Estate Living Magazine Design for living - Issue 42 June 2019 | Page 4

EA THE FOUNDER/CEO Jaimé-Lee Gardner [email protected] COO/PUBLISHER Louise Martin [email protected] GROUP SALES DIRECTOR Michele Jones EDITOR Jennifer Stern GOLF EDITOR John Cockayne SENIOR SUBEDITOR Thea Grobbelaar CREATIVE Peter Batistich AMBASSADORS Jenelle Oosthuizen Shamiela Roubain CONTRIBUTORS Helen Grange Francois Schoeman Great lifestyles don’t just happen – they have to be planned, designed. And that involves far more than deciding what colour curtains to hang, or where to put the couch. Designing for living is so much more: deciding where and how to live, and thinking creatively about some of the everyday decisions that can – if we’re not careful – become dull, routine habits. rolling blackouts and water restrictions have finally brought home to us that we really do need to rethink how we live, we also don’t want to decrease our quality of life. So we need to think creatively and out of the box. Lawns, for instance. Do you really want a lawn, or do you want to change the way you think about private open space, and contribute to saving water? So it’s important that developers, managers, HOAs, bodies corporate and even individual residents approach estate living creatively – with an open mind, and a little outside-the-box thinking. And, if you still doubt the effect of global climate change, look at what happened not far from us – the city of Beira has sunk out of the headlines through a process of disaster fatigue, but that doesn’t change the fact that, without a great deal of concerted effort, it may well be the first city in the world to be wiped off the map by climate change. As always, we bring you some great estates – including the fabulous Monaghan Farms, that offers the best of urban and rural living – and, thinking outside the box a little, we’ve explored one of South Africa’s most underrated provinces: the Eastern Cape. And, wow, there is so much there. No-one can claim the credit for the province’s incredible natural attractions, but many municipalities – like Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (PE) – and estates have used awesome design principles to make life easier and, yes, more beautiful for residents and visitors alike. But there’s more to consciously designing for living than great buildings, stunning urban art, and fabulous facilities. Tessa Buhrmann Martin Hatchuel Brendan Dale Mark van Dijk Natalia Rosa Chantal Lailvaux Channing Arndt Claudia Ringler Helen Swingler Robyn Walker How we invest also impacts how we live. And, in the spirit of ubuntu, and because, well, that’s just the way it is, how our neighbours live affects how we live. So we’ve explored the benefits of investing in affordable housing – the social and security ones are obvious, so we’ve concentrated on the financial ones because there seems to be some doubts and some debate there. And, while the realities of Some of the latest technological achievements can contribute towards actively creating the lives and lifestyles we desire. Take, for example, the superbly brilliant concept of making bricks out of urine and sand, with fertiliser as a by- product – all out of a resource we usually just flush away. But some technological innovations are not quite so win-win. Facial recognition, for example, can positively impact quality of life by making estates more secure. Or – and, yes, let’s be open-minded here – it can possibly impact negatively by seriously compromising residents’ privacy. There’s no easy answer to this one, and that’s what consciously designing one’s life is all about – carefully considering all the objectives with an open mind, and realistically acknowledging the consequences of our choices. And, more importantly, realising that – at every turn – we do have a choice. ESTATE-LIVING.CO.ZA Danielle Biggar JJ Currie FRONT COVER Park Central parkcentral.co.za COPYRIGHT 2019: Golden Acer (Pty) Ltd t/a Estate Living. The opinions and views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of Golden Acer (Pty) Ltd t/a Estate Living. The publisher and editor can regretfully not accept any liability for omissions or errors contained in this publication. The ownership of registered trademarks is duly acknowledged. No part of this publication or any of its content may be reproduced, digitally stored or transmitted in any format without the express permission of the publisher. Estate Living is a registered trademark of Kapital Investment (Pty) Ltd.