New Tribe at the Foundry

WORDS Michelle Marais PHOTOS Stanislaw Trzebinski, Fiona Milligan and Frederik Lötter

Cape Town’s cool crowd has flocked to the Woodstock Foundry since the opening of Tribe Coffee’s new multifunctional space: a Benedikt Books store, coffee roastery and coffee shop with fabulous bespoke furniture designs by MBA.

We love the way the different spaces – a Benedikt Books store, the coffee roastery and the Tribe coffee shop – complement each other. All lead onto a paved courtyard that serves as a communal area and binding element and have been furnished by MBA, a bespoke furniture design company.

We caught up with Jake Easton, self-proclaimed “trailblazer” at Tribe, and Frederik Lötter, one quarter of the design team at MBA, to pick their brains about the importance of collaboration and the development of their individual brands.

What’s the history behind the brand?

Jake (from Tribe): Tribe started as a tool to give luxury coffee to the masses. I was on my own in the beginning until Kate Nero approached me one day after a good run and asked: “What if I got us a coffee roaster?” That day Tribe changed from a one-man exhibition into a collaborative melding of thinking coffee professionals. We created the company in order to develop a “your cafe” brand by allowing luxury taste and training at a cost that allows for their growth. In short: Good coffee at a low price with barista/cafe owner/manager training that puts the staff and the communities around that cafe in touch with the third-wave coffee revolution techniques that are taking over the world.

Freddy (from MBA): We are four colleagues in an architectural practice in Somerset West. Like most architects, we share a mutual frustration with the limitations external forces place on the design process. As the production of architecture is a highly collaborative effort where pure design often has to give way to more pressing considerations, we rarely get the opportunity to really design according to our own creative agendas. The resulting creative frustration is what sparked the idea of MBA (Made By Architects). We see MBA as a vehicle to explore our own creative impulses on a scale that is affordable and accessible to a much wider public.

Woodstock, one of Cape Town’s oldest suburbs, has blossomed into a creative industrial hub. Did this play a part in why The Foundry was chosen as a commercial space?

Jake: Because our business is not to open our own cafes and have a street presence to compete with the rest of the coffee world, we never really thought about what a cafe should be. We were only looking for a site to house our roaster and to use as a distribution centre. Then the Benedikt Books crowd showed us the plans for their offices and we were suddenly able to also envision a roastery and cafe.

The Woodstock and Salt River areas have undergone a 180 degree turnaround over the past ten years. As we walked around the site, and later walked the streets around the Woodstock Foundry, we were absolutely enthralled by what Woodstock is becoming. One must also give credit where it’s due: The Biscuit Mill was the catalyst that started the transformation and we are all the beneficiaries thereof.

While the Tribe coffee shop is furnished with beautiful bespoke pieces by MBA, the space also boasts a Benedikt Books store. How important is creative collaboration?

Jake: Creative collaboration is the only way to drive inspiration and change. This collaboration inspires personal curiosity and is also a tool to drive personal growth. The way in which Made by Architects became involved and transformed the space with its calm beautiful bamboo designer furniture is proof thereof. Talk to the staff at Benedikt, Tribe, MBA or Opus (who shares the space with its hanging plants)… we are all different, but there is suddenly a drive to do more, try more, see more.

Freddy: No business can be sustainable if it’s built solely on achieving more for itself. Collaboration is the essence of the age-old Vitruvian principle of working together for the greater good of the community. Woodstock is a creative community; the more we share, the more exposure we all enjoy, and the more value we add to the bigger picture. Creative collaboration is very important to us. We work together on all of our products, as we recognise each member’s particular strengths.

With the store now open, what would you ultimately like to achieve with the space?

Jake: There is a global idea, which began in Toronto, to transform cafes into offices or as they term it “coffices”. The New York Times or Atlantic Monthly published an article on how creative people benefit from working in a cafe where they are allowed anonymity while being surrounded by music, laughter and movement. The idea is that “cafe time” inspires. Cafes in France or the United States were centres for thought and revolutionary change 250 years ago. Why not be revolutionary? Coffee excites the mind; it wakes your system to faster thought; and if other thinking people surround you, inspiration will happen naturally. That Tribe is in a space surrounded by Bronze Age, Egon Tania, the Southern Guild artists and 15 other design and art centres, who’s to say what will arise? This is a space for growth, curiosity, design and some kind of imminent revolution.

Visit Tribe’s new space at The Foundry, 160 Albert Road or browse their website for more information.

Find out more about Made By Architects www.madebyarchitects.co.za