Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) was established in 1917 to honour the 1.7 million Commonwealth men and women who died in the First and Second World Wars and ensures they will never be forgotten. CWGC’s work ranges from building and maintaining cemeteries and memorials at 23,000 locations in more than 150 countries and territories to preserving extensive records and archives.
Design@Bay’s task was to develop a website that allows the CWGC to run a national architectural competition in South Africa for the Commonwealth War Graves Foundation, the charitable arm of the CWGC set up as a way for public members to donate and become supporters of education and engagement programmes. The competition sought to find innovative proposals for a memorial of a contemporary South African design honouring the more than 1,600 Black South Africans whose names, until now, have not formerly been recorded and remembered, who lost their lives in WW1 (1914–1918).
We created an inspirational platform to motivate applicants while providing the history and context of the CWGC and, specifically, the Labour Units. We designed an engaging website that visually (watercolour images) and textually emotively imbues the importance and symbolism of the new historic addition to Cape Town’s Company’s Gardens. This custom WordPress site pays great attention to functionality with the required data capturing and protection safeguards.