I managed to write my summaries of day one and two in a timely fashion, but since the third day fell on a Friday, the weekend happened and I didn’t get around to it. Then Monday happened and the rest of the week followed in typical fashion. Well, better a whole week late than never, right? So here goes a somewhat briefer entry than the previous two.
Friday hosted a fantastic array of speakers, but in my opinion the least mind-blowing of the three days.
Li Edelkoort, a trend forecaster from Paris, France kicked the day off with her predictions on how current social trends will be affecting design in the very near future. Just as everyone was completely soothed by the serene imagery in her slideshow, she changed course and proceeded to share her vision of the “bordello of the future” with us. My thoughts were summed up pretty well on Twitter by someone called shawnroos:
Edelkoort’s whorehouse family mall vision terrifies me.
Some interesting things she said before the bordello tangent:
- There may be a mini baby boom currently happening.
- Relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is becoming important.
- The SMS/email lifestyle is a dangerous tendency. Dialogue is important, we must learn to spar again!
- Individualism is dead, groups are far more important now.
- Individuals/blacksheep will become far more resilient in order to weather the grouping trend.
- Design goes back to (very well engineered) basics. Neutral colours, wood, brushed metal. Nothing too “glamourous”.
- Industrialisation of design is necessary for SA economy.
- Designers work across media now, we don’t care anymore about specialising in a specific discipline.
- Technology and craft are growing together.
- Yellow is the new pink.
Next up was Han Feng, a Chinese fashion designer who rose to prominence in New York during the 80s and 90s and relocated back to Shanghai in 2005. Her big break came in the form of film director Anthony Mingella commissioning her to design a men’s line and hiring her as costume designer for the Madama Butterfly opera production in London. She has since designed costumes for the forthcoming Jackie Chan remake of Karate Kid.
Her story was inspiring and very amusing. Two quotes from Han Feng:
- “I never thought: I’m going to quit. I always thought: I’m going to try so hard!”
- “When time and luck arrives, I grab it.”
After coffee a peculiar young lady from the Netherlands had the floor. Christien Meindertsma is a product designer who has a fascination with the origins of materials. She has undertaken some amazing projects exploring this interest:
- Knitting “one-sheep-cardigans” including an identity document of the particular sheep whose wool was used.
- Using home made giant needles to knit an enormous rug from thick yarn. She fist knitted a tiny prototype using regular wool and needles.
- Thick yarn “urchin ottomans” dyed in the old fashioned way using colour from particular plants, like red from meadow-root.
- Made a rug in collaboration with a USA conservation group using the wool from a single organic flock in the idyllic hills of Idaho.
- Using flax made from the fibre of certain plants to create rope lamps and chandeliers.
- Rope ottomans that look like giant balls of string.
The main project she presented was her recent book chronicling all the products derived from a pig. All photos in the book are printed at life size (1:1 scale).
Martha Stewart. Much has been said about her appearance at Design Indaba 2010, both positive and negative (just Google it to see what I mean). In my opinion she completely missed an opportunity to connect with a very eager and expectant audience. Who did she think she was talking to? But I guess on the other hand, what did we expect?
With our bellies full of steak and ice tea, we returned to the auditorium to be blown away by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena. He spoke about the thinking process behind a very successful low cost housing solution called “Elemental”. He calls his operation a “do-tank”!
Some highlights from his presentation:
- Good design gives simple answers without being reductive.
- Creativity is what we do when knowledge does not yet exist. With sufficient knowledge there is no need for creativity.
- An example: the simplest possible chair we might be able to conceive still looks like a chair, but the Guarani Indians sit on the ground using a thin band of material wrapped around their knees and their back, supporting their weight. A chair!
- Find the irreducible solution.
- Urbanisation is good for social upliftment - upgrading lives is easier near cities because of the proximity to everything. The problems lie in the scale and speed of uranisation.
- Why not create social housing that increases in value over time? That way it will be an investment to government instead of an expense.
- Understand that the poor will undertake self-construction to enlarge their living quarters, so make provision for that. Build half a house and allow them to build the other half. Which half should government build? The half that the people will never be able to build themselves (plumbing, infrastructure, fixtures)!
- Elemental housing successfully broke the downward trend - the social housing they created has increased in value over time.
- Quote from Aravena: “It’s amazing how fast bad ideas travel.”
Just as a side-note - Aravena’s presentation was interrupted for a while by a medical emergency in the auditorium.
The next presentation was entitled Protofarm 5050. Several designers from across the world were invited to imagine farming solutions for the future. I found this to be a bit superfluous albeit quite entertaining, especially 5.5 Designers from France who presented their guide to “free farming” in the urban environment.
I don’t think anyone knew what to expect from Handspring Puppet Company from Kalk Bay. A puppet company? At Design Indaba? However, what Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler presented, converted an auditorium of cynics to a standing ovation. Starting with the innovation of a moving limb for a small heyena puppet they evolved this to anatomically correct life-size horses and giraffes. These “puppets” are able to convey the subtlest emotions through life-like movements - right down to apprehensive flicks of the tail. I am not sure exactly how to describe it all, but try and find some pictures or video online to see what I mean. Search for “War Horse”, a British theatre production centering around their fantastic horse puppet.
The event finale came in the form of Zapiro and Thierry Cassuto’s ZA News, a puppet based satire revolving around South African politics. The live Q and A fascilitated by “Nelson Mandela” and “Desmond Tutu” had everyone in stitches. Since SABC declined the show, you are able to watch Season 2 of ZA News online.
Design Indaba wrapped up. All considered, a fantastic and well organised event which I will be sure to attend in future if the opportunity presents itself again. A big thanks to Mocality (my work) for sending me!
I so much ought to get professionally in gear and build a blog like this one.