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Design thinking is increasingly being applied to social innovation activities and sustainable development projects for fostering better lifestyle choices and promoting community cohesion. As an inclusive process that draws on citizens and communities as a critical resource in exploring challenges and identifying innovative solutions, design can reorganise aspects of daily life, improve its quality and reduce our impact on the environment. Multidisciplinary teams (including designers) can be integrated into educational institutions, community activities and administrative bodies in order to co-design and implement action plans with local stakeholders. Design is the mechanism for maximising diverse inputs, stimulating capacity-building and prototyping better public services that can be replicated across different regions. The second case study illustrates how social innovation and sustainable development initiatives are most effective when driven by citizens and communities working together, enabling them to co-design solutions close to home.

 Dott07 urban harvest, Middlesborough 2007

Designs of the time (Dott 07) was a two-year programme operating from 2006 and delivered by the regional development agency for the North East of England  (One North East) and the Design Council. The first year of the programme consisted of evaluating current community initiatives in the region and from the list of 200 projects, seven core projects were shortlisted for in-depth action. In the second year of the programme, the design teams examined new tools and platforms for creating sustainable and innovative solutions to complex societal problems through design. The seven projects short-listed were: Alzheimer 100 on dementia, DaSH on sexual health, OurNewSchool on building new schools, Low Carb Lane about domestic energy, New Work for improving the day-to-day experiences of SMEs, Move Me about rural mobility and Urban Farming (exploring local food systems).

 Dott07 town meal, Middlesbrough 2007

The Urban Farming project hinged on an experiment to re-engineer food systems to make them more locally sustainable. A map was produced of where the citizens of Middlesbrough had access to food and where others were growing food within the broader city limits – on allotments, in market gardens and in greenhouses. This enabled a team of designers to look at resources and identify where they could be connected and exploited in a productive manner. The challenge of organising a town meal for Middlesbrough was set for a proactive group of 1000 citizens, including people in schools, police stations, hairdressing salons, a prison and mental health hospital. In nine months they organised a meal for 7000 people, serving food grown 100% within the city limits. The event made such an impact on the Minister for Food, the Minister for Health and the Mayor of Middlesbrough that the Urban Farming project has gone on to a new stage with almost £5 million of funding from three central government departments for more youth, community and work-based activities. According to the DOTT 07 Programme Director John Thackara, ‘a subject which sounds very banal, like food, was able to be mobilised and made visible a whole variety of social experiments previously unknown, and unlocked a significant amount of new funding in a completely unexpected quarter.’ John also highlighted that Middlesbrough was recently profiled in a national newspaper alongside Venice as Europe’s pioneer in urban farming. Although most of the individual projects were small scale, they were real-life examples of communities teaming up with designers to create practical solutions to salient issues affecting their living environments.

For further information visit: www.dott07.com
 

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