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elxulu studio

@design_residency

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• a design, insights + creative futures practice •
🪑project in residency : #BROTF - Backroom Of The Future™

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By unpacking "Negotiating Interior Designs' Contextual Relevance in South Africa" as part of our [Paper to Practice 01] series, we want to see how the thinking holds up in the world through continued speculative thinking and probing.

The last slide asks, "How does your space tell the story of your life?" and an equally important question is, "Should it?"

What do the objects in your home mean to you?

#africandesign #backroomofthefuture #blackaesthetics by @design_residency

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18 days ago

Part of the project unfolding is observing the re-organising of Black agency — through our own questions, economies, and design histories.

Last year, I was invited by Ziyander Mute to facilitate a sustainable fashion workshop in Thembisa, and the key takeaway was:

Context, context, context is key.

Embedding local narratives into the ideas around sustainability and vice versa made for incredible conversation and insights.

#papertopractice #backroomofthefuture #africandesign by @design_residency

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a month ago

Before there was Johannesburg, there was Kampala!

🧵 Our Lesela as Calico Workshop Series kicked off with Pattern Magic 2 by Tomoko Nakamichi — a hands-on, practice-based dive into pattern-making beyond the Western canon. Participants built their own DIY mannequins, unlearned old techniques, and reimagined patterns in barkcloth.

Just two weeks remaining for participants in and around Joburg to register and take part. 🇿🇦

If you'd like to learn more, please comment using 'Lesela as Calico' in our comments section to gain access to our online information & presentation session on Wednesday the 30th of September 2026 at 19h00 SAST.

Workshop Details:
📍 Transwerke Studios, Braamfontein, Johannesburg
📅 30 September – 21 November 2026
💰 R3,750 per participant (Payment Terms Accepted)
👥 Limited to 10 participants
🎓 No prior qualifications required

Spaces are limited.
See link in bio to complete the registration form and secure your place.

Photography Credit: @mona.okulla.obua
Photography Credit (Slide 3): @ban.tucreations

#AFRI #LeselaAsCalicoworkshop #JoburgCreative #JohannesburgDesign #DesignWeekSouthAfrica by @design_residency

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a month ago

In our first research paper feature in PAPER → PRACTICE 01, authored by Audrey Nanjala @audrey.m.nanjala and Lethabo Xulu @elxulu, looks at key concepts that the #designresidency found interesting: the use of Pinterest and its unintentional promotion of non-intellectual concepts around African design, but rather centring aesthetic and fetishized values, and how design students navigate or avoid ideas of decolonial design.

Follow the series right here in IG. For project deep dives, peep @elxulu studios repository on Patreon. 🔗 in bio.

image credits: An African Design Canon [@an.african.design.canon]. (2024, Sep 11)
"[1-3]: LAUNDRY TABLE[4]: Senufo woman (Gbato group) carrying wash table on her head with laundry basket secured between its four legs"[Pharagraph]. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C_x5Uvft1ej/?img_index=1

#backroomtypology #culturalproduction #africanlifecentricdesign #africandesignfutures #designresidency by @design_residency

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2 months ago

What was meant to be hidden the backroom makes visible.

The various legislative Acts established between 1913-1952 under the National Party created the spatial and economic conditions within which Black domestic consumption—including furniture—had to develop differently.

One of the ways we're beginning to understand Centering the Periphery, an African Life Centric Design principle, is through the simple act of looking again.

Noticing what we might otherwise overlook.

For BROTF, this means considering these six Johannesburg-made and sourced pieces within the backroom — a space that has often existed outside the attention of formal design.

What does the room reveal about the furniture?

And what might the furniture reveal about the room?

Its scale. Its movement. The ways people gather, rest, host, work and make a home.

Perhaps centring the periphery can begin here: not by designing for a space from the outside, but by allowing the space to change what we notice about design.

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Featured :
Untitled green mild steel side table + Umina standing mirror : @neta.studio_za -

Nupe seat, Nigerian origin : @the.trov

Bala bookends + Hillbrow Planter : @everydaygreenco_za

Totem nestled coffee tables : @nativedecor

Design Principles : @africanlifecentricdesign

#BROTF #AfricanLifeCentricDesign #BackroomInteriors #AfricanDesign #SpatialDesign by @design_residency

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2 months ago

The part that held significant tension during this styling process we what we tasked ourselves with: to uphold funtional values above aesthetic values for each piece we brought in and rearranged in the space. The results were quite something.

Keep following as we unpack this first research gathering in the form of interior styling.

#BROTF #africandesignhistories #architecture #tembisa #kasieconomy by @design_residency

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2 months ago

the backroom as a site of #culturalproduction has been conceptual idea thats now a real thing, a structure we want to engage with more publicly. it's been dope to see the people come together in sharing stories, perspectives and insights.

#africandesignhistory #decolonisingdesign #backroominteriors #blackaesthetics by @design_residency

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2 months ago

What happens when we design futures without first understanding the lives already being designed?

Before rearranging and introducing indigenous contemporary furniture and objets into #GladwellSello’s backroom, we began with a conversation.

This project explores the backroom as an African spatial archive—a place where people negotiate space, dignity, work, identity, and belonging.

The backroom is often approached as a historically haphazard structure and a problem to solve. But what might we discover when we approach it as a source of knowledge?

As part of our first project in residency, we ask what is lost when design futures are imagined without centring the people, practices and histories that shape them.

Guided by @africanlifecentricdesign principles, the process begins with listening: to people, place, memory, materials and purpose, a form of #culturalprogramming as rearticulated by @swangs_express

Together with @backroommentality, a creative and cultural convening hub based in Thembisa, which Gladwell co-founded, we explore how African spatial realities can become starting points for new design possibilities.

photography: @simphiwestixmajozi
researcher + thinker: @elxulu
contributor and liaison: @mute_xyander

#DesignHistories #BackroomOfTheFuture #AfricanSpatialDesign #DecolonialDesign #ParticipatoryDesign #AfricanDesignFutures by @design_residency

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2 months ago

When did we start 'feeling' seen? Fashion is always the forerunner to most creative movements, oh, and music.

This project peels one more layer to what was meant to be design that's hidden, yet, this architectual archetype plays a crucial role in building, supporting and educating the development of housing amid a global housing backlog.

enter: BROTF - spatial design research project centring fashion stories and other design typologies.

#backrooms #afromodernism #spatialdesigndevelopment #africanfashiondevelopment #siyikulture by @design_residency

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6 months ago

street side tomatoes aren't just tomatoes, are represent efficiency and intellectual ecosystems that are often spoken of as informal since the structure is undocumented/unrecognised as legitimate.

our cultural moment is shifting ever so rapidly and the Global Majority, in its complexity, is serving fresh perspectives on how we qualify and quantify cultural insights.

sharing what you know and your lived experience can shape the future in profound ways, this @design_residency houses all this inbetween thinking.

#globalmajority #africandesignmatters #typology #designresidency #culturalliteracy by @design_residency

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a year ago