Design facilitator: Sandra Githinji

Design can be an opaque and difficult task. Bringing something new into the world requires designers to instrumentalize diverse and complex forms of knowledge. It is little wonder, then, that they occasionally – and unwittingly – rely on unfounded assumptions and limited understandings. At their worst, these shortcomings can maintain or even worsen systemic injustices. Rather than ignoring these blind spots of design practice, Sandra Githinji has endeavoured to cultivate a mode of practice that identifies debilitating assumptions and myopic worldviews and explores methods of ameliorating them.

Sandra Githinji.

Image: Michaela Barca

Designs for interiors, objects, exhibitions and furniture have all formed part of Githinji’s practice. In this diversity of media, she is attentive to opportunities to learn from the unique processes that come with each project. Bloom, a series of vessels, seeks to represent and centre depictions of historic African women. Crowdfunding became not merely an alternative financing model, but also a way to inject a dimension of collectivity into the design. Interactions with contributors generated insights into how others saw the project, providing suggestions for how to position and direct it into the future as well as soliciting challenging questions around the representation of people from other cultures and the boundaries of identity.

Githinji is also attuned to the different kinds of responsibilities entailed in various types of design work. While there might be fewer constraints in object design, the direct impact of spatial design on people’s lives necessitates methods of direct consultation. Her designs for two exhibitions – one concerning the representation of women and BIPOC designers, and the other about the African diaspora – have been important opportunities for testing ways of engaging stakeholders and evaluating a design’s impact. The resulting knowledge and understanding can be employed in other modes of spatial design.

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Designed in collaboration with Beyond The Built Environment, Culture as Creative and the Australian Institute of Architects, the 2022 Melbourne exhibition Say It Loud highlights the work of women and BIPOC designers.

Image: Bonn Creative

Young designers working across disciplinary boundaries sometimes find that inertia in one particular discipline narrows their broader sphere of activity. Consciously countering this effect, Githinji aims to develop strategies, methodologies and perspectives that can be implemented in various domains of design. Collectivism, stakeholder consulting and engagement are at the core of this approach – often they are the only ways to dispel assumptions and expand limited viewpoints. This has meant that, as she moves into new projects, Githinji is positioning herself more as a facilitator than a top-down designer. As with all good design, it will be communities, not just individuals, that will reap the rewards.

Artichoke magazine: What’s the dream project?

Sandra Githinji: A home for my partner and me, in the highlands of Kenya. It’s vernacular, contemporary and aspirational.

Artichoke: It’s your ultimate design dinner party – which four guests are you inviting?

Sandra: Lesley Lokko, Josephine Baker, Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos. It would make for good conversation around cultural production, muses and the capacity for architecture and design to serve as a catalyst for change.

Artichoke: Favourite artwork?

Sandra: Harmonia Rosales’s The Creation of God.