Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

DESIGN INDABA SEPTEMBER NEWS

DESIGN INDABA 2009

Design Indaba Conference will run from February 25 to 27, 2009, and the Design Indaba Expo will follow, opening on Friday February 27 and running until March 1, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.


DESIGN INDABA EXPO 2009 FILLING UP FAST

Showcasing the finest in high-end homegrown design talent for five years now, the Design Indaba Expo clocked 254 exhibitors and 21 000 visitors in 2008. Avoid disappointment and book your stand now for Design Indaba Expo 2009, taking place at the Cape Town Convention Centre from February 27 to March 1.

To make a booking, please contact Beverley Cupido on bev@interactiveafrica.com or Tel: 021 465 9966.


CNMA ENTRIES OPEN

Entries for the Construction New Media Awards 2009 are officially open. The Construction New Media Awards celebrates and elevates the status of new media design in four categories – online, offline, motion graphics and innovation.

Deadline: 12 December 2008

A trophy is awarded in each category at the award ceremony during the Design Indaba Conference 2009. One overall winner receives the Grand Prix and the top student wins a trip to the UK to work alongside an acclaimed designer.

Register online by visiting www.constructionaward.com. Please contact Caryn van Rooyen at carynv@interactiveafrica.com for more information.


FILM FEST: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

For the past five years, the Design Indaba Expo has showcased the best South African short films, music videos and animations. The film festival is open to viewing by all Design Indaba Expo visitors and is screened between the fashion shows at the fashion ramp. The festival is a curated programme and there is no fee for participation. Film screenings should not exceed 12 minutes in length and all submissions need to be in mini dv or high-resolution Quicktime (uncompressed or pal). If you would like to submit your short film, music video or animation, please contact Bev Cupido at bev@interactiveafrica.com or Tel: 021 465 9966.


MMA FINALIST FOR HUMANITARIAN DESIGN PRIZE

Architect Luyanda Mpahlwa from MMA Architects has been named one of five finalists in the inaugural Curry Stone Design Prize for the low-cost housing solution to the Design Indaba 10x10 Housing project.

Administered by the University of Kentucky, this new humanitarian design prize of $100 000 honours designers who are tackling the needs of the world’s poorest. The winner will be announced on September 25 at the 11th Biennale of Architecture in Venice.

More info: http://currystonedesignprize.com/


SOUTH EXHIBITION CALL FOR ENTRY

Don’t miss the opportunity to enter SOUTH, a travelling exhibition sponsored by the SABC and launched by Design Indaba, in collaboration with the Creative Circle and the Loerie Awards. SOUTH is a celebration of the gloriously positive, ridiculously naïve and relentlessly spontaneous creativity inherent in our country.

Prizes to the value of R175 000 are up for grabs. Submissions for SOUTH are open to creative practitioners of any genre, over 21 years of age. Selected centres will be receiving work in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth between November 13 and 15, 2008.

For entry forms and more information please visit www.designindaba.com/south.


EMERGING CREATIVES PROGRAMME

The Emerging Creatives Programme, sponsored by the Department of Arts and Culture, gives young or up-and-coming designers the opportunity to exhibit at the Design Indaba Expo. The emerging creative can either be a tertiary student or a designer who is in the process of establishing their own design business.

Participation in the Design Indaba Expo gives these creatives a public platform where they have access and exposure to local and international media, agencies and companies. Participants are also invited to attend the first day of the Young Designers Simulcast.

For more information please contact Beverley Cupido on Tel: (021) 465 9966 or bev@interactiveafrica.com


DESIGN INDABA MAGAZINE: TOUGH LOVE

The newest edition of Design Indaba magazine, “Tough Love”, is dedicated to what creative love can bring to tough situations. Features include Cameron Sinclair, Arne Quinze, Constantin Boym, Yll Roguva, Nontsikelelo Veleko, Beverley Price, Geraldine Fenn, Deirdre Coleman, Philippe Bousquet, Ontwerp.tv, Pancho Guedes, Jack Diamond and Shirley Blumberg. Also see 30 Johannesburg designers reclaim their city in the Jozi is Mine feature, enjoy our brand new book section and win one of five Mingo Lamberti T-shirts in the competition.

Design Indaba, Q308, “Tough Love”, is available in selected Exclusive Books stores, Melissa’s and other outlets.

Click here for a full list of distribution points.

Contact Lucinda Johannes at lucinda@interactiveafrica.com or Tel: 021 465 9966.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

New Open House Architecture tour

Saturday 11 October

OH6 focusses on the modernist icon Pius Pahl, born in Germany in 1909. He resided and practiced in Stellenbosch for most of his life until his death a few years ago. Pahl was trained at the Bauhaus, the centre of the International style. Pahl was a skilled carpenter, builder, glassier, designer, artist and architect and his work is representations of his own craftmanship as well as the Bauhaus ideology. He was taught and mentored by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and some of Pahl's student work under van der Rohe is in a permanent exhibition in the Bauhaus museum in Berlin.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Design takes a stand

Reading the newspapers these days can make one feel dejected about the state of the world and South Africa. The newest edition of Design Indaba magazine, “Tough Love”, is dedicated to what creative love can bring to tough situations.

With a radical, eye-popping cover by Athi-Patra Ruga and Chris Saunders, the Q308 edition of Design Indaba magazine demands a progressive attitude to the social responsibility inherent in good design.

DI Magazine - Page 22-23

Poster boy of solutions-driven architecture, Cameron Sinclair tells Design Indaba about what goes into being nice. Trailblazing Belgian designer Arne Quinze uses chaotic wooden constructions to revive public spaces. Constantin Boym finds power in miniatures to memorialise buildings brought down by chaos and disaster. Kosovan typographer and information designer Yll Roguva tells Peet Pienaar about designing a new nation.

On the local front, Design Indaba magazine visits Johannesburg and invites over 30 designers to reclaim their city in the Jozi is Mine feature. Photographer Nontsikelelo Veleko gives Design Indaba an exclusive peak into the scrapbook that informs her street fashion lens.

DI Magazine - Page 52-53

Jozi jewellers Beverley Price, Geraldine Fenn, Deirdre Coleman and Philippe Bousquet share their thoughts on gold. Further, independent design studio Ontwerp.tv tells us what it takes to get ahead in the big city, while The Pavement Special tells us about the underground music scene.

Stretching into the built environment, Design Indaba celebrates legendary architect Pancho Guedes’s first retrospective on the African continent, and meets up with two South African architects who are shaping Toronto – Jack Diamond and Shirley Blumberg.

DI Magazine - Page 73-74

In the news section, we receive word from Ilse Crawford, Jan Kaplicky, Doshi Levien, Li Edelkoort, Yves Béhar, Marije Vogelzang, Toshiyuki Kita, David Byrne, Kudzanai Chiurai, Whatiftheworld and more. Five Mingo Lamberti T-shirts are also up for grabs in the competition.

This edition also sees the launch of our new books section, Text.Doc, which includes reviews of Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far by Stefan Sagmeister; Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, designed by Abbot Miller; Book of Warriors by Shumeng Ye; and Jaime Hayon Works – the designer's first monograph.

Design Indaba, Q308, “Tough Love”, is available in selected Exclusive Books stores, Melissa’s and other outlets nationwide. Click here for a full list of distribution points.

To subscribe contact Lucinda Johannes at lucinda@interactiveafrica.com or Tel: 021 465 9966.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Puff and Pass online

The Pan African Space Station (PASS) is a 30-day music intervention from September 12 to October 12, on radio and the internet, as well as venues across greater Cape Town.

It launches on September 12 with "Songs for Biko, and other stomps, screams and prayers:" after-tears; vigil; wake; marathon; whatever. An open party to launch PASS. At the Pan African Market (76 Long Street, Cape Town) from 1 pm on Friday 12 Sept (Biko Day) to 1pm on Saturday 13 Sept. DJs, musicians, soundists, poets, generally noise people will present music and sound inspired by Steve Biko's work; or read from his words in I Write What I Like.

Check out their new website and get involved: www.panafricanspacestation.org.za

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

10x10 Housing up for award!

MMA Architects has been named one of five finalists for a new humanitarian design prize of $100,000 that honors designers who are tackling the needs of the world’s poorest. This is for their solution to the Design Indaba 10x10 Housing project!

View more pictures: http://www.panoramio.com/user/2203156

The Curry Stone Design Prize, administered by the University of Kentucky, will be awarded every year to “breakthrough design solutions with the power and potential to improve our lives and the world we live in.” This year’s inaugural winner will be announced Sept 25, 2008 at the IdeaFestival in Louisville, Ky.

The finalists are:

Shawn Frayne, inventor of the Windbelt, the world’s first non-turbine wind-powered generator. The technology, which is light enough to hold in your hand, has enormous potential to help people in poor communities power lamps, run small vaccine refrigerators and charge cell phones for pennies a day. www.humdingerwind.com

Wes Janz, architect and associate professor of architecture at Ball State University in Indiana and author of the forthcoming book, “One Small Project.” Janz’s practice focuses on “leftover places” – the world’s slums and settlements where people build shelters from scavenged materials. In collaboration with his students and local communities, Janz has constructed shelters and pavilions in Argentina, Sri Lanka and elsewhere from found materials such as mud and rubble from demolished buildings. www.onesmallproject.com

MMA Architects’ innovations include an ingenious design for low-cost homes in a shantytown outside Cape Town, whose timber frame and sandbag infill construction can be built for $6,900. The design, which borrows from indigenous mud-and-wattle building techniques, is energy-efficient, and requires little to no electricity or skilled labor to construct. www.mmaarch.co.za

Marjetica Potrč, an artist and architect who works closely with impoverished communities to devise sustainable solutions to quality-of-life dilemmas, such as a “dry toilet” which collects human waste and converts it to fertilizer. More recently, she has spent time in New Orleans examining the revival of homegrown sustainable practices such as rainwater harvesting, which helps collect run-off storm-water, restores wetlands and prevents flooding. http://Potrc.org

Antonio Scarponi, an architect based in Venice, Italy using architecture, multimedia arts and design to “jam” the conventional social order and illuminate our shared humanity as well as the social and political lines that divide us. His 2007 interactive project, “Dreaming Wall,” was a digitally generated billboard installed in an historic Milanese square that displayed randomly chosen real-time text messages sent from across the world. www.dreamingwall.net