WALKABILITY

FEBRUARY 2020 | URBAN EDITION

Barbara Southworth – Director at Gapp Architects and Urban Planners

Walkability is a feature of cities that work. We like to visit and spend time in walkable places – they are good for business and also more equitable and inclusive. Walkable places offer the young, elderly, poor and disabled more freedom of choice and experience. They are where the places and services that residents, workers or visitors need on a regular basis are located within an easy, safe and enjoyable walk. They feature streets with high levels of pedestrian activity, lots to see and do, as well as multiple movement options for pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders, deliveries and automobiles.

One of the greatest challenges in South African cities is that they have been designed to accommodate the movement of cars and not people. Most design standards and regulations that influence how land is subdivided and how streets are designed tend to favour low-density development, separated land uses and free flow of vehicles over the movement and safety of pedestrians. Besides the unsustainable costburdens placed on households, the state and the environment sprawling low-density places are not walkable. The places people need to be are far apart, requiring some form of private or

Q: Tell us a little about the intricacies of cost, time, and all of the other factors that go into a commissioned piece?

A: The costs for a mural depend largely on how big and how detailed the mural will be. This is to cover the cost of materials. I don’t usually charge for my time, but rather for the value I bring as an artist to a space. However, this depends on the size of the client and how specific they are in terms of what they are wanting. Our studio offers a variety of commercial creative services such as digital illustration, and I prefer working with briefs, but some artists don’t like to work with constraints at all. I do personally like to work together with a client to solve a problem or use my creativity to complement an environment on where it is created. Up until now, I have done murals ranging between R15,000 to R150,000. Something like the “Hope of The Community” mural which I created for the municipality of eThekwini had a budget of R50,000.

Q: What is your aesthetic? Is it important to have a very definitive aesthetic so your work is recognised as yours?

A: I don’t do graffiti. I see firstly myself as a designer, illustrator, artist and then a muralist. I am inspired by street art which has some elements of graffiti influence, but I most certainly don’t do tagging. My aesthetic, however, is largely inspired by African street signage, like the barbershop that has their own hand-painted sign or spaza store that is worn out and textured over the years. This is specifically one of the reasons why most of my work is hand-painted and not spray painted – in most cases, I almost always use PVA and I paint by brush – as I want to retain an African influence in my work. However, in recent times I have started exploring my digital illustrative style in murals. In most cases, my line work is created using masking tape to create crisp clean lines.

This is a lengthy process, like the one I did in New Zealand, but the results are outstanding. The creation of these murals in this crisp format creates an almost high definition print that is of a greater quality than a digital print. There is zero pixelation of the artwork. My aim is to create work that is so clean and precise you have to stop and look at it.

Q: Tell us about your name Resoborg?

A: The studio name is called Resoborg, which is a made up from two different words: Reso, which is short for "resource", and Borg, which is the Swedish word for “centre”, so the company represents the idea of being a “resource centre” for high-end creativity.

ABOUT WESLEY Wesley van Eeden, also known as Resoborg, is an artist, illustrator, graphic designer and muralist who works for clients across the world. The beginning of his career started in Durban, South Africa where he attended Durban University of Technology. Resoborg has explored graphic design, illustration, painting and murals. It is the convergence of all these disciplines that informs his visual style, which infuses into various projects and commissions in these creative disciplines. During his youth, he discovered skateboarding and street art, which has played an influential role in his lowbrow aesthetic. Playing in bands in the early 2000s and making posters for the local music scene, his work is a montage of these “do it yourself” ethics and local African culture that he grew up with. Handmade signage, African patterns and informal African settlements all play a role in his organic approach. His work reflects contemporary global issues found in politics, youth culture, and is driven to seek fresh perspectives with

bold shapes and textures. His paintings and murals reflect his digital illustrations as an attempt to create a graphic style that is complementary to the different disciplines that he is involved in.

www.resoborg.com Instagram: resoborg

WESTBURY TRANSFORMATION CENTRE PROJECT 3

Image By: Kevin Rudham Photography / Motheo Construction MEET THE TEAM

Client City of Johannesburg

Architects Ntsika Architects Nadia Tromp, director

THE SPEKBOOM LABYRINTH Fighting Climate Change & Poverty

Creating labyrinths is a concept that dates back over millennia, and soon, Stellenbosch will be home to the biggest labyrinth in Africa, with the hopes that this landmark will be a major player in neutralising our carbon footprint. The idea of creating a labyrinth came along when social entrepreneur and environmental activist Peter Shrimpton and his team, decided to create – with expert design by Terry de Vries – an 11-circuit Medieval labyrinth, one where visitors can embark on a pilgrimage through it. This initiative looks to fight both climate change in poverty in the community.

The plan is to build the biggest labyrinth in the world made of spekboom trees in order to create an awareness campaign for carbon reduction that grabs global media attention. It has been adapted for cyclists and hikers and will also be open to the public to utilise.

Peter has noted that it all began with 300 trees, three years ago. He initiated the project by going into townships and then inviting underprivileged and unemployed people to grow the spekboom for him. All of the spekboom trees have been grown by previously disadvantaged people, who were given all the materials to grow them.

Peter’s team then started a ‘Treepreneur’ programme, called Wonder Plant, with top performers who each have 25,000 trees. In total, the team planted over 65,000 and now have 164,000 in stock. The investment into the programme thus far has been close to R1.8 million. In total, Peter and his team aim to raise R9 million for the organization.

THE SPEKBOOM PROCESS

The team micropropagated through entrepreneurship in townships, then scaled up to township nurseries – this blossomed into 150,000 spekboom trees!

Where is the labyrinth going to based? It will form part of Stellenbosch Bridge Property Development, which is being built on smart city principles (which will be one of the first smart cities in Africa). This smart city is set to be over 3000 hectres of development, in between Stellenbosch and Klapmuts. The labryinth has been designed by renowned expert, Terry de Vries.

When starting the process, Peter searched for the largest man-made object that can be seen from

Nurture