Whoever wins the World Design Capital 2014 award – to be announced in Taipei tomorrow – the process of bidding alone has already changed our city.
Just in documenting Cape Town’s design landscape – and that shaping the design-led course of our city’s transformation – through the 465-page bid book, we have learned to see our city as a human system. Many of the projects, blue-sky thinking and design contributions that make up the pages of this solid resource have begun to form a benchmark from which to convince the public and private sectors to invest in design as a tool to create the liveable Cape Town we strive for. It is also a healthy indicator of the prospects for a new and lasting knowledge and innovation-based economic sector.
If we are to develop this city into an inclusive one that allows all citi-zens to thrive, expand and innovate, we have to redesign our systems.
According to the Cities Network, the 1996 census found 54 percent of South Africans living in cities. By 2030, it is estimated 70-75 percent will live in urban centres. Design will be key in making this growth sustainable, economically viable.
Cape Town is one of the six metropolitan areas, together with the 17 next-largest cities and towns, which account for 70-80 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Johannesburg, Cape Town and eThekwini (Durban) alone account for nearly 50 percent of GDP. Yet, given Cape Town’s academic, urban and natural gifts, we should be generating more jobs and greater economic return for the region than we currently are.
In the face of massive urbanisation, our city must meet several challenges. Our planning must en-sure that we can deliver on the basics, for instance, to house everyone by 2030 and beyond. We need to mobilise our collective talent and innovative thinking to evolve into a city designed to support human systems and human happiness – and to offer economic opportunities for all. Through design we can explore the options for this future city.
The newly formed Cape Economic Development Partnership, convened by Cape Town Partnership CE Andrew Boraine, is in itself a design project. The role of the EDP is that of a partnership organisation that brings national and regional stakeholders together to redesign the current economic delivery system. Its goal is to identify and maximise systems for economic growth that will also yield a high return on employment and skills development.
While the primary economies of mining and manufacture have been shrinking, the services sector has been growing. The comparative employment power in this sector is currently not as significant, but there is still vast opportunity for this emerging sector to evolve and contribute significant employment opportunities. To grow this sector in terms of meeting its potential, the formalisation of a creative and knowledge economy must be prioritised.
Not only is there much opportunity for creative thinkers to design and develop new systems within our communities, but there is also a real need to share this knowledge and skill with a rapidly growing African continent. This is both a humanitarian and commercially economic prospect.
By the year 2020, Lagos in Nigeria will be the world’s third-biggest city, with a population of 26 million, making it bigger than all of South Africa’s major cities combined. With 10 of the fastest growing countries in the world, the massive urbanisation of Africa and the boom of development taking place here means that innovation and design-based products and systems are key ex-ports for South Africans to produce and perfect. We need to look at ex-porting our services, ideas and systems, not just grapes or wine.
To meet this need we would have to actively focus on the development and nurturing of the knowledge economy. Our schools and tertiary systems must intensify their focus on science and innovation, legislation would need to protect and serve the formation and ownership of ori-ginal ideas and we must create laboratories from which creative and innovative thinking could be commercialised and sold or exported.
Winning the title of World Design Capital 2014 would truly set this course in motion, accelerating our trajectory towards a knowledge economy and its innovation systems. Our bid aims to reposition Cape Town for the knowledge economy. With a worldwide focus on Cape Town as a benchmark for design, we could benefit from much exchange and mentorship, and support – financial and through a vast network of design-focused cities across the world – as we embark on this new economic journey.
Barcelona, once a wealthy centre for manufacturing, experienced the decimation of its economy as a more competitive trade element rose up in the Far East. Barcelona turned itself around by actively focusing on its knowledge economy and becoming a highly regarded innovation centre.
Of course, we must not imagine that we can, nor should, merely replicate the success stories of European and American centres of innovation and design. Our fellow nominees – Bilbao in Spain and Dublin, Ireland – are simply not faced with the same set of challenges. In many instances, the design of our social systems is still concerned with issues of survival, and our challenges include the meeting of basic needs and services that could radically alter and improve our society.
To give an example; a recent study conducted by the African Futures Project found that an “aggressive yet reasonable annual improvement in water and sanitation for Africa will lead to 18 million fewer malnourished children by 2030, a US$75 billion increase in GDP by 2040 and 17 million fewer people living on less than US$1.25 a day by 2050”.
World Health Organisation findings pointed out that a 10 percent reduction in diarrhoeal episodes would equate to an annual reduction in health-related costs of US$ 7.3 billion. In addition, there is a significant return on investment when improving sanitation, with each US dollar invested yielding a return of between US$ 3 and US$ 4, depending on the region.
These are the challenges that remind us that the World Design Capital title is not a pat on the back for producing aesthetically pleasing objects or monuments to design. Instead, it recognises and rewards the employment of design as a tool for change. It asks how design is being used to uplift societies and improve lives. How can design be employed to efficiently deliver taps and toilets to societies that can be transformed by them?
For design to be integrated into an economic framework it must also be supported by policies. Our policies around design and knowledge management must be based on the diversity of these activities and their connection to regional economic drivers. It is important that design communities engage in this conversation or policy will be driven by non-designers.
To begin with, an inventory of design industries is required. Creative Cape Town, under the auspices of the Cape Town Partnership, undertook such a study in 2008, and discovered that about 750 creative industries and businesses exist in the Cape Town central city alone. If one includes educational institutions, the figure climbs to about 827. This study should be repeated and should include the greater Cape Town area to paint a reliable picture of our creative assets.
This will assist us in accurately diversifying and specialising our design economies. A concentration of one or another kind of design or innovation must speak to the overall needs of the greater economy in order to be viable.
Creativity is being used extensively to market destinations for their distinct attributes and locational advantages and, while this is important too, winning the World Design Capital title would mean we could start to seriously create a blueprint for design-led growth and the formation of the design and knowledge economy in a sub-Saharan African context.
In a recent presentation, Design Indaba founder and director Ravi Naidoo pointed out that the community is the new client. Design has come to the fore as a globally responsible guide for change. Cape Town’s bid was based on the mantra, “Live Design, Transform Life”. From a city of segregation, we hope to grow into one of integration. One of our biggest design projects in recent times is the IRT and its network of MyCiTi bus routes; it is this sort of implementation that will bring social cohesion, inclusivity and opportunity into our society.
As we learnt with the 2010 Fifa World Cup, winning goes a long way to creating focus and setting deadlines. Without the pressure of the intense one-month event schedule of the World Cup (there are only six official new events that must be implemented during the World Design Capital year, in addition to the rebranding of many existing events), Cape Town will be able to focus on what we want to communicate and nurture during our World Design Capital year. What are the transitions we wish to make, how do we want to raise this debate?
l Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana is the managing director of the Cape Town Partnership, which is the official co-ordinator of Cape Town’s World Design Capital Bid on behalf of the City of Cape Town.
- Cape Argus
Just in documenting Cape Town’s design landscape – and that shaping the design-led course of our city’s transformation – through the 465-page bid book, we have learned to see our city as a human system. Many of the projects, blue-sky thinking and design contributions that make up the pages of this solid resource have begun to form a benchmark from which to convince the public and private sectors to invest in design as a tool to create the liveable Cape Town we strive for. It is also a healthy indicator of the prospects for a new and lasting knowledge and innovation-based economic sector.
If we are to develop this city into an inclusive one that allows all citi-zens to thrive, expand and innovate, we have to redesign our systems.
According to the Cities Network, the 1996 census found 54 percent of South Africans living in cities. By 2030, it is estimated 70-75 percent will live in urban centres. Design will be key in making this growth sustainable, economically viable.
Cape Town is one of the six metropolitan areas, together with the 17 next-largest cities and towns, which account for 70-80 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Johannesburg, Cape Town and eThekwini (Durban) alone account for nearly 50 percent of GDP. Yet, given Cape Town’s academic, urban and natural gifts, we should be generating more jobs and greater economic return for the region than we currently are.
In the face of massive urbanisation, our city must meet several challenges. Our planning must en-sure that we can deliver on the basics, for instance, to house everyone by 2030 and beyond. We need to mobilise our collective talent and innovative thinking to evolve into a city designed to support human systems and human happiness – and to offer economic opportunities for all. Through design we can explore the options for this future city.
The newly formed Cape Economic Development Partnership, convened by Cape Town Partnership CE Andrew Boraine, is in itself a design project. The role of the EDP is that of a partnership organisation that brings national and regional stakeholders together to redesign the current economic delivery system. Its goal is to identify and maximise systems for economic growth that will also yield a high return on employment and skills development.
While the primary economies of mining and manufacture have been shrinking, the services sector has been growing. The comparative employment power in this sector is currently not as significant, but there is still vast opportunity for this emerging sector to evolve and contribute significant employment opportunities. To grow this sector in terms of meeting its potential, the formalisation of a creative and knowledge economy must be prioritised.
Not only is there much opportunity for creative thinkers to design and develop new systems within our communities, but there is also a real need to share this knowledge and skill with a rapidly growing African continent. This is both a humanitarian and commercially economic prospect.
By the year 2020, Lagos in Nigeria will be the world’s third-biggest city, with a population of 26 million, making it bigger than all of South Africa’s major cities combined. With 10 of the fastest growing countries in the world, the massive urbanisation of Africa and the boom of development taking place here means that innovation and design-based products and systems are key ex-ports for South Africans to produce and perfect. We need to look at ex-porting our services, ideas and systems, not just grapes or wine.
To meet this need we would have to actively focus on the development and nurturing of the knowledge economy. Our schools and tertiary systems must intensify their focus on science and innovation, legislation would need to protect and serve the formation and ownership of ori-ginal ideas and we must create laboratories from which creative and innovative thinking could be commercialised and sold or exported.
Winning the title of World Design Capital 2014 would truly set this course in motion, accelerating our trajectory towards a knowledge economy and its innovation systems. Our bid aims to reposition Cape Town for the knowledge economy. With a worldwide focus on Cape Town as a benchmark for design, we could benefit from much exchange and mentorship, and support – financial and through a vast network of design-focused cities across the world – as we embark on this new economic journey.
Barcelona, once a wealthy centre for manufacturing, experienced the decimation of its economy as a more competitive trade element rose up in the Far East. Barcelona turned itself around by actively focusing on its knowledge economy and becoming a highly regarded innovation centre.
Of course, we must not imagine that we can, nor should, merely replicate the success stories of European and American centres of innovation and design. Our fellow nominees – Bilbao in Spain and Dublin, Ireland – are simply not faced with the same set of challenges. In many instances, the design of our social systems is still concerned with issues of survival, and our challenges include the meeting of basic needs and services that could radically alter and improve our society.
To give an example; a recent study conducted by the African Futures Project found that an “aggressive yet reasonable annual improvement in water and sanitation for Africa will lead to 18 million fewer malnourished children by 2030, a US$75 billion increase in GDP by 2040 and 17 million fewer people living on less than US$1.25 a day by 2050”.
World Health Organisation findings pointed out that a 10 percent reduction in diarrhoeal episodes would equate to an annual reduction in health-related costs of US$ 7.3 billion. In addition, there is a significant return on investment when improving sanitation, with each US dollar invested yielding a return of between US$ 3 and US$ 4, depending on the region.
These are the challenges that remind us that the World Design Capital title is not a pat on the back for producing aesthetically pleasing objects or monuments to design. Instead, it recognises and rewards the employment of design as a tool for change. It asks how design is being used to uplift societies and improve lives. How can design be employed to efficiently deliver taps and toilets to societies that can be transformed by them?
For design to be integrated into an economic framework it must also be supported by policies. Our policies around design and knowledge management must be based on the diversity of these activities and their connection to regional economic drivers. It is important that design communities engage in this conversation or policy will be driven by non-designers.
To begin with, an inventory of design industries is required. Creative Cape Town, under the auspices of the Cape Town Partnership, undertook such a study in 2008, and discovered that about 750 creative industries and businesses exist in the Cape Town central city alone. If one includes educational institutions, the figure climbs to about 827. This study should be repeated and should include the greater Cape Town area to paint a reliable picture of our creative assets.
This will assist us in accurately diversifying and specialising our design economies. A concentration of one or another kind of design or innovation must speak to the overall needs of the greater economy in order to be viable.
Creativity is being used extensively to market destinations for their distinct attributes and locational advantages and, while this is important too, winning the World Design Capital title would mean we could start to seriously create a blueprint for design-led growth and the formation of the design and knowledge economy in a sub-Saharan African context.
In a recent presentation, Design Indaba founder and director Ravi Naidoo pointed out that the community is the new client. Design has come to the fore as a globally responsible guide for change. Cape Town’s bid was based on the mantra, “Live Design, Transform Life”. From a city of segregation, we hope to grow into one of integration. One of our biggest design projects in recent times is the IRT and its network of MyCiTi bus routes; it is this sort of implementation that will bring social cohesion, inclusivity and opportunity into our society.
As we learnt with the 2010 Fifa World Cup, winning goes a long way to creating focus and setting deadlines. Without the pressure of the intense one-month event schedule of the World Cup (there are only six official new events that must be implemented during the World Design Capital year, in addition to the rebranding of many existing events), Cape Town will be able to focus on what we want to communicate and nurture during our World Design Capital year. What are the transitions we wish to make, how do we want to raise this debate?
l Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana is the managing director of the Cape Town Partnership, which is the official co-ordinator of Cape Town’s World Design Capital Bid on behalf of the City of Cape Town.
- Cape Argus
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