con anima: Design Thinking

Brief: Explore the Fringe area and search for problems in the area. Do research among current stakeholders within the area. Design solutions to these problems.

Objective: Uplift and develop the Fringe so it can progress from its current state of stagnation.

We interacted with stakeholders of the fringe area on a daily-basis, as well at nights. Interviews and questionnaires were conducted and it was documented on film to refer back to when key points were made.

The stakeholders in the Fringe:

1. Homeless and jobless people

2. Students

3. Businesses

4. Creative group

5. Municipality and Police

6. Investors

SWOT analysis on the Fringe area:

Strengths

· Potential for development

· Accessibility

· Investment opportunities

· Good footprints; tourists, students, every day people

· Gets exposure; a lot of vehicles passes by, in and out

· Rich history around the area; The Castle, Good Hope Centre

· Great positioning – View of Table Mountain, close to inner city

Weaknesses

· Lack of infrastructure

· Lack of entertainment facilities

· Homeless comfort zone

· Bureaucracy

· Lack of parking

· Crime

Opportunities

· Old buildings (Restore)

· Development in the infrastructure

· Underground water resource

· Wind – sustainable energy

Threats

· Possibility of gentrification within the region

· Displacing homeless people

· Traffic creation with the implementation of an expansive project

Lack of stakeholder engagement, unwillingness to invest and lack of responsibility for their areas of interes

Insight:

Above is a circle of chaos:

There is crime, why? There is unemployment, why? There are vacant buildings, why? There is no investment, why? The area is in disarray and is decayed, why? Vagrants, homeless and unemployed people live there, why? There is a form of income, why? There is crime.

We had initials ideas of extending the fan walk and make it part of the fringe, forming a new creative hub, build a community centre to train homeless people (primary research proved they are skilled), new walking footpaths. None of this will be the catalyst to fix the circle of chaos, as identified above.

The area need to be improved through investment. How can investment be attracted to the area?

Solution:

The area has a lot of open and vacant spaces filled with gravel and a lot of litter. The idea is to simply green the area; to plant grass and trees in these open spaces that will result in beautiful parks. Each park will be equipped with a small nursery and will be the storage of gardening tools. The parks will also contain gardens with excess plants and vegetables that can be sold for a side income for governing these parks. The homeless people are incorporated in this plan and will be given an opportunity to work and maintain these beautiful parks on a volunteering daily basis. An opportunity is created for unemployed residence, as they will have small tasks such as ranking the leaves, planting of seedlings, and more physical work to maintain these gardens and parks. Each park will also have a community leader in charge that will decide whether an individual is fit to work the day. This eliminates the problem with individuals who do not want to work every day or come to work intoxicated.

Two critical points in the solution must be highlighted that we think will solve the current problems and that is by ‘Greening’ the area and the creation of employment. We thought this solution is also very relevant, because it improve property value and make the area pretty without causing Gentrification.

This idea is not only relevant in the Fringe, but can be implemented throughout South Africa in areas with the same problems.
Branding the area:

This would be a destination brand and we thought of branding it as commUNITY. This is a revelation for us as this was exactly what we wished our project to be about. We wanted to include all stakeholders and create a stronger sense of community, a unity and a sense of pride and belonging in the Fringe district.

Examples of solution: