Shift - CS

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The Challenge

There is a global inequality crisis, and cities are at the heart of it.

From the UN to McKinsey, philanthropists, academics to activists, everyone has an answer. But who should we listen to?

Even when organisations on the ground have brilliant ideas, they often lack the resources to experiment with them. Rapid urbanisation and a lack of infrastructure amid a climate crisis are creating deadly results. Every day there is a new report on the scale of the crisis. How can we convert them into tools we can use?

London, Paris and New York don’t have all the answers. We believe it’s time to learn from the rest of the world.

Our Response

What is the point of all these ideas if they never reach the people who need them most? We have seen an opportunity to take these ideas to people in new ways.

Informed by brilliant writing, the multi-layered box is a collection of tools in the guise of games, case studies, music, and interviews.

The inaugural box, contains 51 separate items — including the magazine, a board game and comprehensive case studies.

CS Shift is a travel-sized case that brings together vital perspectives, information, effective ideas and tools from the urban South in one comprehensive package.

Each edition has four layers: Play, Explore, Think, and Adapt. Making use of the simple instructions included, users can undertake a range of activities without the need of a facilitator.

Each edition has a different theme. Box 01: Emergence is set for release in late 2024.

CS Shift box

A themed CS Shift box is released every two years.

The components can be purchased as single items or in two, boxed collections—the essential edition (in corrugated cardboard) aimed at individuals and non-profits; and the collector’s edition (consisting of a fully fledged, travel-ready system) aimed at institutions (museums, universities) the private and philanthropic sector.

What’s in the box

Cityscapes Magazine #11

Masterclasses

Urban Tactics Set

Izandla: An Album By Neo Muyanga

Urban Canvas Card Deck

Timewarp: Board Game

Case Studies

Data Made Simple

What’s It For?

The box’s versatility allows users to exhibit, teach, strategise, organise and plan. It’s a tool for professionals, activists, organisers, educators, and policymakers interested in re-thinking how our cities work.

What You Need To Know

We want to get this box into the hands of as many people as possible.

Its contents are tailored to everyone from high schoolers wanting to learn how a city works, to ground-level organisers keen to develop new skills and strategies that they can implement in their communities, as well as professionals who want to broaden their horizons.

These boxes aren’t just inanimate objects — they are dynamic, mobile workshops intended to create connections and share ideas, within and across diverse urban settings. They work just as well in an underserved co mmunity centre in a place like Kibera, or the boardroom of a design practice in São Paulo, as they do in a polished white cube museum like MOMA.

Like any city, the box contains multitudes.

While a group of kids in one corner of the room is busy playing with the card decks, working together on what they love or would change about their communities, on the other side of the room, their parents are working up a strategy document using the tactics set. All the while, music specially commissioned for the box is playing in the background.

Getting a box is easy.

We are building a platform to enable people from across the world to purchase individual items, or the essential edition. We encourage the private sector to purchase the collector’s edition on a buy one, give one basis — thereby creating a pool of free boxes available to community and other non-profit organizations that have expressed an interest.

The boxes aren’t intended to be static. We know that each location they will be used in is different. Their purpose is to prompt people to engage with the specifics of their own neighbourhoods. It’s not about imposing ideas from outside, but learning from within. It’s our hope that we can then connect these ideas, organisations and communities by pooling and sharing their work.

The insights gained from how users adapt and design activities with the Shift kit will inform each new edition, which will have a different theme and new components. We will also be convening a festival of ideas, inviting organizations and individuals that have contributed their knowledge to showcase their work and further explore ideas with the most potential for implementation together.

Our products

Essential Edition Box

000

Collectors Edition Box

000

Data Made Simple

000

Case Studies

000

Timewarp: Board Game

000

Urban Canvas Card Deck

000