Your Street Cape Town finalists

With the announcement of the World Design Capital 2014 bid a mere week away, we’re pleased to announce the finalists for the Your Street Cape Town Challenge.

The Your Street Challenge called for creative proposals on how to enhance an aspect of your city’s street life through the power of design.

Judging by the large number of entries Design Indaba received for the Your Street Cape Town Challenge it is clear that there is a both a need and a great interest in positively transforming an aspect of urban life in the Mother City.

The challenge called on Capetonians to harness their creative capital and to come up with a commercially viable way to own, love and improve their street.  A total of R250 000 has been made available for the implementation of the best, most feasible ideas.

Needless to say, it was a near-impossible task to select the seven finalists. In choosing the seven finalists the jury looked specifically at how the entrants’ responded to the six principles guiding the challenge, namely generosity; international excellence and innovation; feasibility; fun; do and a better world through creativity.

Here are the seven finalists, in no particular order, with a brief description of their proposals. 

1. Verena Grips with Matchbox: The Matchbox project proposes repurposing shipping containers into crèches for disadvantaged communities.
2. Luke Pedersen, Jenny Pedersen, Kirsty Rielly, Jess Pedersen and Katherine Spindler with Violet’s Walk: A clearly marked walking route in Woodstock with resting benches placed strategically along the way. 
3. Lorena Pasquini, Mark Henning and Hannah Williams with Acre Road, Kensington: A community-based design solution to improve the lives of the Acre Road community using low-cost facilities to cater for positive community activities. 
4. Andrew Cole, Rene Bakker, Andrea Ferry and Pieter H Botha with Let Us Grow: Let Us Grow is an urban farming initiative that supplies fresh produce to urban dwellers, while also creating employment.
5. Ashley Stemmet, Porky Hefer and Tsai with Urban Mosaic: An aesthetically pleasing way to the solve the problem of shack fires, Urban Mosaic proposes painting the exteriors of shacks with a fire retardent paint. 
6. Sonja Spamer with Kidz-Up  City: A playground project that rethinks "traditional" playground furniture to make it more inclusive and with forms better suited to learning, while playing. 
7. Joe Schutzer-Weissmann and Gerald van Wyk with Jamshack: Jamshack is a licensed stage where pre-selected performers will play to a busy Cape Town street. 

The finalists will have an opportunity to present their final plans to the jury, which includes representatives from the City of Cape Town, before a final decision will be made and announced on Tuesday 25 October 2011.

It was inspiring to see so many good ideas for ways in which to make the City of Cape Town a friendlier and more accessible urban environment. Design Indaba would like to encourage everybody who entered, and those with ingenious ideas still mulling in their heads, to still go out and make their ideas happen. Find a commercial partner, infect others with your enthusiasm for the city and make that city change happen.

Looking north, it is with great excitement that Design Indaba is receiving entries for the Your Street Gauteng Challenge. Watch this space for news and updates.