Category: rethinking

  • environmental lessons

    -Rosemary likes sunshine, so we planted it over there where it’ll get lots of it- Interwoven with observations about where the sun rises and sets, -it rises on that side and sets on that other one- an explorations of smells: of soil, of compost, -compost contains dung from a cow…

  • improving neighbourhoods in mexico city

    I did an interview with a good friend I met through my host, Fernando Díaz Enciso in Mexico City, Manuel Luis Labra that was featured on the blog Polis. Manuel was directly involved in the design and implementation of a city-wide neighbourhood improvement initiative known as Programa Comunitario Mejoramiento Barrial…

  • on poetry, and agosín’s ‘i lived on butterfly hill’

    on poetry, and agosín’s ‘i lived on butterfly hill’

    “Poetry is a violence from within that protects us from a violence without” Wallace Stevens One evening many years ago, I stood up in a modestly filled room at the Goethe Institut, Nairobi, walked somewhat unsurely to a seat at the front and read some poems from my ‘Pink book’…

  • an ode to brasilândia

    What is Brasilândia? A many layered thing- literally.A mix of textures, colours, sounds, “lá tudo nublado, aqui tudo colorido” as my host sister put it, The day she took me on a walk Through her colourful neighbourhood.A slice of life all in one short street.Where the church and local pub…

  • design ingredients for sustainable waste management – ii

    “So how should a city’s waste management options be designed? Labels such as those of UCT’s campus receptacles and Hoan Kiem Lake’s bins would communicate the importance of both recycling and reducing one’s waste. The placement of these ideal designed options would consider where disposer traffic was likely to be…

  • design ingredients for sustainable waste management – i

    “Urban areas concentrate not only economic and social production, but also waste production. Waste that is often addressed at the end of a long chain of actors- manufacturers, retailers, consumers, disposers, municipal councils, collectors, recyclers. And thus waste’s final destination and the impacts of the same are made invisible. The…

Translate »