What Design Can’t Do: But can placemaking?

In Cape Town, where the legacy of apartheid's structural design deeply divides and persists, can community-led placemaking truly bridge the gap? This evening features a film screening and lecture by urbanist Rashiq Fataar, CEO of Our Future Cities, a South African-based urbanism practice and think-tank operating at the intersection of policy, the public realm, and urban development. The session questions the limits of design when facing deep social injustice, centring on a screening of Good Hood Stories Season 4. Hosted and produced by Fataar, this short film tracks resident-led tactical urbanism in the historically marginalised, high-crime townships of Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, and Mitchells Plain on Cape Town's periphery.

Following the film, Fataar will deliver a short lecture titled "What Design Can’t Do." Drawing on 15 years of work, the talk moves past global design trends, where tactical urbanism is so often driven by property developers and private funding, to focus on the everyday questions he and Our Future Cities have grappled with on the ground. How does the nature of placemaking change when it is stripped of private investment and formal backing? Is it actually a form of urban design, or an entirely different category of work? Are we genuinely building the essential 'soft infrastructure' that communities need to survive when formal systems fail? And how do we honestly connect temporary, bottom-up interventions to the drivers of urban development?

Programme

17:30 Doors open

18:00 - 18:40 Lecture by Rashiq Fataar, including and screening of short film.

18:40 - 19:30 Q&A

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About Rashiq Fataar
Rashiq is an urban strategist and the founder of Our Future Cities, a Cape Town-based consultancy and think tank delivering research, strategy, and engagement to shape better cities. Rashiq has contributed to urban dialogues, exhibitions, and strategy processes in cities worldwide.