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SHIFT

CITYSCAPES MAGAZINE

THE CITY SHOW

SELECTED PROJECTS

Ideas & Provocations

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Our work is focused on three areas: how cities work, how people live, and new ideas and directions, and tools on how we will live together in the immediate and distant future

2026

Shift

Our most developed expression of CS Studio’s approach, SHIFT, is a mobile system for collective learning, strategy, and action, designed to work across contexts. It is a biannual, themed, portable system of tools for studying, organising, and collective decision-making. It includes stories, research, games, music and various other tools.

ALL REGIONS EXPERIMENTS How Cities Work How People Live

Architecture, otherwise

This third edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial is a curatorial project on an entirely different scale, developed with curator and anthropologist Vyjyanthi Rao. It reframes architecture as something quite different: a process-driven, context-rooted practice oriented toward rebuilding the collective. But it’s also, quite deliberately, questioning what architectural practice actually means—and the very format of the entire mega-triennial event.

Exhibition New ideas & Directions

2025

An Unstoppable Force

A campaign for the Urban2063 coalition to engage the G20 on the central role of cities in African development. Convened by the African Centre for Cities, the work combined research, a special report, a scripted podcast series, and coordinated media to shape policy debates.

Campaign Design & Policy How Cities Work Sub-Saharan Africa

The City Show, s3, ep2

Life in Full Colour

Everyday urban life across three African cities. In Nairobi’s Mathare, Gathanga Ndungu works with women activists on safety and accountability; in Lusaka, Mildred Musonda Nkole keeps a roadside café running through power cuts and economic strain; and in Cairo, May al-Ibrashy and the women of Athar Lina show how caring for old buildings is inseparable from livelihoods and identity.

Regions How Cities Work How People Live Publishing

2024

Miners Memory & Futures Museum

Concept development for an independent public institution honouring the mineworkers whose labour shaped Johannesburg. The project reframed corporate responsibility as long-term civic legacy, balancing historical accountability, curatorial autonomy, and future-oriented public value.

Consultancy How Cities Work How People Live Ideas & Concepts Research Sub-Saharan Africa

CS#11

Ready for Primetime

The global appeal of Afrobeats has taken Nigerian music far across its borders. More quietly, Nigerian cuisine has done the same, with a growing number of high-end restaurants opening in London and earning Michelin recognition, driven by confidence, craft, and demand.

Magazine How People Live

2023

The City Show

Riyadh – The Long Road Home

In episode three of season 2, Vivian Nereim on Riyadh’s rapid remaking as Saudi Arabia reshapes its capital. Kenyan domestic worker Sarah David on the realities of moving through the city, and transport expert Benjamin de la Peña questions global, one-size-fits-all transit models and the need to decolonise how change is imagined.

Season 2 The City Show

2022

MULTIPLICITY

An exhibition for the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Multiplicity examined how architecture is being forced to rethink its methods, assumptions, and sense of purpose as it confronts conditions that no longer fit neatly within the limits of site, client, brief, or discipline.

All Regions Exhibition New Ideas & Directions

THE GOOD NEIGHBOUR

An exploratory corporate–community engagement in Salt River, Cape Town, examining how a large organisation might strengthen local civic capacity beyond symbolic participation. The work surfaced the structural barriers that often prevent well-intentioned initiatives from moving into action.

Consultancy How People Live Intervention New Ideas & Directions Research Sub-Saharan Africa

CS#10

POLITICS IS ESSENTIAL

In 2016, after gaining recognition for his work in Rio—particularly on the Sitiê Ecological Park in Vidigal—architect and urban designer Pedro Henrique de Cristo was forced to leave the project after receiving credible threats to his life. The experience became a political turning point that reshaped how he understood his practice.

Magazine

2021

The City Show

MUMBAI —
BUILT UP, FED UP

Season 1, Episode 2 examines how Mumbai’s skyline was reshaped after the state granted private developers broad commercial development rights in exchange for the promise of free housing for the city’s poor.

Season 1 The city Show

2020

Complexities

A project developed in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Superdiversity. It started as a commission: stress test a new interactive technology the institute had developed and create proof-of-concept curatorial content for it. That was the starting point. But the project evolved. The exploratory scope sprawled across multiple cities and media types. Then the pandemic hit, and everything had to be rethought. By the time we abandoned it at the end of 2022, it had begun to take a new shape that would eventually become SHIFT.

All Regions Exhibition How Cities Work How People Live Research

2019

CS Praxis

A gathering of 20 activists, researchers, scholars, designers, writers, and cultural producers from across the Global South, convened to test the viability of forming a collective to support each other’s work. The initiative did not solidify into a lasting structure, but the conversations and lessons generated directly informed subsequent projects and working methods.

CS Praxis Convening

CS Live

Hacking the Future

A public event featuring Lesley Lokko (Africa Futures Institute), Michael Uwemudimo (CMAP), Tolullah Oni (Urban Better), and James Shen (People’s Architecture Office), in conversation with Edgar Pieterse, examining how their practices are working for a different future, and being reworked to respond more directly to the needs of the communities they serve. The speakers were participants in the CS Praxis exploration.

Convening

2018

CS#9

Passages

Focused on movement and mobility, issue #9 featured writing by former National Geographic editor Matthew Shirts, who spent time with Brazilian activist Carmen Silva; writer Yepoka Yeebo, who attended the Notting Hill Carnival in the shadow of the Grenfell Tower fire; South African urban planner and writer Tanya Zack, who contributed a piece on Johannesburg’s uneasy Somali community; Samanth Subramanian, who spoke with Suketu Mehta about immigrant life in Donald Trump’s America; and Omar Nagati reflecting on activist planning in post-revolution Cairo. Pakistani illustrator Hazem Asif produced the cover art.

Magazine

2017

CS#8

Asia South

With a focus on South Asian cities, issue #8 brought together strong writing from journalists, researchers, activists, and others across the region—from Dhaka to Peshawar, Delhi to Kathmandu. Highlights included Zeeshan Khan in conversation with Shahidul Alam, Taran Khan on everyday life in Kabul, and Ikhtisad Ahmed’s portrait of daily life in Dhaka. The issue would not have been possible without the support of Delhi-based publisher and editor Arpita Das and the Indian Institute for Human Settlements. The cover image is from the series “Skate Girls of Kabul” by British photographer Jessica Fulford-Dobson.

Magazine

2016

CS#7

Futurity

Issue #7 of Cityscapes Magazine explored how the future is imagined by urbanites and urban thinkers across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Contributors included philosopher Achille Mbembe; writer Robert Neuwirth; architect, novelist, and educator Lesley Lokko; Latin American urbanist Alfredo Garay; and science-fiction writers Nnedi Okorafor and Lauren Beukes. The cover image is from Nigerian comics writer Roye Okupe, taken from his series, E.X.O: The Legend of Wale Williams.

Magazine

In Context

Part of the Rotterdam Architecture Biennial, an exhibition tracing Africa’s rapid urbanisation, its histories, and emergent ideas shaping urban futures. Directed by Sydelle Willow Smith and Rowan Atkinson of Makhulu, the film was remixed and edited by VJ Inka Kendzia. It was part of a larger installation titled Next Africa.

Africa Exhibition How Cities Work How People Live New Ideas & Directions Provocation

2015

Life Around Here

A series of short films examining everyday life on the margins of three of South Africa’s largest public transport interchanges. Produced in collaboration with filmmaker Simon Taylor, the films were commissioned by Arup to better understand the diverse users of these hubs and the overlapping social, economic, and informal activities that shape how they function.

Research

2014

CS#6

A City Desired

Issue #6 of Cityscapes Magazine accompanied the sprawling exhibition of the same title. It presented narrative profiles of 10 Cape Town residents, each reflecting a different way of living, while tracing where their lives intersected and how their aspirations and visions for the city’s future overlap. The cover features Cape Town farmer Kieyaam Ryklief, photographed by Oliver Kruger.

Magazine

The City Desired

Examining inequality, aspiration, and competing visions of the city’s future, this interactive exhibition closely tracked the lives of 10 Capetonians. Using interactive graphics, film, and other media, it traced a path through the city’s fractured socio-economic spectrum.

Magazine

The Violence Interruptor

Every night, reformed gang member Colin Barends walks the streets of Hanover Park, one of Cape Town’s most violent neighbourhoods, trying to keep the peace. With colleagues from CeaseFire, an anti-gang violence organisation active since 2012, he works as a violence interrupter to prevent conflict between the Cape Flats’ most notorious gangs. This film, in collaboration with director Simon Taylor, is one of 10 produced as part of The City Desired project.

Magazine

2013

CS#5

Design Will Not Save the City

Issue #5 begins from a clear, optimistic position: design alone will not save the city—but citizens still can. Moving beyond debates about “good” or “bad” design, the magazine focuses on people as active agents reshaping urban life, particularly in the Global South. Through cases from Brazil and critical conversations on citizenship, it asks who cities are designed for, who is excluded, and what limits participation faces—framing urban change through infrastructure, politics, and five deep logics common to cities everywhere.

Magazine

CS#4

After Informality

The issue opened with a feature on Soweto’s transformation by Joonjo Mdjogolo. It was followed by Joseph Dana’s examination of the precarious lives of Ethiopian Jewish migrants in Jerusalem—drawn by the promise of safety, only to find themselves facing persistent prejudice and exclusion. Shifting continents, Yepoka Yeebo reported on the largely unseen community of West African traders in Guangzhou, China. The issue also included a tribute to Congolese music legend Franco.

Magazine

2012

CS#3

The Smart City

In the years leading up to 2012, the phrase “Smart City” was everywhere—and meant something different depending on who was using it. Issue #3 set out to interrogate that slipperiness: what the term actually signified, how it manifested on the ground, and why the dissonance mattered. Tracing the idea from Rio de Janeiro to Lagos, the issue followed its real-world consequences. Features included an interview with Theaster Gates, then a little-known artist, and a finely observed piece on the work of Satyajit Ray.

Magazine

CS#2

BUREAUCRATICS

Emboldened by the largely positive response to Cityscapes #1, issue #2 turned its attention to bureaucracy and urban government. The magazine ranged widely: an interview with the then mayor of Mogadishu, Mohamud Noor; a sharp, laugh-out-loud reflection on the newly launched Konza City by the late Binyavanga Wainaina; reporting on Bangalore’s transformation by Hemangini Gupta; and an interview with Congolese filmmaker Djo Tunda wa Munga on his film Viva Riva.

Magazine

2011

CS#1

“URBAN THINGS”

The inaugural issue of Cityscapes Magazine, co-edited by designer Tau Tavengwa, journalist Sean O’Toole, and researcher Camaren Peter, was a first attempt at what felt like a near-impossible project. It is arguably earnest to the point of self-seriousness. Built largely on goodwill and favours, it brought together writing from fellow travellers who believed in what was being attempted—a conversation between urbanist AbdouMaliq Simone and Achille Mbembe, Edgar Pieterse in dialogue with Aromar Revi of IIHS, Akin Adesokan writing on Nigerian pioneer Herbert Macaulay, and contributions from strategist Tolu Ogunlesi, among others.

Magazine