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Background
In the times that we live in the focus of land development has been mostly reduced to the mantras of location, timing, short term needs and financial killings, whereas what is really needed is a deeper understanding of the highest form of human settlement, the creative community.
From the outset the purpose of the development of Karoo Square has been to slowly build a creative community where the members would be free to, through innovation and the pursuit of uncommon ideas, get past the perceptions that limit our notion of the possible. Once this can be achieved, there exists endless possibilities to design and create environments which are conducive to living consciously, the experience of simple beauty, culture as a way of life and ultimately personal happiness.
An ongoing objective of the Karoo Square community is to spread the knowledge and skills which flow from the creative processes of its different hubs. As education is regarded by the community as one of the most important long term needs of our society regular workshops and classes are held where the useful results of experiments in sustainable architecture, pottery, art, horticulture, graphic and textile design, culinary art and other disciplines are taught.
Ecologically sensitive design and sustainable building are the guidelines in the development of the project. Juliana's Golden Mole, a red data list species thrives on the property and is fiercely protected.
The components
Karoo Cafe
The Karoo Cafe offers a kind of environment, a habitat similar to that we find in nature: A spot with bits and pieces of wood, wire and other odds and ends attracts crows. They are comfortable there and prefer it to a stretch of open water with lots of fish and big trees which is the habitat of fish eagles.
The Karoo Cafe is the home of like-minded individuals, a gathering place of people with the same mentality. Claude Monet created a series of cafe paintings that portray the cafe as a free-and-easy environment in which free thinkers, writers and artists, and ordinary citizens could come together to experience the diversity and prosperity of nineteenth century France. For Monet, the Cafe was a symbol of everything that was free from the restraints of traditional thought and it epitomized modern Parisian life. Monet claimed that the convivial atmosphere of the cafe was the ideal city center for the formulation of new ideas as he said, "they kept our wits sharpened, they encouraged us with stores of enthusiasm that for weeks and weeks kept us up until the final shaping of the idea was accomplished. From them we emerged tempered more highly, with a firmer will, with our thoughts clearer and more distinct" (qtd. Dees).
We agree with the philosopher Lau Kwong Fook when he says that such a cafe should be.....
- A place where all your ideas are taken seriously An opportunity to travel at the speed of thought. A workout for your mind. A time when ignorance is an asset
- A chance to study life, death, between and beyond
- A time to answer queries you never thought you had
- A time to wonder if unicorns are real
- A chance to discover your own thoughts
- An island of reason in an ocean of pride and prejudices
- A time to reactivate a mind deadened by routine
- A trek to explore the world of ideas
- A chance to rediscover the child in you
- An adventure you should try at least once in your life
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