dala has been inspired by the creative cities approach to urban planning and development. In this way, dala aspires to the passionate and compassionate art of city making. City-making involves that a city ‘should not seek to be the most creative city in the world (or region or state) – it should strive to be the most imaginative city for the world (Landry, 2007: 1).

Ultimately a creative city is one that focuses on a sustainable approach to civic creativity. Dala imagines eThekwini as a city that nurtures the inherent creativity within it. This has local, regional, global and implications for developing more just and liveable cities. In this light, dala endeavours to explore a variety of innovative experiments in creative city making. A recent architecture experiment and collaboration with Dutch organisation, raw foundation, saw a collaboration with musicians in Cato Manor / uMkhumbane to build a multi-purpose performance and rehearsal space, uMuthiMAYCHE.