makingCOMMUNITY

PORT ELIZABETH, SOUTH AFRICA. 2019. 

During the summer of 2019, a team of 11 students, faculty and alumni traveled to Port Elizabeth, South Africa, where they partnered with local community members to design and construct an event- and maker-space from scavenged materials. In terms of timeline, the team spent three days scavenging materials and creating a design that maximized the utility of these found objects, followed by seven days constructing the work. In terms of budget, the final work cost less than $1500.

The resulting maker space provides both a base of operations and useful precedent, through which community members might leverage undervalued or reclaimed materials in order to construct clinics, schools, theaters and other much-needed works. To assist in this process, in the summer of 2020, a small team will once again travel to South Africa to design and construct one such project with our international partners.

PARTICIPANTS: Kevin Kimwelle, Scott Shall, Jason Yeom, Ashraf Hijazi, Ken Humberstone, Nathan Ickes, Stephan Karetnik, Magdalene Kuhns, Bethanie Martin, Emily Reem, Breanna Scranton, and Kayla Thompson.

PARTNERSHIPS: The International Design Clinic, Indalo World, Lawrence Technological University, Nelson Mandela University