Just Spatial Design ZA (JSD_ZA) is an initiative that seeks to draw, collect, and share perspectives, resources, and learnings from a diverse network of organisations, practices, students and various other entities and individuals who are working towards Spatial Justice through spatial design in our cities.
The framing of these design approaches is born from a critical recognition of the complexity of Spatial Inequality in South(ern) African life and the subsequent exclusion of the grass-roots people, neighborhoods and collectives most affected by this from the ‘professionalised’ aspects of re-development efforts.
Aims
JSD_ZA aims to act as both a resource and platform for those working in this sector to share their experiences, pose critical questions or explore early ideas related spatial development practice. It aims to provide an easy-to-access resource for design-based students, practitioners or researchers working in this sector:
- To provide a platform for spatial design practitioners to share crucial and nuanced perspectives/ideas or provocations in this sector
- Concepts for Practice
- Tools/Toolkits
- Links to other organisations/practices/resources
- Literature
- Local & Global Practitioners Profiles
- To house a testing/thinking/reflecting space for early ideas and perspectives from the contributors (back of house)
- Frame nuanced/niche ideas in this sector
- Give a platform to emerging voices
- Create space for new ideas and concepts
Background
The platform was originally created as a teaching and reflective writing through 1to1 – Agency of Engagement and various lecturers and students, but is now curated by an independent editorial board. This platform seeks to build a digital space to share and include a diverse set of voices and perspectives on the intersections and overlaps of design, spatial development and spatial justice in South Africa.
JSD_ZA is the current form for this process, and aims to become a larger and more diverse digital support space for design practitioners who are working towards spatial justice in the field of spatial re/development in South Africa.
This iteration of the platform has been seed funded by 1to1 – Agency of Engagement.
Jus't Spatial Design ZA 