A gritty account of how to do.

A Do Tank, not a think tank. Design Indaba builds some of the ideas it stages, and these are honest accounts of what that took: the money, the bureaucracy, the mistakes.

R 28.4M

Committed to date

+18%

Over budget

02 · 02

Built · in process

2017

First filed

The files

Most recent first

2017 — ongoing

Built · full case study

Arch for Arch

Fourteen timber beams for fourteen chapters of the Constitution. A monument to Desmond Tutu — and a two-year fight with everyone who owns a pavement.

Snøhetta · Local Studio · The Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation

+20% vs budget

St George's Mall, Cape Town

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2023 — ongoing

Process journal · live

The Lodge Beneath the Lodge

What do you do when a routine foundation survey turns into an archaeological site — and a reckoning?

Iziko Museums · UCT Archaeology · City Heritage

+31% vs budget

Spin Street, Cape Town

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2022 — 2024

Built

One Tree, Two Years

A single milkwood, a municipal arborist, and everything we learned about negotiating with a city that thinks in liability.

City Parks · Local residents' association

+50% vs budget

Observatory, Cape Town

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2021 — ongoing

Process journal · live

Density from Below

Incremental housing that residents extend themselves. The drawings were the easy part.

Community Organisation Resource Centre

+6% vs budget

Khayelitsha

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