Material is where design begins.

Most design systems work backwards. A brief arrives. A designer responds. Materials are chosen to fit the idea. But we work forward.

We start with what Zambia has. We look at extraordinary materials, deep traditions of making, and craftspeople with generational expertise. The Design Residencies and Technical Exchange Programme creates space for external practitioners to work alongside Zambian artisans at the Mukuni Atelier in Livingstone. You will not just observe. You will collaborate. Together, you investigate local materials, test technical possibilities, document processes, and build pathways from raw resources into sustainable businesses.

The Core Inquiry: Ore & Orature

Luyando Muleya leads our inaugural residency. As an emerging curator and cultural worker based in Livingstone, Luyando brings contemporary art, oral history, and social practice together to foreground subjugated knowledges.

In the Ore & Orature residency, Luyando asks the critical questions the gemstone trade avoids:

• Distribution: How much of a stone's value ever reaches the person who mined it? Value is created at the bench, but where it lands after that is barely tracked by anyone.

• Source: Do informal mines cut better rough than licensed ones, and why has no one compared them? The data that could answer this is scattered, guarded, or simply does not exist yet.

• The Body: What does it cost, in the body, to choose beauty over weight, cut after cut? Behind every meditative craft is a nervous system doing the actual negotiating.

• Orature: Whose stories decide what a stone is worth before a gemologist ever touches it? Ore is geology, but orature is everything said about it before the price tag arrives.

Expert Technical Leadership

Excellence lives at the bench. The residency is anchored by Mercy Sinduku, a master gem cutter and gem cutting instructor leading the Mukuni Gems Ecosystem Programme funded by Pact GIA.

This initiative brings together 43 active participants, comprising 20 elderly women, 10 school leavers, 10 youth, and three master woodcarvers who serve as faculty learners and mentors. They combine traditional craftsmanship with precision faceting, jewellery design, and business development to ensure economic value stays right inside the community.

Why work with us

• Real economic value creation: We turn raw material extraction into local processing and high-value artisan enterprises.

• Transparent provenance: Oral histories and community narratives establish true material value before the price tag arrives.

• Direct mentorship: You work side by side with master craftspeople and cultural leaders.

Take Action

Choose your path to get involved with the programme:

• Designers and Makers: Apply for a Residency to bring your research to the Mukuni Atelier.

• Organisations and Brands: Become a Partner to build authentic and responsible supply chains.

• Funders: Support the Programme to invest in African design infrastructure.

• Member: Become a member and support Design Thinking Africa