The Dott Festival
The Designs of the Time (Dott 07) Festival, on the banks of the Tyne River, was open for 12 sunny days straight (miracle!), showcasing the projects of the Dott programme over the past 2 years.
Dott 07 is a programme of community projects, set up by the Design Council, to have designers work on public sector services in the North East. The issues designers were tackling were around the themes of:
- Energy
- Food
- Health
- Movement (transport)
- Schools (education)
My PhD research will be using Dott 07 as its main case study, identifying the design practices used in the projects, and how they contribute to the emerging discipline of Service Design.
Here is a quick overview of the projects I will be looking at for the case study.
Alzheimer 100
Designers explored with the Alzheimer community, ideas around how to connect the 80+ services available to carers and sufferers in the region. The light box display shows the vast and disparate services available. The designers proposed a Signposting service, which would inform carers and sufferers of what was available through personal and social contact.
Design of Sexual Health (DaSH)
Sexual health services for the youth are difficult to access in Gateshead (the area south of the Tyne Bridge) and also discouraging for use. The designers on DaSH gathered insights from teenagers in Gateshead and proposed a set of solutions to key issues in sexual health services. The proposed solutions would give greater access and privacy, overall lending itself to a better experience for teenagers in sexual health services. The board game below demonstrates how one can navigate through the system.
Low Carb Lane
What began as designing ways to reduce the carbon footprint of a home, ended up being a financial service for tenants. Designers discovered, through research, that in areas such as Ashington, the issue of paying rent needed to be tackled before anything else. The designers ended up linking energy use to finance by providing an incentive package for tenants if they reduced their energy use. The tenants would be able to monitor their energy use and financial information on a 'dashboard' on their TV.
Move Me
Where people are remotely located, such as in Scremeston, transport becomes a challenging issue. The Move Me project got involved with Scremeston locals to see what they could do to help mobility of people while having as little effect on the environment as possible. The designers came up with a Lift Exchange service, that provided the community with communication tools, such as lift exchange cards and notice boards, to help bring people together so they could share rides.
New Work
Most businesses in the north east are micro businesses (ie. 4 people or less), but there is very little by way of support for them. This project identified issues that micro business owners faced, such as social isolation, and designed services to help support and overcome them. The project brought together a community of micro business owners who enjoyed interacting and getting to know each other so much that some of them begun to develop and target their business ideas and products to the micro business community.
Our New School
The UK Government has committed £3 billion to maintain and improve all secondary schools throughout the country. Schools can choose how to spend their slice of the capital and Walker Technology High got designers to help students, teachers and parents develop initiatives and programmes to ensure a better experience for all those involved in secondary school education. Based on the new initiatives and programmes, a brief was written to inform the architects of how they could design and build infrastructure that would support the future of Walker Technology High.
Urban Farming
Food that lands on one's plate has often traveled from afar, contributing to carbon emissions. The Urban Farming project looked at reducing this by getting the residents of Middlesbrough growing food locally at home, at work or in allotments (allotments are walled spaces one can purchase to grow food and plants). When the food was ready, events called Kitchen Playgrounds got chefs to show people how food could be prepared as a meal. The food growing and Kitchen Playgrounds were a precursor to a big event called the Town Meal, which brought together Middlesbrough locals to celebrate, cook and eat the locally grown food. With an expected turn out of 300 and an actual turn out of 8000 people, the project was awarded a Creative Community Award at the Dott Awards Night.
The Dott Creative Community Awards Night
The Dott Awards Night was an entertaining night of speakers, project presentations and awards. Guest speakers included David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council, and the esteemed Ezio Manzini, Professor of Industrial Design at Politecnico di Milano.
The Dott 07 project presentations were also delightful, presented in Pecha Kucha style, which means 20 images with 20 seconds per image. Each presentation was 6 minutes and 40 seconds and everyone kept in good time.
The Dott Debates
Over 4 days, presentations, discussions and debates were held for each Dott 07 project. The sessions brought together designers, policy makers, agencies, partners, funders, project participants and project stakeholders to discuss the experiences and issues in each of the projects, and what the community could do going forward.
InterSections: Design Know-how for a New Era Conference
I have done a write up on my reflections on the InterSections Conference on my PhD blog, Letters to Australia. Overall I have a great time meeting, greeting, listening and discussing contemporary issues in design with some UK design celebrities.
The Dott 07 Wrap-up Party
On sunny Sunday, the Dott Festival closed its doors. A wrap-up party for the Dott team and Dott festival volunteers (and yes, I was one for a few days) was held that night at Apartment in down town Newcastle (that's Dott 07 Programme Director, John Thackara and I at the party below).
The party topped off a great 2 weeks of design-intensive activity on the banks of the Tyne River and within the architectural splendor of the Baltic mill. A magnificent setting for design, designers and the people to come together to explore design.
