Impact Design: From Trash to Treasure
With April being Earth Month, an exploration of South Africa’s groundbreaking creatives who step in and make a change, champion circular economic thinking and adopt regenerative design, is inevitable. Here are just a few creatives who think out of the box and pave the way to a more sustainable future in South Africa and beyond.
Circular Squared
We love how Circular Squared is all about being designers of their world and not merely the consumers of it. In fact, Circular Squared’s Head of Sustainable Design, as well as veteran artist and designer, Heath Nash, is dedicated to turning one man’s trash into another’s treasure. Working with the local furniture brand, Wunders, they find solutions to the heaps of scraps produced on a day-to-day basis as a result of manufacturing. Wunders – a family-owned company – partnered with Decorex Africa’s Future Talks series in 2023, supplying brightly coloured seating that was made by using their own waste materials. But, it’s Circular Squad and Wunders’ everyday doings that really impress. Ultimately, Circular Squared’s vision is to create a future where design-led thinking addresses environmental challenges. “Together, we can build a better future amid uncertainties,” their website states. They are committed to the circular economy, emphasising the extension of product lifecycles and minimising waste. This is done through sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling.
Pedersen + Lennard
Another local furniture brand, Pedersen + Lennard – which recently unveiled its Umpire range at 100% Design Joburg 2023 – works toward reducing the environmental impact of plastic waste. They use unrecyclable plastics like toothpaste tubes and cling film. Evidently, they have pioneered furniture that incorporates recycled board.
The brand might have had humble beginnings in a back room in Woodstock in 2008, but industrial designers, Luke Pedersen and James Lennard’s combined love for simple lines and a timeless aesthetic could only go from strength to strength. In the end, their considered design is evident in every furniture piece they create, with no veneers, no shortcuts and no unnecessary adornments.
Pedersen says it is important to build community in design and business to facilitate broader conversations of impact. They do it through honest, pared-down, well-built pieces, designed to last a lifetime while also improving the lives of those who had a hand in making them.
Urban Think Tank Empower
This non-profit organisation emerged from Urban Think Tank Design Group, an international collective that uses the power of architecture and design to uplift the lives of marginalised communities worldwide. In essence, they employ a unique collaborative research-led design approach to provide decent, affordable housing. Hence, they have come up with modular housing units that allow the owner to adapt the layout to suit their specific needs. “…Our Empower Model is set too define what public housing will look like in post-RDP South Africa,” they say. “Providing residents of informal settlements in Cape Town and beyond decent and dignified homes along with economic opportunities.”
The MAAK
Further to the above, another company making a social impact through architecture is the award-winning architectural practice, The MAAK. Located in Cape Town, they focus on public buildings and public space making, yielding a positive outcome for communities. They say: “The less we engage in the social issues of our time, the more we breed a public apathy towards architecture and in turn dilute the urgency of our craft.”
Their New Rest Valley Crèche – an early childhood development (ECD) centre for The Vuya Foundation – was the first completed formal public infrastructure in the New Rest Valley near Riebeek-Kasteel in the Western Cape.
The Ramp
Also based in Cape Town, The Ramp brings creative practitioners together. It is a multidisciplinary space that challenges conventional means of institutional access and has an overarching goal of sharing collective knowledge, design and resources. In fact, it invites the public to get involved too, ultimately creating a space where more impactful work can be produced.
Here, ceramicists work with carpenters; welders work with sculptors and architects build with web developers. It’s an integrated space where magic happens. “These ‘interference patterns’ inform the nature of our space,” they claim, “and are the backbone of our public programming.”
Bump into clever-minded, future-forward creatives like these at Decorex Africa, which will be taking place at Cape Town’s CTICC between 6 and 9 June, and at the Sandton Convention Centre in Joburg between 1 and 4 August this year.
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