectrum of collaborative choices to his clients.

Working with Nokia in Helsinki, Wilkinson found that they didn’t quite understand why it is that they needed diverse types of work settings. At the time Nokia had an advert out for one of their models and the tagline read “not one thing but many”. Wilkinson turned this back on them and that sold the idea that they needed different spaces for their employees.

The “not one thing but many” quip is more than just an anecdote; it has become quite integral to Wilkinson’s approach to office spaces, which should serve multiple purposes.

Human Scale, Community and Collaboration

Wilkinson creates manageable groups or tribes in the workplace that do more than give offices a facelift. They give people a sense of belonging to something.

The Barbarian Group commissioned Wilkinson to design a workspace that would foster collaboration and transparency in their company and challenge their creativity. He designed a large-scale table that undulates through the office space and creates not only seating for employees to work, but also semi-private meeting spaces, library space and relaxation spaces in the arches and nooks created by the rippling table.

The office is moving today, and it can move in all sorts of shapes and forms, and people move it as well, he says.

Celeste Theron is a 23 year-old performance artist and fine arts student from Pretoria. Her art used to be private and individualistic but it is now more public and socially aware.

Theron is one of 40 Emerging Creatives who will exhibit their work at Design Indaba Expo 2015. Range One: Codified Crocheted Narratives is a collection of pieces woven by two women, Joanna and Nelly, with yarn made from old plastic. Plastic bags are seen as temporary things – used once and discarded – but they do not deteriorate. When woven, they make a durable, firm fabric that turns waste into art. They also enable female artisans in the SHE design collective to make a living off their craft; a good percentage of the profits is given straight to the women involved. 

Range One is not the first social impact project that Theron has been involved in. Last year Celeste Theron and Ilze Wessels, a photographer friend, conceived of a project to help raise awareness for Pretoria’s polluted ground water. They aimed to build a raft made from old plastic bottles. It would be stitched together by women from the community with threads made of plastic bags found in the area, and then sailed down the Apies River on a 2km journey. The raft never sailed: Theron was eight months pregnant on the date they had planned the voyage. Instead, she performed in a robe and headdress made of bottles and floated herself on the water – until security guards chased her away. 

The raft remains one of her objectives, and from the experience her collaborative project with Williams, SHE, was born.

Have you been artistic since you were young?

Yes, I took drama from a very young age up until matric and used to give my folks small performances in our living room. From grade 1 to grade 3, all I did was draw in the classroom, selling my art work to the teachers. They just left me to do my own work. In grade 3 I won my first art competition and realised that this is going to be what I do for the rest of my life.

Did your family encourage you to be creative?

Yes, they made me do ballet as soon as I could walk, encouraged me to do drama and play instruments, and didn’t allow me to watch television. I had to learn how to entertain myself creatively from a very young age. Sometimes it is difficult for them to deal with the risky performance art that I am currently doing, but they still stay supportive.

Does drama affect the way you create? 

It is part of the process; every project that I do ends up being a performance art piece. Performance art allows me to internalise my concept and literally to become my work, before I distance myself from it and start with the design.

Does it affect the process or just the product?

It affects the process and the product, I suppose. I always start out doing research, internalising the research into a performance and after I can truly say that I am living and breathing my concept, I’ll start with the design.

When did you first have the desire to use your work to affect social change?

When I moved to Arcadia two years ago, I met other artists and architects that were involved in projects that instigate social change. The environment inspired me, and I realised how my work could make a difference on a larger scale. Connecting with other people that were already making change spurred me on and changed my outlook on design and art.

Have you seen anyone using design, creativity or art to make a difference that has really inspired you?

Yes: there are NGOs based in Pretoria and other organisations here that strive to support the arts in a city that has not qualified for a design capital or anything. These organisations all inspire us in that they work like a healthy family that cares for each member and sees to the personal growth of every artist.

Tell us a little bit about your water bottle raft.

The water bottle raft was a concept that evolved out of the daily urban walks Ilze Wessels and I went on to take photographs of the city. We noticed the state of the Apies River, and wanted to design an artefact that would encourage people to interact with the river and take note of the water. We decided to use materials that we’ve collected on our walks – for instance, plastic bags and water bottles – cleaning up the city as we build the raft. 

Did you make that voyage?

In the end we never made the raft. I became the raft through a performance art piece in the city where we attached one thousand water bottles to a costume with plastic bags, and drifted through the water at Magnolia Dell, illustrating the effect garbage has on the living organisms in the water and the people that live next to it. Our aim is to do the voyage this year. Last year there were too many obstacles with my pregnancy.

What effect did the performance have?

I managed to do a performance for about an hour before I was chased away by security guards. Someone phoned the police. I guess people were shocked because I was eight months pregnant at the time. Interacting with water in a public park is a big taboo, but the water should be healthy enough for people not to be repulsed by it or to be too scared to come near it. It was hard for me to come to terms with how repulsive the water actually is and to swim in it with a protruding bump. My son was born a week later. I went into labour on one of our daily walks on the Lion Bridge in Arcadia, busy conducting interviews for my next project. 

How has being a mother affected your approach to your art and your design work?

Being a mother has made me more focused and I work harder to achieve the goals I’ve set for myself. It has softened my outlook on life. Before I was pregnant I was devastated by the state of the world, but when I realised that I’m bringing another life into it, I wanted to change that. My son was diagnosed with Down syndrome and I wanted to make the world a friendlier place through making art and design that celebrates life and contributes to social change.

Do you work only with women with SHE?

Yes, SHE is about empowering women. I was inspired by the tale of South Africa’s Rain Queen, Modjadji, who was chased away from her kingdom when she fell pregnant with an illegitimate child. The king gave his daughter a magic horn that could make rain, in order to protect her from the angry community. Since SHE is focused around water, Modjadji became our icon.

Who are Joanna and Nelly?

Nelly Mokhondo and Joanna Kubayi are women we wouldn’t necessarily have a relationship with, but through SHE we became connected. Jonanna and Nelly are craft artisans that create products through woven plastic bags. Nelly was responsible for keeping our apartment block clean, but while she was doing it she was continuing her own work. We noticed her beautiful work and told her that she has a lot of talent. Nelly quit her job and is now self-employed creating art.

What work are you doing with them?

Ilze and I design products that Nelly and Joanna help us put together through their craftsmanship.

What do you offer them?

We are offering them a platform to launch their own creative career. We’re offering them our soft skills (research, presentation, representation) that we’ve been privileged enough to receive through our education. Nelly’s focus was more on her crafts, to use it as a medium to survive. We’ve showed her that she can do more with her skill than get by, and also rewarded her financially. Nelly and Joanna receive 40% of the sales that we make.

What can they offer you?

They offer us their skill in craftsmanship and gave us a real insight and connection in what may seem as insignificant problems in South Africa, those things that the media don’t pay attention to. By helping one woman become independent and invest in her future and the future of her children, they offer us the opportunity to get the selfish satisfaction of using our skill for the good. And that’s what we want to do.

How long will your work with them last?

It is up to them; as long as we both still have something to offer each other.

Will you collaborate with others too?

Yes.

Where did you meet Ilze?

Ilze and I met at one of my exhibitions, and through a series of events we’ve become more intertwined with each other’s lives. We both live in the same apartment block and are next door neighbours.

You are exhibiting Range One at the Design Indaba Expo this year. The items are woven out of plastic, right? Did you develop the technique yourself or did you see it somewhere?

Yes, the range is woven out of plastic. It is a traditional craft used by all women but we are not applying it in a traditional way. We are experimenting with it and want to test if it can become a structural material that could even become a regional architecture. We are studying Range One and collecting data that can be tested and studied to develop our next range and continue developing the technique of the craft itself.

What does the woven material feel like? Is it soft?

It is soft but yet firm. It has a soft crunch, almost giving a superficial material substance. Plastic is perceived as temporary but is in fact a material that does not deteriorate for twenty years. We are giving waste the position to become art.

What can it be used for?

We are using it to design urban furniture, but right now we are still testing how far this medium can be pushed. The ultimate use would be when we can effectively and creatively merge this craft with technological innovations that are happening in the upcoming century.

Do you weave words or images into your pieces?

Some pieces yes, but it is not our main intention to do so. It depends on the woman we are collaborating with.

What do the pieces communicate?

The narratives are social narratives. Instead of locating a trendy gap in the market and exploiting the artisans, we are focused on establishing the right platform for a social enterprise that can have not only an environmentally sustainable cause but also a socially sustainable one. These social narratives are what brought us here, and we want to develop them, strengthen them and let them dictate where to next. 

Concrete, pewter and brass come together in a new collection of furniture and objects designed by Matali Crasset.

French designer Crasset was invited by Light Concrete Design Art  (LCDA) to design the Multifacet collection comprising a series of four display objects.

The units are all made using concrete shaped with the same mould but altered in various ways to feature a different metal on the inside. The champagne bucket and candleholder feature mirror-polished solid pewter, while the units for ornaments and flowers make use of brushed brass.

In the collection, a masterful mix of contrasting materials meets a need for durable beauty, says Crasset. 

The Multifacet collection will be unveiled at Maison & Objet from 23 to 27 January 2015. 

Angel-Ho is the performance persona of Angelo Valerio, a Cape Town-based artist. Valerio uses the character of Angel-Ho to start a dialogue about classism, identity, sexuality, gender and more. The performance surrounds a representation of the "Nu-Queer" identity: one that is not subject to dehumanisation, objectification or "othering", and instead elevates the body to a position of power. Using arbitrary sound accompanied by a conceptual drag performance that plays with masculine and feminine gesture and dress, all connotations are removed, making it impossible to classify gender.

Through the sound piece titled Ascension, Angel-Ho aims to transcend the concept of gender. The idea of ascension – meaning to rise above, move forward, progress, with its connotations of awakening – resonates with the artist as a reboot of or re-connection to the socio-political state of South Africa. Angel-Ho uses sound as a medium and as a tool to demystify the concepts of the Rainbow Nation, equality, nationalism and identity. The artist's objective is always to disrupt and redirect focus using sound as a means for reconciling and re-imagining South Africa.

There are many purposes for music: besides entertaining, expressing and inspiring, music also carries a lot of weight in educating and bringing audiences to a new understanding of where we are presently in popular culture. Angelo Valentino’s performance persona – the controversial and conversational personality, Angel-Ho – confronts audiences both visually and aurally with the tangled, contradictory and often disturbing ways in which we construct our racial, class-based and sexual identities. Her sound can be discomforting as the clanging metal-on-metal sound of "Night Repair" in the Track of the Week illustrates.

As Design Indaba announces her as a performer in our 2015 music line-up, we touched base with her to delve into the Nu-Queer movement and the creative journey that made her.

How did you come to the personality Angel-Ho?

Angel-Ho started when I was young. My cousin and I would only say it in secret as the name was a bit adult for our ages. But this name soon began to pop out because the people surrounding me would call me Angel-Ho as if it were my first name! But the character developed as I became confident in who I am, my art aesthetic and my craft as a “faggot”.

The character is a process and never fully resolved. She, Angel-Ho, is a concept, a critique of socio-political issues within South Africa. Her body is a weapon, and she can be an angel or a bitch. I call Angel-Ho “she” because I have always been around strong independent females, all my girls #DRYINGTEARS, my mother having raised me as a single parent. All these strong presences help me cope with the harsh realities we face that echo from the past and begin in the present. They allow me to speak about the oppressed and the oppressors. Angel-Ho holds the knife and the bandage, the shackles and key. Basically she is a medium for understanding/processing/discussing/interrogating our social and political ideals regarding race, classism and identity. This performance will never be finished.

So, tell us a bit about this genre, “Nu-Queer ...”

When I think about gender and sexuality, and how these “concepts” don’t resonate with me in terms of the colonial theory and fact, I feel like society places so much pressure for one to identify themselves socially as well as politically, especially in South Africa. Looking to the sound of Ascension, the first sound I made called “Runnin’ With Knives” was a response to these constructs and notions of LGBTQ identity.

It became my anthem, a way for me to reconcile and deal with the representation of the LGBTQ community often being projected as having aggressive sexual behaviour – in other words, being promiscuous. The sound of the track beats down as if one is constantly morphing, transforming and eliminating modes for discrimination and the objectification of our bodies as well as the stereotypes reinforced through repetition of this image.

The sound of the blade is a way of self-asserting and reclaiming our space – our identity owning our sexuality.

It became a way of shifting the social power that is used to silence and misrepresent my community.  

What do you think music as a whole and your music in particular can contribute to the state of things in South Africa?

Looking back on the process and sound of Ascension, I found it important as a coloured person, who is privileged to create art, to encourage the coloured youth in my community to take an interest in art as well as to recognise their potential. The coloured community is still marginalised. Countless issues I see daily have become desensitised. Our culture has been misappropriated and misrepresented. This practice is culturally hegemonic, so it made sense to use art to preach social and political change. Placing art within environments that disrupt and for audiences that are not only within the gallery – that was something I have been wanting to do for a while now.  

I used sound as a medium accompanied by performance, because everyone can experience sound or vibrations. Sound came naturally to me as I have been “listening” for 20 years. Sound, instrumentals, language… all in some way are linked to memory. Sound is learnt, then recalled. The release of vibrations can be emotive and didactic. With Ascension I wanted to constantly disrupt traditional sound to redirect the attention of listeners to message and intention, therefore making them think about how it affects them in their own environments and situations.

Track of the Week is “Night Repair” by Angel-Ho, who joins M.anifest, Nástio Mosquito, Nongoma, RVWR and other still-to-be announced acts in the line-up for Design Indaba Music 2015. This cacophonous and strident track takes on a startlingly nostalgic sound dating back to the time when The Prodigy and Nine Inch Nails dominated MTV and experimental mecha-sound was the order of the day. “Night Repair” is the inside of a blacksmith’s forge, with a roughly manufactured intro of hot metal-on-metal syncopation that achieves Angel-Ho’s intention to stand out.

Angel-Ho is the controversial persona of Cape Town music and performance artist Angelo Valentino. As he explains in our interview with him, he uses his performance persona to start a dialogue about classism, identity, sexuality, gender and more. Using “arbitrary sound” accompanied by conceptual drag, playing with masculine and feminine gesture and dress, Angel-Ho dabbles in NY ballroom bass, bubblegum bass, industrial bass, electronic synths, minimal house, chanting and her very own “Angelwave” sound.  

She has performed at Cape Town events such as the Cape Town Art Fair, YOH!, EVOL at Hectic on Hope and The Assembly, and as a supporting act to the groundbreaking kwaai artist Umilio’s music videos.

When asked where her inspiration lies, Angel-Ho doesn’t hesitate. “...Total Freedom AKA Ashland Mines, one of the world’s best DJs. If it were not for him pushing me to create my own sound ... he honestly sparked the creation for this sound work,” he says. “I intend to create an environment that is not comfortable as if you were going to a theatre or gallery. I want to use sound to accentuate my movement and the thoughts of the audience.”

Read our Q&A with Angel-Ho here.

Catch Angel-Ho live at Design Indaba Music 2015 on Thursday, 26 February at The Side Show. More info here.

If an event is on WhatsoninCapeTown, it's worth going.

Far more than just a list of what is happening in the mother city, WhatsoninCapeTown is a carefully curated website which selects events for their interest, entertainment, venue and production values.  

We recognise the thirst for knowledge in this wonderful city, and enjoy promoting tours and talks as well drinking and dancing. We celebrate creativity and the sharing of ideas, and relish our role in bringing in new audiences.

Highly regarded by the more creative and intellectually-inclined, WhatsoninCapeTown has carved a distinct readership of locals and visitors who enjoy mental stimulation as well as relaxation.

For ease of viewing, all listed events can be filtered by date, category, area or keyword. WhatsoninCapeTown also provides popular 'At a Glance' overviews of events by category, as well as weekly and monthly events, markets, children's attractions, recommended restaurants and more, many of which are supplemented by artist or venue profiles, reviews, and video clips.

Early 2015 will see the launch of the WhatsoninCapeTown App across all platforms, bringing the best events in Cape Town to the fingertips of thousands.

As one PR guru has stated, WhatsoninCapeTown is “probably the best Arts site in SA”.

The “COOK Almacén y bazar” compact cookware collection is designed for the home gourmand with more cooking utensils than space.

Designed by Andrea Kac and Herman Schenck of Amueblate studio in Uruguay, the collection includes two boards and three spoons made from lapacho and eucalyptus woods. “COOK Almacén y bazar” priorities small compact solutions for modern living that not only fit easily into shelving and cupboards, but also function in more than one way.

The boards can be used for chopping and serving, and the one doubles up as a mortar with the pestle enclosed in the collection. The spoon set has a stirring spoon, a spoon with a corner to edge (to get to those hard-to-reach places) and a spatula-spoon ideal for scrambling eggs. “We chose to redesign wooden cookware because we felt there was a gap between having modern cookware and artisanal pieces," they say.

We incorporated intuitive gestures natural to everyday cooking into the collection, enhancing the beautiful handmade wooden pieces.

The line was designed for a Uruguayan brand "COOK" that sells fresh food kits ready to be cooked at home in its new line “COOK Almacén y bazar”.

“COOK Almacén y bazar” is a finalist for Salao Design Casa Brasil 2015 - Design Award. The award is given for product design in Latin America and provides a platform for students, professionals and industry to showcase their wares.

UK-born but now based in South Africa, producer Jumping Back Slash started catching people’s attention a few years back with the release of “Kwaai Sneakers” on London based Pollinate Records.

Since then, he’s built a heavyweight catalogue of music and has garnered support from international acts such as Auntie Flo, Esa and Mervin Granger, Scratcha DVA, Mosca, DJ Simbad, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Alexander Nut, LV, Chrissy Murderbot, Jackmaster, Teki Latex, Falty DL and Benji B.



Having grown up in the London 90s rave scene back, Jumping Back Slash got in touch with South African kwaito and house music when he arrived in Cape Town. South Africa provides a constant inspiration and his sound now veers towards gqom* and a darker, grimier and more stripped down sonic palette. 

 

In 2014 he co-produced Spoek Mathambo's Fantasma project, co-producing, mixing and engineering the debut EP and LP.  2014 also saw the release of JBS'“Namhlanje” EP featuring Okmalumkoolkat and Spoek Mathambo as well as releases on Shadeleaf Records and Chrissy Murderbot's Loose Squares Imprint.

 

2015 sees the release of his second LP, “A Gqom Romance”, as well as 12" EPs on various UK and international labels and a welcome return to the Fantasma camp.

*South African newspaper, the Mail & Guardian, described gqom as “Durban’s sound of the underground.” In the linked article, it says: “Whereas the best of Durban kwaito production is sleek, with lyrics suggesting upwardly mobility, gqom is loopy, lo-fi and off-beat, sounding exactly like the pervasive nihilism it sometimes documents.”

Bethan Rayner and Naeem Biviji make up the Nairobi-based Studio Propolis – set up by the husband-and-wife team in 2005.

Both Rayner and Biviji hold a Masters in Architecture from the University of Edinburgh. Working across disciplines and scales, they combine their formal education as architects with an informal training as furniture designers and makers.

Studio Propolis makes hand-crafted, designed-to-order products in Nairobi. The team has worked on diverse projects involving the design and prototyping of furniture, small buildings and spaces, as well as manufacturing small runs of furniture that make up part of an on-going collection of pieces.

Rayner and Biviji's approach to design relies on their direct involvement in the process of making. Over the years, their workshop has formed the core of their studio practice. The ability continually to test ideas through prototyping and production underpins this methodology. It has given them space to innovate and experiment, building an intimate knowledge of how things are made and how to build locally.

The relationship between available materials and their own craft culture in this environment informs their practice of making and designing, grounding Studio Propolis within the challenging context of Nairobi.

"I get called by a lot of names and variations but officially it's Duce Duce!", says Anthea Duce. South African Marie Claire magazine calls her “an aural wizard”.

As a founding member of Cold Turkey, she began delving into live visuals and projections at her events as a means of experiencing the club circuit in a new way.

Cape Town music venue Assembly describes Cold Turkey thus:

“Emerging from the Summer of 2011, Cold Turkey filled a void in the Cape Town calendar and has quickly become a local favourite. Founded by Anthea Duce and DJs Rebel Clef and Blotchy, Cold Turkey is built upon a simple premise – 'beats, braai and bloody good times'– with events held every second Sunday at the long-standing District 6 Cafe, featuring a revolving array of the finest DJs in town.”

Duce Duce has been involved in most of the prominent music festivals and events for the past three years including Rocking the Daisies, CTEMF, Rezonance, Design Indaba Music Circuit, Mad Decent Block Party as well as the more underground bass music scene. 

Drawing on her graphic design and advertising background, Duce Duce plays with montages of abstract images, motion graphics, texture and geometry. Carrying a distinctive and slightly darker style, her work with Jumping Back Slash blends the use of her collection of self-made graphics curated with a mash-up of found footage.

The work of Studio Propolis is an object lesson in how design thrives on beautiful constraints. Owners Naeem Biviji, born in Kenya, and Bethan Rayner, from the UK, are architects with a singular dedication to crafting almost every element of their work themselves, by hand.

The elegance of this Nairobi-based husband and wife’s work – whether architecture, joinery, furniture or product design – is born of their earnest approach to using resources wisely in an under-resourced part of the world.

Sensitivity to the environment is part of it, but you get the feeling that they can’t resist a good challenge, regardless of the budget or materials available. While they praise their clients’ appreciation of good design, they go beyond the brief in all of their work. A chair might be created for a one-off commission but its design will be resolved enough to roll right onto the production line.

Here, they talk us through five examples of their work that respond to narrow financial and material parameters with a deftness of design thinking.

The mema designs studio is the result of a collaboration between Sian Eliot and Ari Geva. Eliot is an established industrial designer who has focused on lighting design since 2006. Geva has many years’ experience as an electronics engineer. Their collaboration came about after the discovery of their mutual passion for art, design and electronics. Eliot’s past experience includes the co-creation of the willowlamp collection – spending eight years designing and manufacturing customised, large-scale chandeliers for hotels and high-end residential projects locally and abroad. In that capacity she won three ELLE décor awards, and an SABS design excellence award. Geva's experience encompasses the conceptualisation and design of software and hardware systems, and managing large turn-key projects in the ICT field.

Their recent collaboration takes advantage of their interdisciplinary, yet complimentary experience; their scope includes the complete concept-to-implementation of high quality lighting products, bespoke lighting and more technically complex, interactive kinetic works. Design Indaba selected mema designs' Ukhamba lamp prototype for the 2014 Africa is Now exhibition. That was the very first prototype, made by hand. Mema has spent a year subsequently designing and manufacturing the tools required to make these delicate yet robust structures in a repeatable way. 

Design Indaba Expo 2015 will be a launching platform for the first collection of pieces made using mema designs’ custom designed tools and processes. The product is still handmade, but by using custom made tools, the process becomes more efficient and precise.

Mema designs offers concept design, manufacturing and implementation of tailormade lighting pieces for hospitality, corporate and residential spaces, as well as a readymade decorative lighting collection. The first of these are the Ukhamba lamps made with fine woven aluminium fabric. The material has dynamic reflective characteristics which give the piece a weightless, veil like quality. Mema Designs also offer architectural detailings in the form of functional screens, space defining veils, ceiling panels and aesthetic surface textures. 

Filmed for the web-only “Exclusive” series by Art21, this short documentary examines the relationship between art and design through artist Andrea Zittel’s eyes.

Filmed at her home A-Z West in Joshua Tree, California, Zittel's property is a place of experimentation where she investigates the distinction between art and design by constantly renovating her home and creating functional yet conceptually significant objects.

Every space that I’ve lived in I’ve turned into an art project and I think that everything in my house has really evolved with my life.

First aired in 2008, the “Exclusive” series presents art from an artist's unmediated perspective and gives an in-depth view into an artist’s creative process and the evolution it goes through.

Zittel’s home echoes the California desert around it. It is painted and tiled in mustard, yellow and gold colours with light wood finishes. And mounted on the walls are her functional and beautiful “Aggregated Stacks” which we watch being made with papier-mâché earlier in the documentary.

As “Exclusive” producer Ian Forster puts it: “It feels like a design laboratory where she is her own test subject. Many works that were later reproduced and shown in galleries and museums were first installed and tested in her home.” 

“Artists and designers have always looked to each other for inspiration and alternative perspectives, especially when it comes to how their work integrates into people's daily lives,” says Forster.

The barriers between art and design are blurring, Zittel believes: If an art historian 100 years from now had to talk about my generation, it would be almost impossible to talk about it in a significant cultural sense without touching on what was going on in design at the same time.

The documentary is strikingly quiet, undoubtedly intended to evoke the soundscape of the desert terrain. Zittel’s life in Joshua Tree appears to be caught between two time periods: on the one end she is a contemporary artist living in this interesting modernist house. On the other end it seems fitting to refer to her as a pioneer exploring the territory and a new way of life.

William Kentridge’s meditation on the nature of time, the acclaimed exhibition TheRefusal of Time, travels to Cape Town in February for an extended run at Iziko South African National Gallery.

In association with the Goodman Gallery, this multifaceted installation runs from 26 February to 21 June 2015.

TheRefusal of Time combines film, sound and mechanical sculpture in an immersive 30-minute experience that explores the notion of time. It was recently jointly acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The installation also has a theatrical accompaniment. The chamber opera Refuse the Hour will be presented by Design Indaba at the Cape Town City Hall for three nights only. The chamber opera features the artist as actor along with twelve other performers. The production is an extension of his collaboration with Philip Miller, Dada Masilo, Peter Galison and Catherine Meyburgh.

SA Creatives is a platform where creatives, thought leaders and idea engineers inspire and get inspired. It’s a space where individuals connect, promote their work, share ideas and collaborate with like-minded people. The website dishes out content supplied by pioneers from industries ranging from fine arts, design, film through to advertising. Furthermore, it provides much needed creative news for those who want to be in the know.

SA Creatives prides itself in continuously providing tools for creatives to grow. This is achieved through built in tools like Find-a-creative, showcases and creative news. The  SA Creatives team have  taken it one step further introducing a job portal that distributes jobs via  partner influencer social media platforms.

To date SA Creatives has won several awards, ranging from Blogger of the year through to arts and craft awards. Through strategic partnerships the team continue make award winning connections not only online but offline too. The organization distributes its knowledge via talks, lectures and mini events for business minded creatives

SA Creatives
Creativity that matters

The Thula Baba Box, inspired by a baby box that has been used in Finland for nearly a century, is the initiative of two South African fathers: Ernst Hertzog of Action Hero Ventures, and Frans de Villiers, who hope the box may be able to lower infant mortality rates in South Africa significantly.

The box focusses on three main objectives:

1. Overall wellness of mothers and babies, including infant mortality rates.

2. Validation of babies as human beings and the support of mothers in their noble task.

3. Reducing the cost of raising babies for families as well as for the government.

The box comes packed with useful baby products such as soap, blankets, towels and nappies, while the box itself can double as a cot or bath, or simply as useful storage.

The survival kit will also contain useful information for mothers – on vaccinations and infant care – and be handed out alongside incentives to visit the correct clinics and make behavioural changes too.

“We have applied various types of designers and design thinking throughout the development of this product,” says Hertzog. “We are communicating a message of change through our box and the products inside it, and the quality of design will greatly determine the efficacy of the box. For example, if something is easy to understand and easy to use then people are much more likely to use it correctly, which will lead to the desired results.”

While the box is inspired by the Finnish design, Hertzog and de Villiers are adapting it to the specific needs of a South African mother with income levels, health literacy, access to healthcare facilities, access to electricity, clean water and sanitation and psychosocial challenges. “Then there are also diseases like HIV, malaria and TB that many African mothers have to deal with," Hertzog says.

“Our pilot study budget is a lot smaller than that of Finland. Our clothes are different due to differences in weather patterns, and our focus is a lot more on survival and basic healthcare. The Finns have come a long way with their box and they can afford to include some ‘nice to haves’. Another big difference is that SA mothers prefer to co-sleep with their babies so our boxes will not be used as cots.”

The Thula Baba Box is made out of plastic, unlike the Finnish version, which is made of cardboard. “Our boxes need to be durable because of the challenging living circumstances in many low income households,” Hertzog states. “A cardboard box would wear out too soon. Another benefit of a plastic box is that it could double as a baby bath.”

“Our wish is that the boxes will bring sustainable hope to the families of SA.”

The first 50 boxes should go out to South African mothers in March 2015, distributed free of charge from a public clinic and public hospital in the Cape Town area.

For more information on the Thula Baba Box go to the Action Hero Ventures site.