13th July 2022

July News: Freehaus’s ‘embassy of optimism’, TOG’s Borough Yards beauty, and the woodturning wonder of Darren Appiagyei

New Creative Enterprise Zones announced in London; Design District gears up for its first birthday; DesignKind explores the intersection of racial and climate justice...

Freehaus has designed the new Africa Centre to radiate welcome and kerb appeal. Image by Taran Wilkhu.

Freehaus’s ‘embassy of optimism’ now open - The Africa Centre is back with a bang

A decade after closing in Covent Garden, a next-generation Africa Centre has arisen in a former office block in Southwark. Smartly and sustainably retrofitted by Freehaus, the space incorporates bright and welcoming interiors by Tola Ojuolape and a design that acknowledges and responds to the diversity of Africa’s culture and the breadth of its diaspora. If you haven’t visited yet, do make sure you get down there before the launch exhibition – featuring Tanzanian artist Sungi Mlengeya – ends on 26 July.

Explore the Africa Centre

The Creative Enterprise Zone programme is designed to preserve and promote creativity in London's neighbourhoods. Image courtesy of Greater London Authority.

GLA expands programme to nurture capital’s creative economy

The Mayor’s Creative Enterprise Zones programme was designed to keep London at the forefront of global creativity. The initiative equips designated local areas with the tools and funding to help creatives get off the ground, and access affordable workspace, education, training and employment.

Four years in, CEZs have proved so effective that the GLA is launching two new zones – Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham – and an £800,000 funding boost across the board. This figure is intended to support 5,000 young people entering the creative industries, as well as securing more than 25,000 sqm of workspace for the sector by 2025.

London gets creative

DesignKind brings together UK designers and creatives from Asia and Africa to explore the intersection of race and climate justice. Image courtesy of British Council.

British Council launches DesignKind

Overall, People of Colour are least responsible for the climate crisis and yet suffer disproportionately from its effects. In response, the British Council, Do the Green Thing and Pentagram have launched DesignKind 2022, a multidisciplinary showcase that pairs UK designers with creatives from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa for a six-week cross-cultural collaboration programme. We’re thrilled that Bisila Noha is among the UK creatives participating – the ceramic artist has teamed up with Nifemi Marcus-Bello to create the digital installation ‘Kindness, Optimism, Community’, exploring Nigerian traditions of recycling and upcycling.

The project includes an online exhibition, The Colour of the Climate Crisis, which will present works from each pairing examining the intersection of racial justice and climate justice, incorporating diverse mediums, themes and perspectives.

Read more and view the exhibition

For artist and craftsman Darren Appiagyei, woodturning is a way to explore and connect with natural materials.

Meet Darren Appiagyei, the master craftsman and woodturner on the rise

We welcomed Darren Appiagyei to the Zetteler office last week, one of Cockpit Arts ever-impressive contingent of master craftspeople. Having turned heads at London Craft Week, the Garden Museum and Homo Faber in recent years, Darren now exhibits his sculptural vessels around the world, while pursuing his intuition-led woodturning practice exploring unusual materials and techniques.

Darren’s own story is every bit as fascinating as the objects he creates. Having grown up as a young carer, looking after his mother from the age of 10 until her death when he was 26, he is devoted to underlining the plight of young carers and using his experience to inform and inspire others. If you’d like to talk to him – and you really should – let us know.

Check out his work

Render of TOG at Borough Yards courtesy of TOG.

TOG launches new workspace at Borough Yards

On the edge of Borough Market – not far from the new Africa Centre – Borough Yards is an ambitious project to redevelop an ex-industrial pocket of the city into a bold social, cultural and shopping hub for South London. At the heart of it is the new flexible workspace designed by David Thulstrup for TOG, an ingenious weaving-together of an old warehouse and a new-build that responds to the mediaeval heritage of the area, and the surrounding brick railway arches.

With images yet to be released, TOG at Borough Yards already one of the most exciting destination developments to launch in London in recent years. Interiors are modern, elegant, and full of delightful tactile detail. We first took a tour when it was still very much a work in progress and it was pretty impressive then – now it looks incredible.

The new Design Can Jobs Board is committed to publishing full salary details of every vacancy. Identity by Cha Chaan Teng.

Design Can launches jobs board

Design Can was founded in 2019 in response to the lack of diversity, representation and equity of opportunity in the creative sector. Until now, the campaign has been largely maintained by Sabine alongside ad hoc support from Zetteler’s editorial team (more recently with Bisila Noha’s brilliant co-management), but is now ready to take the steps to self-sufficiency, supported by a wonderful team of industry patrons (massive early thanks to Kickstarter, Pearson Lloyd and the RDI!) and the new Jobs Board.

Introducing a new green colourway to the Design Can palette, the board will give creative companies a new, one-of-a-kind platform to advertise vacancies (always with transparent salary details) and attract mould-breaking candidates from Design Can’s thousands-strong network, helping them both find the best talent and contribute to a more diverse and equitable industry. So if you’ve a creative job to advertise soon, you know where to come!

How to advertise

Design District's creative community is every bit as diverse and wide-ranging as its architecture. Image by Taran Wilkhu.

Design District’s first birthday bash

In the year since opening, Design District has gone from architectural experiment to thriving creative hub, with 92% of its spaces now filled and a buzzing and varied creative community calling it home. During LDF in September, the district will officially mark its first birthday with a weeklong programme of creative workshops, discussions, open studios and one-of-kind-experiences, centring on members club/workspace Bureau.

The schedule will include a range of creative-industry thought leaders exploring the most pressing topics facing the sector – as well as plenty of opportunity to eat, drink and be merry. We’ll keep you posted as soon as the itinerary is finalised.

Read more about Design District

Accelerate's summer show displays work from next-generation architects at Design District. Image courtesy of Accelerate.

Accelerate hosts summer exhibition

Born out of the Open City project, Accelerate is an initiative to make architecture and city-making more accessible career options for marginalised 16–18 year-olds. This year – in partnership with the Bartlett, UCL and Central Saint Martins, UAL – Accelerate has given 60 students on the verge of higher education access to a programme of skills workshops, mentoring and guidance with their applications. The aim is not only to secure opportunities for those who might otherwise not have access to them, but also to change the make-up of the architecture sector, such that it is actually representative of the communities it serves.

Until Wednesday (13 July), you can catch the extraordinary work produced by this year’s cohort at – appropriately – Design District. Zetteler is a proud patron of the programme, so if you’d like to talk to Siraaj Mitha, head of Accelerate, get in touch.

See the show

Copenhagen is recognised for the human-first focus of its architecture, infrastructure and civic ethos. Image courtesy of Monocle.

Copenhagen named world’s most liveable city

“It feels like a human city” – that was our own Rupert’s verdict on spending time in Copenhagen for 3daysofdesign last month: “More cycling, more walking, more clean air… more time, perhaps.” It is these characteristics that have helped take Copenhagen to the top of Monocle's annual city survey for another year.

For the last 15 years, the global media brand has published a top 25 of the world’s most liveable cities. Determined using a combination of hard data (crime figures, income disparities, ambulance response time, etc) and insider lived experience from Monocle’s network of correspondents, the top 25 is a reflection of what matters most to urban dwellers today and how what we want from our cities has changed in the era of Covid.

Copenhagen is joined in the top five by Zürich, Lisbon, Helsinki and Stockholm – find the rest of the list in Monocle’s July issue, out now.

View the top 25

What else?

• The London LGBTQ+ Community Centre, initially planned to be a one-year pop-up, has just been given the go-ahead from Southwark Council to stay in its current premises for another five years!

• The fabulous Yinka Ilori (sometime mentor of Darren Appiagyei, above, btw) has his own show at the Design Museum this autumn, kicking off on 6 September.

• The Hayward Gallery’s current exhibition, In the Black Fantastic is a visionary, must-see show.

• Riposte founder Danielle Pender’s book Watching Women and Girls is out now – essential reading for anyone who is, will become, or has ever met, a woman.

• Zetteler’s ears have been glued to the Tortoise podcast Londongrad, a step-by-step guide to how the Lebedevs bought their way to the top of British public life.

• Finally, if you’re itching for a summer holiday but don’t fancy taking a plane, allow us to point you towards Byway Travel, our go-to for inspiringly curated flight-free adventures.