A walk on the lighter side of life. And Jo'burg

In the streets of Johannesburg...

Fig. 1: insert ballet barres, ballet rehearsal space.

I went for a walk the other day, a walk through Braamfontein. I had taken the Gautrain from Centurion to Park Station and I was on my way to a meeting with my supervisor-to-be at Wits (I'm starting my MA there next year 2013).

My project is going to deal with public urban space, how it is used, how it can be adapted and reclaimed.

I went for a walk the other day, a walk through Braamfontein and I saw so much public space that can be used to fill the city with little pockets of vibrant activity.

Fig 2: break dancing?

Fig 3: Parkour/urban freerunning

Fig 4: parkour and break dancing. Maybe even capoeira?

Fig 5: The roof, the roof, what can be done on the roof? Ballet, capoeira, break dancing.

Fig 6: ballet, capoeira, break dancing

Fig 7: capoeira, capoeira, capoeira

Fig 8: using public space; true space

The Midrand Creative Base

The new project begins...with a Face Book page. Honestly though, how easy is it to create a web presence for yourself without having to register domains or set up websites?

So I am beginning to create a web presence for the Midrand Freelancer's Creative Base. Maybe the name is too long. Brownie points to anyone who can come up with a better name? Seriously, we will have a plaque with your name on it installed in the building...?

So I am asking a question or three...

The urban space have three important functions:

1. a source of community
2. a source of economic opportunities
3. a way to link people across countries
 

1) what makes a community strong, 2) give old and new ways of embracing these economic opportunities and 3) how can a city inspire us and keep us linked?

If you feel inclined to answer here you may. Or email me info@easyofficesuites.co.za. or better yet, join the Face Book Page and join the conversation... https://www.facebook.com/groups/254684527969836/

 Or read this blog, don't do anything and the world will continue on its merry way.

 But I dare you to participate. To borrow from a Checkers advert - "It may not change the world. But it may change the way we live in it."

 And in my view,that will change the world. 

 

Florida's rooftops

Did you know that, for almost nothing, you can rent rooftop space in Florida? Yes, Florida in the USA. But then in Stone Town, rooftops are a big plus in any house, and I don't think it is even worth asking to rent someone else's rooftop - they will fight you back. Read more here:

http://ashkuff.com/blog/?p=574

A change of space

I am now working at a property development company.

How random is that? Yet I fit in more here than at the advertising company? Why? Because the company deals with space and I am obsessed with space. Yes Whiz Property is concerned with building buildings and selling the space, and I am concerned with the use of space and how it affects our social lives.

But the two have married in my latest experiment: assessing the changing use and need of space in the urban environment.

Hello new love affair!

The need for space and the use thereof is changing. Just as the internet, two years ago, did not know that a single "like" button on a face book page could revolutionise the spread of information, so space and place in the urban context has speedily generated a need for us to think differently.

 Exhibit number one: the freelancer. The free one, the no boss one, the 4pm-and-still-in-your-pajamas one, the obsessed-with-contents-of-fridge one.

San Francisco has come to the rescue, in the form of a Writers' Grotto. It is not being acknowledged that it is not only corporate business people who require the structure and motivation of working hours in a working only space. Writers, freelancers and other people and their dogs are beginning to realise that even us bohemian artistic, creative, writing and philosophising types need structure, schedules and other such 'corporate' motivations in our lives.

And to the Writer's Grotto was born.

This is a niche market that, it appears, does not exist (at least in profusion) in South Africa.

So the space begins to change.

Office space is no longer going to be for the clock-inners and outers, the eight to fivers and the CC owners. Now it will be for people like me, or Luntu or Kylene, who take some writing here, a design job there, some film editing next door, but end up cleaning the top of the top cupboard a day before deadline.

If anybody who reading this (very witty and informative) post finds themselves in the Gauteng province experiencing just such a scenario of freelance work and rabid spring cleaning then comment on this post and we will hook you up dawg!


Culture is made in the physical space. I want to create a culture of creative, enterprising, networking individuals who will take the Gauteng province by storm. The physical space says a lot about us - why we choose to live in a space, how we react to a space, what we get from a space.


So now it is time for me to build a city. Of space. And begin to explore the these spaces as cities of creative collaborations.


That is all.

re-Writing Stone Town #2

Some of you might remember a similar (if not the same) titled blog post a few months back. Well this time, that little story has been published! Check it out on the link bellow.

http://blog.africabespoke.com/re-writing-stone-town-zanzibar/