Page 7 - Landscape SA 105

FEATURE

Art plays a key role for Dommisse and
he uses it often in his work. Drawings
are kept simple and are produced in
water colour, ink or pencil.

Staff training employees. The system enables gardens to
be well maintained and ensures that new
Dommisse says it is the people who make offerings and projects are continuously
the garden experience memorable and added to the garden. “However nothing Dommisse offers a staff education
for this reason, he offers a staff education beats an in-person site visit and training, programme to his clients.
programme to all his commercial and but both systems have proved successful
hospitality clients. This equips their and allows me to maintain projects in
existing garden team with a range of different parts of South Africa as well as plastic waste in order to encourage the
action-oriented learning topics ranging east Africa,” he says. reduction of plastic pollution. It is a
from permaculture principles to achieving social enterprise that offers a range of
“guest delight”. EcoBricks Exchange skills development programmes to equip
artisans to turn plastic into furniture,
Each module lasts six weeks and consists Dommisse founded the EcoBricks amongst other things. A commercial
of a recorded video, two live sessions and Exchange in 2013. This is a non-profit application for ecobricks is their use as
a series of assignment documents. Clients organisation and skills development solid void fillers; at the Deloitte building in
can then develop a library of training agency in the green economy which Cape Town, 13 000 ecobricks were used to
material which they can pass on to future upgrades township schools using recycled replace 42 cubic metres of concrete.

The organisation also provides
income opportunities in underserved
communities, with its programmes
empowering individuals to implement
sustainable waste management systems
and raise environmental awareness.

There has been extensive crossover
between Dommisse’s two companies, and
he says that as a result of the pandemic,
the skills training has been expanded to
include urban farming as a response to the
food security crisis.

Readers are invited to visit Dommisse’s
studio in Newlands, Cape Town, to explore
his project portfolio as well as the EcoBrick
furniture range.

(*) Shamba is the Swahili word for a
vegetable garden or a small subsistence
farm found in most hut clusters within
kraal confines LSA

Ian Dommisse 084 688 8554
Email: igdommisse@gmail.com
Ecobrick furniture: Upholstered table and benches

Landscape SA • Issue 105 2021 5