City Parks receives an award of excellence for its Smart Parks initiative

16 October 2015

Our Cape Town City Parks department was recently awarded for its excellence in the design of smart parks by the Institute for Landscape Architecture in South Africa (ILASA). The Smart Parks project seeks to provide inclusive public spaces for all of our community members who did not previously have access to such facilities.

Meaningful community engagement is key in developing a smart park, where the design and vision for the park are decided on collectively. The Smart Parks concept is aimed at providing public open spaces that are inclusive; encouraging social interaction and the integration of all our communities.

The activities provided for in smart parks accommodate both the young and old. Our first three smart parks are located in Khayelitsha, Blikkiesdorp and Gugulethu. Each is unique in its design to suit the available space and the respective community’s interests and creative input.

Each of our smart parks include custom-made play areas and large trees, paving, low-wall seating and picnic sites that provide places for residents to meet and relax. For those who enjoy being active, there are multi-purpose courts and kick-about areas. We are conscious of the immense value that parks have in neighbourhoods where children do not have spaces where they can play safely.

We plan to develop three more smart parks in Atlantis, Nomzamo and Seawinds next year. The community’s creative ideas will be taken into account when planning and designing and residents are then actively involved in the management of the park.

ILASA calls for submissions for their awards of excellence in six different categories every second year. The submission is judged against the project scope, the project brief and the role of the landscape architect. Our City Parks department submitted a written piece describing the principles set out with the Smart Parks project. The judges then visited all of the completed projects as part of the adjudication process. The Smart Parks project won an award for completed projects in the category above R5 million. This year’s submissions included projects from Cape Town, Johannesburg, North-West Province and included two submissions from outside of South Africa, in Nigeria and Mauritius respectively.  We are so proud of our smart parks and eagerly await their development in new communities.

Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office