Ahead of the Design Indaba Festival, running from 21 to 23 February 2018 at the Artscape in Cape Town, we spoke to the Festival’s founder Ravi Naidoo about what we can all expect this year. Watch the full interview below.

Planning on attending this year’s Design Indaba Festival? Here’s what we know so far.

THE CONFERENCE SPEAKERS

The list of speakers so far includes the likes of renowned British designer Tom Dixon, architect and designer Thomas Heatherwick, whose studio was behind the striking Zeitz MOCAA building in Cape Town, award-winning Zimbabwean film director Sunu Gonera and London-based designer Morag Myerscough.

Apart from the four talents above, you can also expect to see:

• Shaakira Jassat – Design Researcher, South Africa
• Martha Cotton – Design Consultant, USA
• Edel Rodriguez – Artist, Cuba / USA
• Es Devlin – Set Designer, United Kingdom
• Lebogang Mashile – Performance Artist, South Africa
• Peter Veenstra – Landscape Architect, The Netherlands
• Johannes Torpe – Interior Designer, Denmark
• Anna Elshandaweely – Fashion Designer, Egypt
• Alejandro Aravena – Architect, Chile
• Sam and Rob Paddock of GetSmarter – Entrepreneurs, South Africa
• Mark Kamau – Interaction Designer, Kenya
• Alexander Groves and Azusa Murakami of Studio Swine – Designers, United Kingdon
• Neri Oxman – Architect, USA
• Lonny van Ryswyck of Atelier NL – Product Designer, The Netherlands
• Zach Lieberman – Artist, USA
• Ensamble Studio – Architects, Spain
• Natasha Jen – Graphic Designer, Taiwan / USA
• Astrid Stavro – Creative Director, Spain / USA / United Kingdom

There will also be a selection of some of the world’s top design school graduates speaking at the conference, including:

• Ini Archibong – Designer, Switzerland
• Iwo Borkowicz – Architect, Poland
• Renata Souza – Product Designer, Mexico / USA
• Tomo Kahara – Interventionist and Design Researcher, Japan
• Nicolás Kisic Aguirre – Sound Designer, Peru
• Aleksandra Gosiewski – Fashion Designer, USA
• Leroy Mwasaru – Entrepreneur, Kenya
• Simon Dogger – Product Designer, The Netherlands

Tickets for the conference are on sale now.

Read up about six of the speakers in the latest issue of VISI (VISI 94).

THE FESTIVAL

Design Indaba is about more than a three-day conference. Entitled Nightscape, the Festival also incorporates food, art, music and film.

Image credit: Jonx Pillemer

This year, chef Bertus Basson (of Spice Route and Spek & Bone fame) will host a pop-up restaurant. Tickets cost R850 and are available at Webtickets. There will also be a gourmet street food experience curated by Hannerie Visser.

Three exhibitions will also be taking place, namely the much-anticipated Emerging Creatives exhibition, which showcases 40 of the country’s stand-out, up-and-coming talents, as well as the nominees for 2018’s Most Beautiful Object in South Africa.

The Piazza, which in 2017 was transformed by Senegalese fashion designer Selly Raby Kane, will in 2018 see an installation by speaker Morag Myerscough.

Image credit: Jonx Pillemer

Design Indaba runs from 21 to 23 February 2018 at the Artscape in Cape Town. For more information, visit designindaba.com/festival.

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On 7 October 2017, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s 86th birthday, the newly completed Arch For Arch monument was unveiled in his honour.

The project, commissioned by Design Indaba and sponsored by Liberty, was first announced at this year’s Design Indaba Conference.

The architectural sculpture was designed by renowned Norwegian firm Snøhetta, which we previously featured here, in collaboration with Johannesburg-based architecture and urban design firm Local Studio. Measuring nine metres high, the Arch for Arch consists of 14 wooden arcs, the wood bent locally by Swissline Design Timber Engineers. Structural engineers The Structural Workshop (Pty) Ltd, foundation engineers Hatch and contractor Smart Civils also formed part of the team that made the Arch for Arch a reality.

For Design Indaba CEO Ravi Naidoo, the project was never about simply building a commemorative structure. “Design needs a concept; it needs to stand for something,” he says on the Design Indaba website. The monument aims to reflect Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s values of peace and reconciliation, as well as the significance of the South African Constitution.

Says Design Indaba, “The Constitution of South Africa is a remarkably progressive document upon which much of our democracy hinges. Similar to how an arch relies upon a keystone to avoid collapse, so too does our democratic society and innumerable freedoms rely upon the Constitution in order to remain intact.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s 86th birthday was officially celebrated with the @designindaba-commissioned Arch for Arch monument, an architectural sculpture created by @snohetta and @local_studio. #archforarch #capetown #architecture #design #arch

A post shared by VISI Magazine (@visi_mag) on Oct 7, 2017 at 4:21am PDT

Haven’t visited this important new Cape Town landmark yet? You’ll find it at the end of Government Avenue in Cape Town.

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There is no denying that Cape Town has grown to become one of the world’s top destinations. How lucky for us at VISI HQ to be based right at the centre of it! It has topped numerous lists, and now coffeemakers Nespresso, who also produce the bi-annual Nespresso Magazine for over 1 million Nespresso club members worldwide, have dedicated their latest issue to Cape Town.

“A lot of thought goes into the selection of the featured city in each edition of Nespresso Magazine,” says Pierre Debayle, regional manager of Nespresso Middle East, Africa and Caribbean. “The selection of the city happens after an extensive sizing of what the city has to offer in terms of gastronomy, architectural and other design and arts experiences to make sure that we are providing spectacular content to our readers. Cape Town was a natural fit for Nespresso.”

The magazine, now in it’s 24^th edition, features one of the city’s most well known ambassadors on the cover, Design Indaba founder Ravi Naidoo. Inside, it’s a celebration of Mother City culture, featuring thought leaders, restaurants and must-visit hot spots. While there is a physical copy of the magazine, it is also freely available for download. 

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