Community Talks: Talk 01 Conscious, Collaborative, Contextual

At Some Things, we believe responsible design begins long before a product is made or a space is completed. It begins with conversation. With listening. With questioning the systems, materials, and habits that shape the things we create.

Community Talks was created as an open conversation around sourcing, reuse, and responsible design. A space to reflect on how we make, who we make with, and the responsibility designers carry in shaping the built environment.

Held at the Changemakers Center at Victoria Yards, the discussion brought together designers, makers, suppliers, and curious minds to explore what more conscious design practice could look like in our local context.

Design Beyond Selection

At Studio Something Something, the sister company behind Some Things, we do not design spaces by simply selecting products from catalogues. We design spaces by making, sourcing, reworking, and rethinking materials, objects, and details to carry locality, sustainability, and meaning.

Working across East Africa challenged many of our assumptions around sourcing and production. Attempting to source locally while collaborating with local artisans and navigating material limitations shifted our understanding of design itself. We realised that we were not merely sourcing objects, we were collectively designing them.

This way of working asks us to see sourcing not as procurement, but as part of the creative process.

“We Have Enough Stuff”

One of the central ideas explored during the conversation was simple:

We have enough stuff.

The challenge is not always to produce more, but to reconsider how existing materials, systems, skills, and waste streams can become the starting point for new work.

Throughout the discussion, we reflected on questions such as:

• At what point in a project do we decide something is “waste”?

• Could offcuts, removals, or existing materials become the generator of a design rather than a limitation?

• Are we designing for first life only, or for second and third lives as well?

• What would change if disassembly and reuse were considered from the beginning of the design process?

These conversations continue to shape the way we approach products, interiors, and fabrication at Some Things.

Learning From Material & Craft

The afternoon also explored how traditional making methods and local craftsmanship can inform contemporary design.

From basket coiling techniques using grasses, reeds, raffia, bark, and fibres, to the use of bark cloth known as olubugo by the Baganda people in Uganda, the discussion highlighted how indigenous knowledge systems often embody sustainability through necessity, resourcefulness, and care for material.

Rather than treating craft as decoration, we explored how material intelligence and local making practices can actively shape the way contemporary spaces and objects are designed.

Introspective Sourcing

One of the recurring themes throughout Community Talks was the idea of introspection within design practice.

We asked ourselves:

• Have we ever changed a design decision because of who was making it, not only what it looked like?

• Do we default to convenience suppliers instead of value-aligned ones?

• Could projects be designed around local capability instead of forcing capability to adapt to the design?

• Is responsible design only about materials, or also about protecting skills, livelihoods, and communities?

These questions do not necessarily have fixed answers, but they encourage a slower, more conscious approach to making.

Love as a Starting Point

A sentiment shared during the conversation was the phrase:

“To love and paint.”

Love the earth.

Love what we do.

Love the people we rely on.

The discussion reflected on the idea that genuine care and respect should form the foundation of responsible creation. That perhaps love is what allows us to step into contexts beyond our own and collaborate meaningfully, ethically, and responsibly.

Designing Collectively

Community Talks ultimately reminded us that meaningful design is rarely created in isolation.

It emerges through collaboration between designers, artisans, fabricators, suppliers, communities, and materials themselves. It requires humility, curiosity, and a willingness to rethink familiar systems.

At Some Things, we continue to believe that fabrication thinking, reuse, local sourcing, and collaboration are not secondary considerations. They are part of the design process itself.

And perhaps most importantly, that offcuts, waste, and material limitations are not obstacles, but opportunities waiting to be seen differently.