Hasta La Ideas

Violence Prevention Through Urban Upgrade in Khayelitsha, Cape Town

Reporting by Nadine Botha

Cape Town has officially accepted the title of World Design Capital 2014 (WDC2014). It’s a first for Africa and a first for the Global South. Another World Design Capital first is that Cape Town’s mayor has appointed an industrial designer to help the municipality to internalise design thinking, taking the WDC2014 program beyond simply a year-long festival.

An industrial design engineering Masters-graduate from the Royal College of Arts in London, Richard Perez also holds an engineering degree and a MBA from the University of Cape Town. In order to facilitate this design-enabled environment within The City, Perez will be taking a three-year leave of absence from his position of director at …XYZ industrial design consultancy. …XYZ has distinguished itself internationally with its 4 Secs Condom Applicator and Freeplay Wind-up Radio.

However it is unlikely that Perez will be designing any gadgets in City Hall. In fact, we ask him, what is there for an industrial designer to do in City Hall?

Retreat Railway Police Station. Designed by Makeka Design Studios

Core77: What is the design brief for your new position at the City of Cape Town?

Richard Perez: There are two sides to the job. One is very much focused on identifying and showcasing existing design-based municipal projects for the actual WDC2014 program. These projects such as the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading project in Khayelitsha and the Biodiversity Garden in Greenpoint Park.

The other aspect is about bringing design thinking into the organization. South Africa is going to be 20 years into democracy and we’re still faced with the same problems. Executive mayor Patricia de Lille has bought into the concept of design as a tool to try something different. She really believes that design, and I would agree with her, can enable us to look at these problems through a different lens and really understand new ways of solving these problems.

What are some of these problems?

The mayor is interested in things like densification and the speed of urbanization, in terms of how we deal with that and solutions that accommodate that sort of growth. The city is also still very segregated, so the mayor would like to see how we can use design to make it more of an inclusive city.

These are really big “wicked problems” and the thing about wicked problems is that you can’t solve them. The key is to understand them and then manage them through design interventions. We’re not looking for silver bullets to solve these problems forever. It’s about using a design thinking mind to understand the problem, engaging with the stakeholders, engaging with the people that live in the system and then starting to look at solutions.

MyCiTi Bus Service reconnects a divided city. Photo by Bruce Sutherland

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All Photos courtesy of Reboot

This is the 6th post in a 7-part series from Panthea Lee of service design consultancy, Reboot. Lee is the jury captain for the 2012 Core77 Design Awards for the Service Design category. In The Messy Art of Saving the World, Lee will explore the role of design in international development.

Sometimes you start working on a problem, only to find an entirely separate issue you’ve got to deal with first. I faced this on a recent project in Sudan; in international development, it happens all too frequently.

But in the immersive, field-based work we do at Reboot, I take uncovering deeper problems as a sign that we’re on the right track.

I was called in by UNICEF for a project to support the education of marginalized children and youth in the rural areas of Sudan. Most of these kids are out of school, many are former child soldiers. UNICEF had had some early success with an eLearning pilot, and there were plenty of examples from other regions of the impact of using technology for development (Tech4Dev) in the education sector.

UNICEF is one of the most forward-thinking leaders in the exciting Tech4Dev field. In Uganda, for example, UNICEF has designed and deployed the Digital Drum to support rural education. Chosen by TIME as one of the best inventions of 2011, the Digital Drums are made from readily-available oil drums and converted into computer kiosks—a durable, cheap information hub for rural kids to access multimedia content on health, education, employment training and other services. [Ed Note: See Core77’s report on Digital Drum from Cooper-Hewitt’s Design with the Other 90% exhibition] A leader in user-centered international development, UNICEF is developing a Child Friendly Technology Framework to guide its offices in the use of appropriate technology in education programs.

Technological advances like the Digital Drum are, without a doubt, changing the world. So we went to Sudan looking for opportunities where technology could improve marginalized children’s access to quality education.

What we found was surprising: Right now, before we can offer support to the children and youth of Sudan, we’ve got to first support their teachers.

Teachers: Overworked and Underappreciated

My work is always based on user-centric, field-based ethnographic investigation; deep contextual research drives and informs our designs. In Sudan, we interviewed countless students, educators, teachers and parents, and heard again and again how difficult life is for Sudanese teachers, especially in the poor, rural areas.

Under tough conditions, it’s incredibly hard to attract and retain teachers. As a result, many countries require all new teachers to take a rural posting for their first job. Young, far from their families, and often unable to speak the tribal languages of their village assignments, it’s unsurprising how many of these teachers get discouraged and fail to make an impact. Further, many teachers we met in Sudan were assigned to teach subjects in which they have no training.

In short, teachers in Sudan feel overworked and underappreciated—like many teachers I know in New York. New technological innovations can help students, but there will likely be a much greater impact from innovations that help teachers, who can in turn better support their students.

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All Photos courtesy of Reboot

This is the fifth post in a 7-part series from Panthea Lee of service design consultancy, Reboot. Lee is the jury captain for the 2012 Core77 Design Awards for the Service Design category. In The Messy Art of Saving the World, Lee will explore the role of design in international development.

After all the protests of 2011, from Cairo to Damascus, Moscow to Wall Street, it’s easy to forget that the “Arab Spring” began in Tunisia. The country remains the most coherent example of how revolution can happen in the 21st century: The autocratic regime of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali had ruled for 23 years, deeply corrupt and largely unchallenged. The Tunisian people’s long-simmering frustration exponentially increased—and found new outlets—with the Internet, social networking and text messaging. When a fruit vendor, angry at government mistreatment, set himself on fire, his story catalyzed the collective outrage. Ben Ali was gone in a month.

Demonstrations spread from Tunisia to over 16 countries, but none was as peaceful, or resulted as quick a deposition. And today, none is as far down the road as Tunisia in building a new, more representative and more equal post-revolutionary society.

For this reason, many eyes around the world are watching the country, including the World Bank, which recently commissioned Reboot to report on its evolution.

Today, I’m so excited to announce the release of our findings: “Tunisia: From Revolutions to Institutions” is launching at the Fifth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development* and is also available for download here.

As the report shows (and as I’ve written before), design has an important role to play in global governance and development—especially in the context of today’s rapidly changing world. The Arab Spring demonstrated a fundamental change in the relationships between governments and citizens. Never before have people had so much power to demand accountability and fairness from their leaders.

And that power is only going to grow. As technology makes us all more connected to each other, populations are gaining new ways to demand opportunity, fairness and justice. If policy makers are going to serve the world’s increasingly vocal populations, they’ve got to be prepared to listen.

But too often, there’s a gap between the people who fund and create economic and development policies and those on the receiving end. Too often, development policies are based on site visits in major cities, or survey reports that may be outdated, or on commonly-accepted wisdom about what a certain region is like. These methods fall short in the face of real life (as any designer might predict).

Policymakers need deep, nuanced understandings of what citizens want and need. In short, the global governance and development community can benefit from better design.

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In 2001 the Gujarat earthquake hit India. It lasted for more than two minutes and reached a magnitude of 7.7. It killed 20,000 people, injured another 167,000 and destroyed nearly 400,000 homes. Survivors who made it out of the flattened villages alive set out to search for family members. Imagine if that happened in your home town? Power lines are down and your cell phone has been destroyed. How do you find your family? That’s the terrifying problem Do Projects set out to solve with Safety Maps, a free, online emergency planning tool where you can coordinate with friends and family on a safe meeting place, print out a customized map (because Google Maps is dead, remember?) and share it.

Nurri Kim was so affected by the massive destruction of the Gujarat earthquake that she got her collaborators at Do Projects to help design a non-electric solution for the worst case scenario. That means good old fashioned paper. Fellow collaborator Adam Greenfield of Urbanscale is quick to point out the many virtues of paper, like “its cheapness and ubiquity, its ‘user-editable’ nature and paradoxical robustness… It is easy to tear, easy to burn, and nearly impossible to repair, yet a folded up piece of paper can survive in your pocket for years. Paper is both resilient and fragile.”

Stamen’s Michal Migurski goes onto talk about Papernet, the term coined by Aaron Cope in 2007. “The Papernet is a closing of the loop between the digital and the physical, and owns up to the fact that our most durable everyday storage medium is also our easiest technology to read and write.” It makes sense. When your most basic needs are at stake, our methods of survival go ‘back to the basics,’ too. Of course, no one wants to think about hypothetical, city-wide devastation, but talking about it with your family is important, so even if you never use the map, at least you’re prepared.

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DI and ARTI staff in Phaltan, India

Are you passionate about working for a more equitable world? Are you willing to live and work for ten months amongst the challenges faced by resource-poor communities? Do you want to apply your design skills to some of the world’s most pressing needs? Does the idea of working on teams made of social sector experts and grass roots implementers excite you?

Then becoming a 2012 Design Impact fellow may be the perfect thing for you.

Design Impact is looking for self-motivated, multi-skilled designers who genuinely want to work full-time in Indian communities affected by poverty. But, we aren’t just looking for great designers; we are looking for great organizers, communicators, and relationship builders. We need individuals that can quickly adapt to new environments, demonstrate the value of design in the social sector, lead diverse teams, and constantly improve their own process.

Think you have what it takes to become a fellow or want more information? Then check out the 2012 Fellowship PDF which covers all of the details. The initial application is easy—just a detailed letter of intent and current resume. The application period closes on February 28th and the ten month Fellowship commences on July 1st, 2012!

Design Impact currently has six fellows in the field and is planning to embed six more in July of 2012. 2012 Fellows will likely work to continue the projects already established. In addition to these projects, we are also planning on adding projects that focus on rural access to potable water, rural access to healthcare, and rights advocacy for displaced communities.

While the fellowship has a design focus, it is not limited to only designers. Many of these projects require strategy, engineering, and business skills for completion. So, if you are creative minded and fulfill all of the other requirements, but are not a traditionally-trained Designer, please feel free to apply!

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