Designing with Traders: Co-creation as a Tool for Public Realm Design in Langa

Introduction

Langa’s informal trading spaces and food networks, are a defining feature of the area’s economic and cultural fabric.

With a longstanding presence established in the 1980s, traders at Langa’s Smiley Market (where sheep heads are prepared and sold) have developed their own spatial systems for workflow, trade and customer engagement—despite lacking formal infrastructure. However, the market faces growing challenges, including waste management issues, inefficient layouts, and a lack of basic services, necessitating an upgrade that ensures traders can operate with dignity and efficiency. Yes& Studio Landscape Architects and Urban Designers has been working alongside partners within the AfriFoodLinks programme, a project that partners municipal representatives, academics, NPOs, consultants, and traders. The programme highlights how bottom-up processes can intersect with formal governance structures to foster more resilient urban food systems.

Conventional design processes often impose solutions that overlook the expertise of those who use these spaces daily. This article examines how co-creation serves as a useful design methodology and set of tools, offering an alternative to top-down upgrades by focusing on traders’ tacit knowledge and lived experience in shaping their own environment.

Beyond physical design solutions, the co-creation process has the potential to generate critical social outcomes—strengthening collaboration, building trust between stakeholders, and integrating informal trading and food sensitive urban design into broader urban planning processes. Drawing on theories of bottom-up urbanism (Simone, 2004), everyday spatial adaptation (Bayat, 2010), and co-creation in design (Sanders & Stappers, 2008), this article argues that trader-led, iterative co-design is essential for creating functional and resilient spaces for informal markets.

By documenting this process, we contribute to broader discussions on participatory practice in landscape architecture, and the evolving role of designers as facilitators rather than directors. Co-design as innovation not only results in spatial interventions tailored to real user needs but also fosters long-term resilience, ensuring that market upgrades remain adaptable, inclusive, and reflective of traders’ everyday realities.

Theoretical Framework for Hope & Co-Creation

In many Global South urban contexts, spatial transformation is driven less by formal planning processes than by the accumulated, everyday actions of people navigating uncertain terrain.

Among the most enduring and adaptive of these actors are informal traders, whose continued presence in contested or underserved urban spaces reveals not only economic resilience, but a quiet form of agency. The ability to imagine, claim, and shape space on an incremental in-situ basis, despite structural neglect, represents socio-spatial resilience grounded in hope as a pragmatic and situated practice.

This article understands hope as embedded in acts of survival, negotiation, and collective re-making. Those living at the margins of formal systems exert agency through gradual acts, transforming urban space in ways that resist and reconfigure dominant logics (Bayat, 2010). In contexts of limited physical infrastructure, people become the infrastructure, and draw on networks of social, economic, and material exchange to sustain life (Simone, 2014). These practices are acts of spatial authorship, and that constitute what we might understand as landscapes of hope where urban environments are not shaped by planning regulations, but by endurance, improvisation, and relational choreography.

Planning systems in the Global South, however, have historically failed to formally accommodate these forms of spatial agency. Watson (2013) critiques how normative planning models are often transplanted from elsewhere, ignoring the logic and legitimacy of informality. Bhan (2019) expands this critique by calling for a shift in how we conceptualise the city from a space governed by rules, to one negotiated through practice. These perspectives suggest an approach to urban transformation and co-creation that begins with people’s lived realities, rather than abstract frameworks imposed from above.

Co-creation is understood as participatory process that positions communities as co-designers rather than consultees, engaging them throughout to articulate problems, test solutions, and iterate spatial outcomes (Sanders and Stappers, 2008). In the context of informal markets, co-creation offers a framework for accessing and validating spatial knowledge. Drawing also on Sletto’s (2020) work on radical cartographies, co-creation foregrounds tools such asmapping, model-making, and storytelling to make visible the layered realities that shape spaces.

These frameworks help reposition landscape design not as an aesthetic or technocratic task, but as an opportunity to engage with informal systems to produce socially embedded urban interventions. In doing so, design becomes a medium through which the everyday agency of marginalised communities can be supported, gradually revealing the contours of more inclusive and hopeful urban spaces.

Context: The Smiley Market in Langa

Located on a narrow road reserve between housing, civic buildings, and a major historic thoroughfare in Langa, Cape Town, the Smiley Market has operated as an informal meat market known for preparing and selling sheep heads, a culturally significant dish within Xhosa communities since the 1980s. The Smiley Market consists of six women traders operating across four stalls. Traders at the Smiley market have established a longstanding micro-economy, in some cases inheriting the trade from their mothers. The traders, despite their tenure, operate in precarious conditions. The site lacks basic infrastructure such as water and waste services, and it sits on contested public land. Cooking is done over open fires using wood stored in makeshift piles. Waste, especially soot and ashes, is disposed of on-site, slowly altering the terrain conditions and contributing to the deterioration of the space over time.

The Smiley Market pilot project emerged from a broader situational analysis of informal meat markets in Langa conducted as part of the AfriFOODlinks programme. This initiative brings together various institutions, the City and food traders to support co-created interventions aimed at strengthening food system's resilience across African and European cities.

In Cape Town, Langa was selected as a hub site based on its rich history of informal food trading, coupled with growing concerns over infrastructure, hygiene, and governance. The Langa Situational Analysis (2024) identified four key meat trading nodes: Albert Luthuli Street, the Langa Public Transport Interchange (PTI), the PTI Chicken Market, and the Smiley Market—locally known as Ezintlokweni.

The project used fieldwork, stakeholder mapping, and ecosystem analysis to document the working conditions of nearly 100 traders.

Persistent challenges included waste management, lack of water access, health and safety concerns resulting from cooking on an open flame, lack of refrigerated storage and electricity and lack of infrastructure to safely dispose of waste water. The Smiley Market provided a focused and manageable site for piloting a co-creation process. Although smaller in scale than the other Langa Markets, it holds cultural significance and offered the opportunity to engage deeply with a cohesive group of traders.

The design scope for this pilot project was for a hard-surfacing intervention that would improve the working conditions for the traders and provide solutions to the challenges faced on site. The upgrade will take place alongside and provide a base for other pilot projects such as lighting, modular trading units and a waste management system involving other consultant teams. In the context of incremental upgrades, co-creation offered a framework for accessing and validating spatial knowledge of the traders.

Methodology and the Co-creation Process

The co-creation process at the Smiley Market was grounded in a methodology that prioritised adaptability, spatial engagement, and the centring of lived expertise.

Rather than applying a fixed participatory framework, each workshop was tailored to specific questions and themes that emerged from earlier engagements. This iterative structure allowed the process to remain flexible, responsive, and deeply grounded in the spatial and social realities of the traders.

Workshops combined situational analysis, urban ecosystem mapping, site walks, and spatial modelling to build a detailed understanding of daily routines, spatial flows, and infrastructural needs. Empathy-building exercises and character-based roleplay were used to expand discussion beyond immediate functional concerns, allowing traders to consider how different users experience the site. Physical 3D models were used throughout to test scenarios, prompting negotiation between shared infrastructure and individual autonomy. Workshop content and structure were adapted after each session in response to new tensions or unresolved design questions, ensuring that the process remained grounded in lived experience and capable of producing actionable spatial outcomes.

The co-creation process at the Smiley Market unfolded across three structured workshops between December 2024 and March 2025. The workshops brought together traders, local street committee members, and municipal partners. The intent was not to consult after a design had been produced, but to shape the design process itself around traders’ lived expertise and spatial logics.

The initial engagement focused on mapping and establishing spatial aspirations through storytelling, spatial provocations, and character-based empathy exercises. Using open-ended questions, a printed toolkit and a 3D model of the existing site, traders were asked to reflect on how they would host guests in the space, or what improvements would help them work with greater comfort and dignity. These conversations revealed the desire for a centralised, shaded dining area, a secure and well-ventilated storage, and improved waste disposal. Discussion around the introduction of a shared water point revealed hesitation, not due to an objection to water per-se, but rather concerns about uncontrolled access, maintenance, and the risk of conflict. These concerns highlighted the importance of approaching each design element not just as a technical intervention, but as a social negotiation.

Workshop 2 deepened the inquiry, but only 2 traders were present and the team made the decision for a third engagement to take place to ensure wide buy in and consultation. During a site walkabout, a trader explained her daily workflow—from cleaning and cooking to customer interaction and waste removal. A 3D landscape design model was introduced to test spatial configurations alongside a model of a cooking space with movable components. This phase clarified new logistical needs: despite expressing a desire for a shared cooking space in the previous engagement, traders required a distinct fire and preparation station each to minimise interpersonal conflict, while still being open to shared axing and cleaning spaces. The issue of water infrastructure re-emerged with greater nuance: rather than rejecting water outright, traders explained that the concerns about muck and mud on unsurfaced ground, leading to unsanitary conditions and social tension. The inclusion of two taps, one for the community and one for traders, both positioned over hard surfaces, would avoid soggy, messy ground.

In preparation for the third and final design workshop, the team consolidated previous insights into three design options, with different location for the cooking area. Using physical models, the team presented three spatial arrangements, each proposing different placements of uses. Traders made suggestions after which they evaluated the scenarios using a dot-voting system and open discussion. The third option was received most favourably, with a central cooking space surrounded by prep areas and a dining space on the side of the site. Traders valued its capacity to host tourists and customers in a way that showcased their skills while also providing a space for customers away from cooking areas. They reiterated the need for roofing and shelter, modular stall designs with integrated storage.

Across the three sessions, what emerged was not only a spatial plan but a shared understanding of the site’s logic and its constraints. The iterative format allowed space for contradictions to surface and be resolved. Infrastructure proposals evolved from abstract features into negotiated interventions. The desire of the shared cooking space re-emerged, with a need for finding balance between autonomy (of having their own allocated amenities) and cooperation (of working togethering within a shared space). The discussion around water infrastructure was particularly revealing; what appeared to be reluctance to change was in fact a layered concern rooted in previous negative experiences. Once proper drainage, surfacing, and site control were proposed, the idea was embraced.

Rather than presenting a single solution, the process produced a set of spatial agreements that were both flexible and capable of accommodating the rhythms of everyday trade.

This process highlights the necessity of moving beyond one-off consultations toward embedded, iterative co-design, especially in contexts shaped by informality and contested space. The traders’ contributions were not only spatial but strategic—balancing social relationships, public visibility, hygiene, and daily labour. The workshop setting, as a spatial practice itself, created conditions where these dynamics could be transformed into design decisions. Co-creation in this context served not only to refine form, but to navigate complexity, strengthen trust, and reveal latent systems of organisation that remain invisible in conventional planning approaches.

Outcomes and Discussion

The outcomes of the Smiley Market co-creation process span both spatial and social domains, reflecting the embedded complexity of informal trading environments. Although the design has not yet been finalised, the workshops established a coherent design framework that is now being refined through ongoing dialogue with municipal partners, ahead of a planned pilot phase.

Over successive engagements, traders articulated their spatial requirements with increasing precision, leading to landscape proposals that include preparation areas, clearly delineated waste management zones, hard surfacing, water and sanitation infrastructure, and dedicated customer spaces.

The Smiley Market co-creation process illustrates the value of participatory design as a generative methodology embedded from the outset, rather than as a post-design formality. By repositioning traders as spatial practitioners rather than passive consultees, the process foregrounded the depth of knowledge embedded in everyday trading practices and revealed how these inform spatial logics, priorities, and constraints. As trust developed over time, traders became increasingly confident in articulating both functional needs and the broader social implications of design decisions. This iterative engagement allowed latent concerns to surface and be addressed, positioning design as a medium through which conflict could be negotiated and shared futures collectively imagined.

This case offers insight into how informal markets operate as what might be called landscapes of hope: spaces shaped by persistence, adaptation, and the anticipation of better conditions, even in the absence of formal recognition. Hope, in this context, is not abstract or utopian, but embedded in the rhythms of the everyday. By placing lived expertise at the centre, and enabling traders to shape their own environments, co-design reveals the potential of informal public spaces not only to function better, but to affirm dignity, strengthen agency, and open a dialogue for incremental transformation of their space.

A central lesson of the process is that small design decisions can carry disproportionate social weight. The seemingly straightforward proposal to introduce water infrastructure became a site of negotiation, raising concerns about ground conditions, access control, and interpersonal tension.

Similarly, the placement of the cooking areas illuminated a similar set of concerns, not about the infrastructure itself, but about the risks of disrupting the carefully negotiated spatial balance already in place. The process allowed such underlying dynamics to surface and be addressed iteratively, reminding us that design in informal settings must attend to both material and relational conditions that chape informal environments.

Another key insight is that participatory processes can be used to bridge the gap between informal practice and formal governance, but that it does not come without complication. The involvement of AfriFOODlinks, a unique programme, bridging municipal departments, non-profit organisations, consultants, and traders onto the same side of the design challenge, introduced valuable opportunities for collaborative governance, yet working within this complexity brought its own set of challenges to navigate. Differing institutional timelines, mandates, and expectations required continuous coordination and adaptation. At times, ambiguity around decision-making and procedural requirements introduced delays or required mediation. These tensions, though not unique to this project, reflect broader difficulties of embedding bottom-up processes within top-down governance structures, particularly in spaces shaped by historical marginalisation and fragmented oversight.

Several aspects of the project remain open-ended, underscoring the iterative and provisional character of the process. As a pilot initiative, the first phase of implementation will serve as a testing ground for spatial interventions and the collaborative mechanisms that support them. A phasing strategy is required to distinguish which components are suitable for immediate implementation and which should be developed incrementally or be addressed through formal approval processes. Early-stage interventions must be designed with adaptability in mind, ensuring they do not preclude future adjustments. Key elements of the project, including the detailed design of trading units and the organisation of waste infrastructure, will be developed in subsequent phases by other consortium partners in continued collaboration with the traders.

The Smiley Market project illustrates how co-creation can serve not only as a methodology for design, but as a broader framework for engaging with informality, marginalisation, and everyday spatial expertise. The process also reframed the role of the designer. Rather than acting as a director of space, the design team functioned as a facilitator, curating the conditions under which traders could reflect and make spatial decisions collectively. This shift in authorship moves design closer to a model of spatial mediation, where the goal is not to resolve complexity, but to work through it and resulting in negotiated outcomes. Co-creation in contexts of informality must be iterative, negotiated, and grounded in lived realities. When participatory design is treated not as a procedural requirement but as a form of situated research, it opens new pathways for spatial agency, embedded infrastructure, and inclusive social landscapes where the informal city is already a site of design.

Designing with, rather than for, communities such as the Smiley Market traders offers a pathway toward more inclusive, just, and hopeful urban futures.

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