Curate your experience from a dynamic creative programme as Design Week South Africa 2025 lands in Cape Town for the second year.
Cape Town, South Africa – From 23 – 26 October, Design Week South Africa 2025 will travel from a successful run in Johannesburg to the Mother City.
The official opening party will be held at One Park on Friday 23 October, with DJs from both Cape Town and Johannesburg, while the closing party will be held on Sunday 26th at Cape Grace Hotel with Jazz Alley.
In partnership with Bielle Bellingham, Design Week South Africa’s Simone Schultz has curated The Things We Love exhibition — a collection of local creatives’ favourite South African designed and made items intentionally chosen from their homes. Participants include Masego Morgan, Koos Groenewald and Onesimo Bam. The exhibition will run over the course of Design Week South Africa at 107 Castle Street.
Following a successful launch in Johannesburg, Morning Sessions is a new format that brings dialogue out of a formal stage and into the city’s cafes. Each morning from Thursday to Sunday (9:00 – 10:30) over coffee at Max Bagels at One Park, leading creatives will share the ideas, challenges and inspirations driving their practice over coffee at Max Bagels at One Park. Joining the conversation in Cape Town are guests including Yoko Choy, Wallpaper China, Amy Thompson, Yes & Studio, Max Melville, The MAAK and Star Shongwe from The V&A Watershed.
Ari’s Listening Room will pop up again at TONIC’s Cape Town showroom, with sound by Bang & Olufsen. Running from Thursday to Saturday, each two-hour listening session will be facilitated by an artist and vinyl collector.
Exclusive studio tours include designers Laurie Wiid of Wiid Design, Ploy and Guy of Hoi P’loy, Heather Moore of Skinny laMinx, and a tour of the new mixed-use Longkoof Precinct in Park Road by dhk architects and Studio Mass.
All imagery courtesy of Design Week South Africa
Other highlights include launches by Cape Cobra, Curacion Collection, Yamkela Mhlelehlele and a MAISON KOTR installation – supported by CEC – at Arthur’s Mini Super in Sea Point. Furniture designer Tshidzo Mangena of Locha Design will launch his new outdoor furniture collection, Akan, with a lounge installation activating the street outside One Park in Park Road on Friday 23rd October.
Design Week South Africa Founder Margot Molyneux says, ‘The programme is intentionally dense, offering a rich mix of events and experiences. Attendees are encouraged to curate their own journey through the four days when the city itself will be alive with activity, offering countless ways to engage and explore.’
Beyond the City Bowl, Open Langa kicks off on 26 October 2025 with a special Open Streets Day, transforming King Langa Libalele and Lerotholi Avenue into vibrant, car-free public spaces to walk, play and connect. Anchored by the ReBuilt Cape Town exhibition at 16 on Lerotholi by Bauhaus Earth and local partners such as the Masakhe Foundation and African Centre for Cities, the exhibition will be open to the public, and on the 26th the road will be pedestrianised and closed off to cars.
The Active Mobility Forum will lead a community ride from both the CBD and Khayelitsha, marking the start of weekly street closures that celebrate movement, culture and the reimagining of Cape Town’s streets for people.
And for the first time since its launch, the Soweto-Caracas Community Centre will open to the public for a special site visit on Saturday 25 October. Hosted by Young Urbanists and Urban Think Tank Empower (UTTE), the visit offers a rare look inside this landmark in community-led design and local upliftment in Khayelitsha. YU and UTTE will partner with Loop Taxi to provide transport, with security on site. RSVP is essential, as seats are limited to 39 people at a small cost — all proceeds will go directly to the local community.
Young Urbanists member and Design Week curator Roland Postma says, ‘It’s important for any contemporary design programme to be as democratic as possible for the public to interact, but also include design related topics like urban planning to architecture. South Africa is largely an urbanised country, and design holds the keys to not only address apartheid spatial planning but also to forge the contemporary African city — one that doesn’t simply copy the extractive, consumption-driven urbanism of malls, gated estates and golf courses that have drained life from our streets and polluted our cities. Through Design Week, we seek to empower young designers and challenge what the South African dream could be through the better design of our physical spaces.’
Proud sponsor of Design Week South Africa 2025 in both cities, the V&A Watershed encourages visitors to come and see Cape Town’s design story next week. The hub has brought together 300 small creative businesses, where they can share their stories and products with visitors from home and around the world. Over the four days, enjoy an art walk, photo walk, craft and conversation corner, the Artist Alliance Creative Allies exhibition, Zeitz MOCAA tours, a MADE creative workshop featuring Nammu Ceramics, Pichulik and Suzanne Elizabeth, Watershed Maker-led experiences, and more talks. Attendance is complimentary but you must RSVP to secure your spot.
All imagery courtesy of Design Week South Africa
ABOUT THE TEAM :
Design Week South Africa 2025 is curated by South Africans passionate about this country’s design sectors, the creative economy and growing pride and acknowledgement of South African and, more broadly African, design. The core team comprises Margot Molyneux, Zanele Kumalo, Roland Postma and Simone Schultz, while a broader advisory team, including local and international industry leaders, has also been formed, with members announced later this month.
More about the core team:
Having spent 10 years building her namesake clothing studio, Margot Molyneux, a manufacturer and retailer of boutique collections of men’s and womenswear, Margot more recently turned her attention to the world of media, specifically focusing on interiors, architecture and decor, fulfilling the role of Managing Editor of House and Leisure publication and General Manager at independent publisher LOOKBOOK Studio. 2024 brought the launch of, Design Week South Africa, a seemingly natural career transition as she combined her love of design and storytelling with her enthusiasm for the local creative industry and its growth and development.
Since joining the biggest Sunday newspaper and working in various roles at the top lifestyle publications in the country, Zanele Kumalo continues to partner with premium brands to create and lead communities built around the creative economy – art, culture and design. With a twenty-year career in media, marketing and communications that sees her growing the now six-year-old boutique content studio whatzandidnext, she works as the Johannesburg liaison for Soho House Cities Without Houses, a global members club; the founding director of kumalo | turpin, a newly launched contemporary art space in Johannesburg; and on other projects.
Roland Postma believes that building people-first cities is a necessity, not an idealistic goal. With a first class Honours in Urban and Regional Planning from RMIT in Melbourne, he is currently the Managing Director at Young Urbanists NPC, where he aims to inspire a new generation of thinkers and doers around city design and management. Through co-founding the Active Mobility Forum and the public-private partnership Safe Passage Programme with the SDI Trust, he wants to prove that change is possible by providing solutions to local governments around the areas of housing, urban design and transportation.
Following on from her position as editor-in-chief of Asia’s leading design publication, Design Anthology, Simone Schultz brings an international perspective and understanding of the global creative landscape and its evolving narratives. She has spent a decade working with stakeholders in Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa and beyond at the intersection of design and media, helping designers, architects, thought-leaders and brands communicate their stories across mediums, geographies and contexts. Her involvement in Design Week South Africa marks her renewed focus on her home continent, where she will draw on her global experience to help build a window into and a bridge between Africa and the rest of the world.
Visit Design Week South Africa’s Website here
Follow @designweeksouthafrica on Instagram
The Design Week South Africa brand identity was created by Hoick @hoick.
Poster illustration by Koos Groenewald @kooooooos.
Press release courtesy of Design Week South Africa
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