Design in Search of Solutions

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown regulations presented an existential crisis for many restaurant businesses. As regulations eased, Clout/SA looked to designers in its quest to come up with answers to the unexpected problem of social distancing

TEXT MALIBONGWE TYILO PHOTOGRAPHS BLAKE WOODHAM

eyond affecting the

Bindividual and limiting our movements, our daily actions and interactions, the Covid-19 pandemic presented a challenge for businesses across the board, including the many designermakers we have celebrated, worked with, and supported.

It was with this and other challenges in mind that Nando’s

Design Programme creative director Tracy Lee Lynch started work on a series of screens and furniture accessories that would not only make social distancing more intuitive, but also an enriching aesthetic experience.

While take-outs and delivery services offered one kind of solution, the reality was that even as regulations loosened up, people still wanted to visit restaurants to sit down for the familiar social experience.

“People were craving those kinds of experiences. So we had to look at how we could make social distancing stand the test of time, and make sure that whatever we did reflected the

Nando’s experience,” Tracy says.

“We spend so much energy and resources on designing these

ABOVE Social distancing screens by

Dokter and Misses. Chair blockers by

Studio Leelynch, manufactured by a

Naturalis

THIS IMAGE Social distancing screens in a Nando’s casa

beautiful bespoke spaces around the world, filled with Southern African art and design, so how could it be that stickers would be the only solution we had to encourage social distancing?”

For the past five years, Tracy and her team — together with Nando’s property director Michael Spinks and the full support of the company — helped develop Portal to Africa. It’s an online marketplace that connects South African designer-makers to interior designers working on Nando’s restaurants both in South Africa and internationally.

The atmosphere of uncertainty as a result of the Covid pandemic also limited sales on Portal to Africa, meaning that a lot of businesses that were relying on the orders found themselves in a challenging situation.

Tracy started working on a series of social distancing design concepts, starting with a “tableblocker” screen to create distance when Nando’s customers shared a table, or to block off areas.

‘To make it more interactive and to bring home the Nando’s experience, I created two opportunities: one to showcase our Hot Young Designers’ patterns,’ Tracy Lee Lynch explains, referring to the patterns created by the 10 finalists of the 2018 Nando’s HYD talent search competition. ‘This way, the young designers also got to earn a licensing fee for the use of their work. We also showcased artwork created by artists who are part of the Spier Arts Creative Block project’

‘At the same time as we are practising social distancing by creating a practical solution, we’re also supporting creativity and showcasing beauty’

Social distancing goes beyond the table, however. Long before customers sit down at a restaurant table, there are many instances where they might find themselves not keeping the necessary distance.

Any design solution had to take a far more holistic look at the restaurant space and experience from the moment customers walk in until they leave: from queuing and paying at the cashier, through to conscious and careful ways of using condiment stations.

As a result, a wide catalogue of items was created together with South African designers such as Dokter and Misses, TheUrbanative, Ashanti Design, Takk, Saks Corner and Pedersen + Lennard.

Pieces include table-blocker screens, clearly marked bollards for the queues, contact-free hand sanitising units with foot pedals and “seat-stoppers” that cleverly indicate which restaurant seats cannot be occupied.

The designs in the range were available not only for Nando’s 1 200 restaurants across the world, but also for other restaurants that were interested.

In this way, they helped bring South African solutionoriented ingenuity, creativity and design thinking a little closer to restaurant patrons around the globe as they kept the necessary distance from each other. O

Sanitising stations by Takk Studio

TOP Social distancing screens by TheUrbanative and Studio Leelynch in collaboration with Naturalis, featuring patterns by Nando's HYD finalists and Creative Block