Design

Design Indaba videos: Doung Anwar Jahangeer

12 March 2009

Design Indaba 09: architect Doung Anwar Jahangeer talks about his Spaza-de-move-on project – winner of the inaugural SOUTH award at Design Indaba conference and expo in Cape Town last month – in this eighth movie in the series.

The project is a mobile shop for street hawkers, incorporating a seat and fold-out display table into a trolley on wheels. See our previous story for more information.

Here’s some information from Design Indaba:

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The Spaza-de-move-on by Doung Anwar Jahangeer won the inaugural SOUTH award at the 2009 Design Indaba.

In early 1960s South Africa, ‘Café-demove-ons’ were present wherever there were substantial numbers of workers or city passers-by in need of refreshment. Vendors were frequently arrested in police raids and fined or imprisoned.

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has witnessed the phenomenon of rapid urbanisation. Thousands of workers commute daily between townships and cities to earn their livelihoods. This has sparked a rebirth of the trade in refreshments, loose cigarettes, sweets and chips along pedestrian routes. As in the past, vendors face harassment by the powers-that-be.

“The Spaza-de-move-on is a design response to the need for an efficient, easily-transportable solution for vendors. Its evolution involved bottom-up collaboration with Moses Gwiba, a street vendor with whom I have formed a relationship over a number of years as a pedestrian in the city of Durban. His hail – ‘When you make something for me?’ – inspired this South African solution.”