Category African Journal

Alternative Posh

David Stairs

Malian terra cotta beads
Bling. When you start seeing it on Nike sneakers you’ve got to know it’s everywhere. But there are alternatives to manufactured bling if you know where to look for them.
When I lived in India and Africa I used to hang out at the open air markets…. Continue Reading →

Annals of Design: To Light the Darkness

David Stairs
Recently I was working on an article for a design periodical when I hit on the idea to compare an American brand icon to an African DIY counterpart. It was not a fair comparison.

The American product was the Coleman pressurized lantern,… Continue Reading →

Building One’s Mother a House

David Stairs
On Christmas Day one year we visited our friend Kasule Kizito, who was staying at his home in Masaka. We traveled to Bukalavu taxi stage by matatu, where Kizito met us and took us to his home…. Continue Reading →

Social Design and Micro-Manufacture

David Stairs

Way back in 2011 I first wrote about a wonderful device my friends in South Africa had come up with. Known as Eva, the Arivi paraffin stove had been an INDEX competition finalist in 2009,… Continue Reading →

The Kingdom of DIY

David Stairs

Homemade hotplates
Some of the most interesting places in modern day Kampala are the tinsmith’s stalls opposite the Balikuddembe Market. Here sheet metal is daily transformed from dross into useful implements for household chores. The scope of activity is only limited by the workman’s imagination as numbers of boxes and appliances are tinkered together…. Continue Reading →

“The Man”

David Stairs

The Original Omusajja along Entebbe Road
Along the highway leading from Uganda’s former colonial capital Entebbe to its modern capital Kampala there is a landmark that characterizes colonialism in a nutshell. Known as “Omusajja ku luguudo lweNtebbe” or just “Omusajja” for short in Lugandan,… Continue Reading →

The Roadside Bazaar

David Stairs

When we speak of malls today Americans generally mean the air-conditioned, all-inclusive mega-mall with its food court and full-service-everything. But when I was a kid growing up in upstate New York such things didn’t exist, or, if they were being developed in cold places like Southdale Center (1956) we didn’t know about it…. Continue Reading →

Thrift

David Stairs

Slingshot made from bicycle innertube
I’ve talked many times about how successful African DIY design is when it comes to recycling materials. Most African nations are not heavily industrialized, except those involved in mining, so technology and manufactured goods are often imported…. Continue Reading →

Gridlock

David Stairs

Completion of Kampala’s Northern Expressway has been plagued by delays in right-of-way acquisition
Returning to Uganda for the first time in ten years has held a few surprises. The charm of its people, and the beauty of Uganda’s countryside are unchanged,… Continue Reading →

Educating Evelyn

David Stairs
I first met Evelyn Nambooze as a shy, pretty girl of thirteen in 2006 in a partly finished building near Bombo, Uganda when I served lunch to her and some other kids at James Lutwama’s place. James and I had been friends since he’d first approached me outside my apartment at Makerere University in 2001 hoping to collaborate…. Continue Reading →

For the Love of Cows

David Stairs

Ankole cattle grazing on the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda
First of all, this story has nothing to do with cattle, but everything to do with wealth and its distribution. In December 2012 I talked a group of students into helping me attempt to raise money online for an African NGO run by an amazing friend of mine…. Continue Reading →

An Affordable Child Carrier For Africa

Cansu Akarsu

During my short career as a designer I have been a true nerd, spending all my free time participating in every workshop and design competition I found from all fields. Life is easy when you are learning,… Continue Reading →

The Beauty of Cooperation

David Stairs
Ask a group of student designers, any group, to develop a campaign while working in a large cohort, and they’re likely to react the way my Central Michigan University students did when I first made an unconventional proposal to them back in November 2012…. Continue Reading →

When Did Everyone Become a Villager? An Open Letter to Julie Lasky

David Stairs

Dear Julie—
I’ve been watching with a mixture of mild horror and benign amusement the recent fascination that Africa engenders in Western design circles. It’s inevitable, I suppose, that that portion of the human world known by the UN as the LDC (Least Developed Countries) would become some sort of 21st century refuge,… Continue Reading →

What Well-Dressed Designers Are Wearing

David Stairs

Upon meeting Kabaka Mutesa I, King of the Baganda, in 1878, Henry Morton Stanley was favorably impressed. In Through the Dark Continent, among the many journal observations regarding his visit to the shores of Lake Victoria,… Continue Reading →

21st Century African

An irresistible object, a homeless man and the future economy of the world
Tasos Calantzis
On a chilly late autumn afternoon the curator of one of Europe’s most prestigious art and design museums clicked through images of a new wooden vase and immediately ordered 8 pieces via e-mail for sale in the museum store…. Continue Reading →

Stimulus Package

David Stairs
Kasule Kizito is not your everyday Ugandan. For one thing, he’s too direct. He says what he thinks without undue regard for taboos or political correctness. In an oral culture this of itself is amazing. For example,… Continue Reading →

Marley & Barack

David Stairs
I was trudging through my local neighborhood big-box megastore the other day en route to my weekly rendezvous with groceries when I found myself in what passes for the book section. This isn’t a Borders experience;… Continue Reading →

A Tale of Two Pasis

Laundry problems solved by vernacular

Mr. Williams’ Study Collection

The origins and development of Uganda’s first product design program

Selling Connectivity

Cell phone marketing in Africa

Choosing a New Kitenge

Being fitted for Sunday-go-to-meeting duds Ugandan style

Putting Fiber in Day-to-Day Life

Ugandans make a valuable resource out of banana leaf fiber

Oh Bring My Bamboocha To Me

Obversations on soda pop marketing in Africa

Poles

The things that hold Kampala up

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