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Saint-Gobain recognises winning social architecture
Wimpy rolls out music playlists
Joburg gets a taste of the Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild selection
Creating winning social spaces
The 2015 Architecture for Social Gains Awards, conceptualised by top-100 industrial group Saint-Gobain to recognise and reward talent in the design of spaces that promote learning and development, was held recently in Johannesburg and produced some unique concepts.
EcoBrick Sample Wall. Photo by Ian Dommisse
Say Evan Lockhart-Barker, MD Weber Saint-Gobain, “The awards really promote and celebrate architecture that positively effects the integration of community and environment for the long-term benefit of both people and planet, complimenting Saint-Gobain’s commitment to support social change and make a difference in the spaces we live, learn, work and play in.”
Entries were received across three categories: Future, Built and Adopt-a-School.
“We were thrilled with the number of online entries received as these awards challenged industry norms; with the call for strictly digital entries, architects were challenged to move beyond the traditional medium of submitting hardcopies of drawings and renderings, and embrace the realm of the video-entry format, which encouraged digital story-telling around submissions,” adds Lockhart-Barker.
People Making EcoBricks at Penguins Preschool. Photo by Threeclouds Photography.
The judges, impressed by the quality of the digital submissions, added an additional award for Best Movie: East Coast Architects used one of the learners of the Vele Secondary School to take the viewer through its project, highlighting every sustainable design feature from the vegetable gardens to the recycling of “grey water” in the bathrooms. This resulted in a documentary-style movie, which made for a refreshing and innovative submission.
According to Lockhart-Barker, the awards saw a new wave of up-and-coming architects entering the fold, as well as submissions from both professional architects and student architects. The People’s Choice award, which invited online public participation, attracted an impressive 8 896 votes in one week.
SVA 2015 Mandela Day Event at Penguins Preschool
The Architecture for Social Gain Awards looks specifically at the following types of building projects:
Education — preschool to high school, colleges, universities, training colleges;
Community — buildings that are multifunctional and offer facilities like training, family law, counselling, AIDS, health education and trauma counseling; and
Development — buildings such as training and sports centres and other facilities focused on human development.
The winners
Category
Architects
Project
Built
Local Studio, Johannesburg
Outreach Foundation Community Centre — Hillbrow, Joburg
Future
KHM Architects, Cape Town
The Market Theatre Foundation Multipurpose facility
Adopt
Kate Otten Architects, Joburg
Motshegofadiwa Primary — Hammanskraal
People’s Choice (2392 votes)
Stauch Voster Architects, Ecobrick Exchange
Penguins Preschool
Best Movie
East Coast Architects, Durban
Vele Secondary School — Limpopo Province
Congrats to the winners, who will be traveling to Paris in October 2015 to take part in the official Saint-Gobain 350th anniversary celebrations.
www.social-gain.co.za • Twitter • Facebook
Wimpy playlists get the nod
Quick-service restaurant chain, Wimpy, is rolling out a new in-restaurant dining experience by introducing selected music for customers. The success of pilot projects in Gauteng has encouraged franchisees nationwide to install the tailored Wimpy Audio Solution.
Moving Tactics, the digital signage solutions company, first piloted the idea at Wimpy restaurants in Sandton and the East Rand Mall and, in the last two months, eight more outlets have installed the new system.
According to Willem van Bosch, solutions development manager at Moving Tactics, “It saves franchisees hours of their time selecting, downloading and maintaining their music selection. We have taken something as simple as music playing in a store and made it a dynamic and personal experience. New songs are added daily as they are released and old songs are removed on a regular basis to keep the playlists fresh and relevant at all times.
“Wimpy franchisees no longer have to concern themselves about unwanted content sneaking into the music being played — worrying about expletives, vulgar language or advertisements being played as part of the music selection.”
Say Sabrina van der Merwe, Wimpy Lydenburg franchisee, “It has saved me a lot of time not having to select and change CDs, and it’s been a relief to have the playlists created and updated for us. If any of the songs chosen don’t go down well with our customers, we can simply request that it be removed, and this is then done with immediate effect. Another benefit has been that we can control the type of music being played on-site instead of having the staff select and play their own selection of music. It is much nicer to have a variety of music that appeals to a broad audience.”
Each Wimpy Audio Solution system installed is tailored to the needs of that specific Wimpy franchisee. •
www.wimpy.co.za • Twitter • Facebook
Winemakers give back
A rare case of handcrafted wine, created by pinotage aficionado François Naudé, is among the charity items to be auctioned in aid of the Cape Winemakers Guild Protégé this year. For the first time, the public will be able to taste the auction wines in Sandton this month as a run-up to the guild’s annual auction in October.
The 31st Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild Auction, of singular wines that have crafted in small volumes exclusively for the auction by guild members, takes place on Saturday 3 October at the Spier Conference Centre, Stellenbosch, Western Cape.
Wine lovers in Johannesburg have the opportunity to taste this year’s auction lineup at the Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild Auction Showcase at the Nedbank Atrium in Sandton, on Wednesday 26 August, from 6pm.
François Naudé
Naudé’s Le Vin de François is described as a blend of the best barrels from some of South Africa’s finest producers. The wine is sold annually at his private auction and this year’s 2013 vintage is a blend of wines from Delheim, Kanonkop, Lanzerac, L’Avenir, Rhebokskloof, Simonsig and Wildekrans.
Since its inception in 2006, the Protégé Programme — a mentorship scheme under the patronage of the Nedbank Cape Winemakers Guild Development Trust, with the goal of effecting transformation in the wine industry — has recruited 17 oenology and viticulture interns, with nine graduates currently working in the industry.
www.capewinemakersguild.com • Twitter • Facebook
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Cheryl Hunter (@cherylhunter) has written for the South African media, marketing and advertising industries for more than 15 years. A former editor of M&M in Independent Newspapers and contributor to Bizcommunity, AdFocus, AdReview and the Ad Annual, she has also produced for various television networks and currently consults on communication strategy and media liaison.
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