Gentrification and the Creative Industries: An interview with Prof Oliver Baron
Q: Mr Baron, you are heading up a group of German design students from Koeln International School of Design (KISD) who are currently in Cape Town to collaborate with local design students from CPUT/Informatics and Design on a project around the topic of gentrification. What is the motivation behind the project? A: Content-wise, the global [...]
International design project researches gentrification in Berlin and Cape Town
The Koeln International School of Design, the Faculty of Informatics and Design of the Cape Peninsula University and Formula D interactive cooperate on an international design project investigating the effect of gentrification in Neukölln, Berlin and Cape Town, The Fringe. A UN report predicts that 4.9 billion world citizens will be living in cities by [...]
Designing interfaces to humanise technology
The way we interact with all the small and big machines we handle and inhabit in our daily lives tells us a lot about our personal relationship with technology. What do we actually want from technology and are we really getting it? Which side is more adaptive and compensates for the flaws of the other; Human or machine? What role play designers and artists when designing interfaces for the many black boxes our scientists and technologists surprise us with? Or can only magic save us from becoming machines ourselves? The video shows my 20 minutes talk from last July at Cape Town’s Creative Mornings event and tries to answer some of these questions.
Recycling education with an interactive floor projection game
The Recycling Floor projection Game educates players about different recyclable materials and how they can be identified. Located some thirty-eight kilometers north west of Port Elizabeth, Uitenhage was historically known as the ‘garden town’ of the Eastern Cape. Over the years, as its population has expanded, waste has become a visible problem in the area. [...]
25 Questions and Answers on Art, Technology and Design
Two weeks ago Catherine Henderson, who organises the Cape Town’s Creative mornings, asked Formula D interactive’s Michael Wolf 25 questions about design, art and tech via Twitter. Questions and answers were limited to 140 character each. Here are all Q & A’s in one thread. Q: Michael Wolf, what do you do? A: I am founder, [...]
Multitouch table helps young people to understand how personal choices affect their lives
The ability to choose is one of the things that makes us human. But making decisions is not always easy. The consequences of one bad decision can affect the rest of our lives. What happens when you’re faced with a difficult choice? Say you’ve just completed high school. Do you get a job or study further? How do you know what to do? Which path is the right one to choose?
For young people in Uitenhage, Formula D’s Life Choices Touch Table Game is helping them to understand how personal choices affect their lives.
Interactive Installation Creates Awareness for the threatened Cape Leopard
Recognising that education is the key to protecting Cape Mountain Leopards, Leopard’s Leap commissioned Formula D interactive to design and build an educational leopard display for their visitor centre, which was recently designed by Makeka Design Lab.
The result is an interactive wall projection loaded with game-enhancing technology. The 3-meter projection loops realistically rendered animations of Cedearberg landscapes. Three different sets of day and night scenes are displayed.
When visitors step in front of the wall, their virtual avatars appear on the screen in front of them. Each visitor is randomly assigned an avatar and up to 3 people can interact with the multimedia application at the same time.
ibali – speaking public furniture design to inspire citizens
ibali is a public furniture design concept designed by Johan du Toit and Michael Wolf from Formula D interactive in their spare time. ibali offers an extra service to city dwellers: It inspires. A recent city branding initiative gave Cape Town the title: City of Inspiration. Cape Town and its citizens are rich with inspirational people and stories that are linked to specific places and streets in Cape Town. ibali – space of inspiration aims at creating islands of inspiration in the city allowing citizens to step out of the stream of everyday life to get a dose of hope and inspiration.
Product design in Cape Town: An interview with Johan du Toit
“Design is an open ended exercise at the best of times, but early involvement narrows the target area. The different design disciplines involved in a project should also work as a team, to align efforts. Branding, communication and product designers often work in isolation from each other leading to an incoherent result.”
Toppling Godsigner – Jenna Mervis talks to Cape Town’s Mugendi M’Rithaa about Transformative Design
“…Participatory design is almost a reaction against taking the end-user for granted. We’re saying that there is an embedded or tacit knowledge which the consumer has that will enrich the design process. Designers too can learn something in this relationship. We learn more about the context and the consumer becomes more visually literate, more design conscious. It is actually in our interest as designers to co-create with the consumer, because then they start to appreciate our role and our work even better…”
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