Design 21: Social Design Network

Building on its 2004 strategic plan, the Practical Power of Design, the UK Design Council has launched The Good Design Plan, a new three-year national strategy for design. Defining good design as ‘sustainable design’, it highlights five objectives for the council.

• Objective 1: Business and public service innovation.
• Objective 2: Public and community engagement.
• Objective 3: Design skills development.
• Objective 4: Design policy and promotion.
• Objective 5: Organisational and operational efficiency.

Design Council Chairman Sir Michael Bichard explains;

"Now, perhaps more than at any other time in history, we need to tap the creativity, the skills and the ingenuity of our world-class design community. The UK’s design track record is exceptional by any standard. We now need to nurture and support the talents that are available to us, and put them at the disposal of the nation’s business and public service managers.

This sets the context for today’s design agenda. Design’s traditional strengths – such as adding value to business in the global marketplace – are more important than ever. But design’s proven ability to help ideas and innovation flourish can also help us create better public services and exploit our strengths in science and technology. Overall design can improve our everyday lives, help create a more sustainable society and make us more competitive.

Earlier this month, Design Week reported that ...the council anticipates a budget of £7.85m, £...

David Wilcox reported this week about an inspiring initiative founded by Simon Berry:

Twenty years ago Simon Berry was a development worker in North Zambia, conscious that while he could buy a bottle of Coke anywhere, children were dying through inadequate distribution of simple medical treatments. In many cases they simply needed rehydration salts. Wouldn't it be possible to reach an agreement by which Coca Cola used a small part of its superior distribution capacity to get the medicine to children?

Simon explains: "The idea came to me - but I had no mechanism for sharing it with people. At least, I did have mechanisms, but they were one to one mechanisms, and the thing never got any traction. But now, with the whole Web 2.0 thing, one person can have an idea, and gather other people around that idea, very, very easily."

Simon has done just that. Starting with a blog post, and then a Facebook group, Simon has been interviewed on BBC radio, and attracted the support of New Seekers' Eve Graham. The New Seekers original song 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing' was adopted by Coke. Coca Cola were at first unresponsive, however have now said they would be happy to talk to Simon.

David Wilcox interviewed Simon Berry this week at 2gether08, a two-day festival exploring how social media and digital technologies can tackle social problems. Simon continues to document the projects developments on his blog and urges us to join the Facebook Group and come up with other ways to ...

ManTownHuman - "More progressive than First Things First".

Last night saw the launch of the radical architecture manifesto ManTowNHuman. In the words of Nico Macdonald, it's "[...] more progressive than First Things First."

Founded by The Future Cities Project Director, Austin Williams, the ManTowNHuman Manifesto was co-written by Alastair Donald, Richard J Williams, Karl Sharro, Alan Farlie and Debby Kuypers.

Toward a New Humanism in Architecture:

• The time has come to re-think architecture.
• The time has come to re-imagine the city.
• The time has to re-engage with society.
• The time has come to break free from building identity, community, and stability... and get on with building.
• The time has come to challenge 'what is permitted', with 'what could be'.
• The time has come to break free of the architecture of limits.
• The time has come to prioritise the human and downplay - and exploit - the so-called natural world.

Austin Williams' opinion on The Future Cities Project website states, "Sustainability is killing creativity" ...really!!? As an advocate of creativity and sustainable design, I feel this is a debatable argument. How can architecture and building be as imaginative as it is (required to be) ecologically sound? Saddened to have missed the launch event last night.

• ManTowNHuman
• BBC Newsnight: Architects to launch manifesto.

Using design to improve the daily lives of people living with Dementia, Alzheimer100 is a collaborative initiative founded in 2007, by Design of the Times 07 (Dott07), The Alzheimer's Society and thinkpublic.

In 2007, thinkpublic worked with North East of England branches of The Alzheimer's Society to investigate new methods for improving the everyday lives of people with dementia, carers and service providers.

In order to gain first hand insights of living with dementia, the preliminary stage of the project saw thinkpublic meet people with dementia, carers and service providers across North East England. The emergent insights and ideas fed directly into the design and facilitation of co-design workshops, and were later documented into an emotional 18minute documentary film. The investigative and co-design process resulted in a number of recommendations for improvement, including a Dementia Signposting Service, Mentoring Programme and the design of a safe "Wandering Garden".

Thinkpublic's recommendations have since informed the National Dementia Strategy launched in June 2008. Thinkpublic continues to work with The Alzheimer's Society on developing the Dementia Signposting Service, which aims to result in a national information and signposting service.

In recognition of the projects' success and innovative use of design thinking, Alzheimer100 was highly commended by The Journal at the Dott07 awards (People's Voice Award) and further exhibited at the Dott07 Festival, he...

Over the past week, I had the pleasure of meeting the multi-talented Graphic Designer Alex Ostrowski. Alex, a 2008 graduate from Bristol’s University of West England, recently won the RSA and NESTA’s 2007 competition ‘Engage!’

Tagged to "catalyse social change through design-led citizen participation", the Engage! project, aimed to encourage social responsibility in young designers. The 2008 RSA Design Directions brief asked student designers to consider how they could best use design to bring about positive change within a community and instigate a project solution of this nature.

In response to the brief, Alex took his skills as a designer to The Frenchay Brain Injury Rehabilitation Centre in Bristol. Through immersive time spent within the Rehabilitiation Centre Alex soon discovered that many patients suffer from post-traumatic amnesia and experience confusion in their sense of time, place and person. The term for this lost understanding is disorientation, something the unit is responsible for regaining with patients. Through speaking with staff, Alex established that the process of re-orientation contained some inefficiency and needed addressing. Working closely with staff to establish an appropriate colour system to bring holistic navigation to the unit, which could dually apply to patients' timetables, orientation boards, and the building itself. The project proved very useful for the unit, who have continued with an improved re-orientation strategy.

Winne...

Short feature originally written for Inhabitat.com: June 21 2008.

Turning one person’s waste into another person’s resource, the magnificent GOONJ project is setting a truly sustainable mindset in the heart of the Indian capital New Delhi.

Taking the idea of recycling would be waste to a whole new level, the GOONJ project has become well established as a distribution network able to reach the poorest areas of India.

Founded in 1998 by Ashoka Fellow Anshu Gupta, the GOONJ project collects unused clothing from all over India to then recycle the materials to provide clothes, sanitary and many other basic amenities to people living in poorer communities across the country.

The 300+ volunteers and mass participation of housewives, professionals, schools, colleges, corporates, exporters, hotels and hospitals behind the recycling and distribution center help to send out over 20,000 kgs of recycled waste materials every single month! A vast network of more than 100 grassroots agencies is also helping GOONJ reach parts of 20 states of India.

Recently declared Indian NGO of the Year, GOONJ has also won the prestigious Development Market place award from the World Bank on making a sanitary napkin out of waste cloth. The Global Oneness Project recently published a short documentary film about the GOONJ project, which wonderfully captures the essence of this inspirational and highly sustainable initiative.

• GOONJ
• “Not Just a Piece of Cloth”: Video by Global Oneness Project
...

Original Feature: June 14 2008.

In the heart of South African city Johannesburg, a green focused community is transforming one urban park into a seedbed for sustainable living.

Directed by Dorah Lebelo, The GreenHouse Project takes a holistic approach to integrating green building and design, efficient and renewable energy, recycling and organic farming into the city’s mindset. The Global Oneness Project recently interviewed Dorah to find out her motivations and intentions for this fantastic sustainable initiative.

Located in the northwest corner of Joubert Park, Johannesburg, The GreenHouse Project is an environmental NGO demonstrating sustainable living and development. In the Global Oneness Project video interview, Dorah explains how the five-pronged project approaches sustainability, by utilizing the skills of rural South African people and describes how this urban environment has everything it needs to sustain its community, without demanding more from further afield.

• The Global Oneness Project
• The Berkana Institute
• Leader Network: Dorah Lebelo

For those of you who were unable to visit the 2008 Good 50x70 exhibition in Milan earlier this month, the team have published some photographs on their Flickr account.

The exhibition closed on Sunday 22nd of June in Milan, but is now due to hit the road for a world tour. For more information visit Good50x70.org.

"Everyone is entitled to good design without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, poliical or any other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." Universal Declaration of hhuman Rights. Article 2. By Cactus Disseny.

Would you like your work to be published in Cactus Disseny's next book and prove that creatives do work for good causes? INDEX books are calling for submissions. The new pubication, "For a Good Cause: Solidarity Design" is set to gather the best examples of solidarity design, carried out for all sorts of non-profit organisations.

Deadline for submissions is September 15, 2008. For more information, visit IndexBook.com.

Great to see that Creative Review spotted Amelia's work at D&AD New Blood today. Well done!