Design Collaboration: Northumbria Uni's brand new resource

My friends and Northumbria colleagues, Emma, Joyce and Kath have been busy working on the brand new DesignCollaboration.org website:

"A space for design tutors to reflect, review and explore collaborative learning in design teams."

A screen grab of the DesignCollaboration.org website

While the site currently says its for design teachers, I believe it is relevant to any design project that demands collaboration. The site contains three key sections:

• Explore collaborations: a place where one can see good practice design collaborations
• Share your projects: where once can upload collaborative projects
• Teaching resources: containing learning activities to help collaboration in projects

My research is most relevant to the Teaching Resources part of the site where one can find tools to help identify roles of designers in projects. Other content at this part of the site include tools to:

• Form and mange a design team
• Understand the design team
• Communicate within the design team
• Reflect among the design team
• Assess the collaboration

There are also some neat filmed interviews with designers on the site. It's always great to hear different design perspectives straight from designers themselves.

The site was only launched last night, so more additions are to be made. Designcollaborations.org hits on a key issue for designers as collaboration is no more something a designer 'might do' rather its an essential skill for today's designers working in our highly connected, complex and technological society.

Photos from the Designcollaboration.org launch at Northumbria Uni last night

An InterSections Overview from Jeremy Myerson

Jeremy Myerson, Chair of InterSections 07, has produced a 15 min podcast summarising the key themes of Intersections.



He begins with setting the conference in a historical context, but the main focus of his podcast discusses '4 new models of design practice' which emerged from the conference. These being:

1. Designer as strategist
2. Designer as co-creator
3. Designer as rationalist
4. Designer as storyteller

The podcast also includes snippets of the keynote speeches. You can listen or read the transcript from the Design Council website here.

Jeremy's synthesis of the conference was a great validation point for my PhD question, which is all about:

'Understanding the role of Design Practice in public design commission projects, and their broader relevance to Service Design contexts.'

Some Reflections on InterSections

The InterSections Conference has come and gone like a blinding flash of design stars (Tim Brown, Richard Seymour, John Thackara, Sir George Cox, David Kester to name a few...), black-clad delegates, awesome keynotes, stimulating presentations, long lines for tea, coffee, coats and packed lunches in clear bags all on the banks of the Tyne River NewcastleGateshead.







It was an awesome 2 days of presentations. The breadth and calibre of speakers were impressive for their provocative, stimulating and eye-opening presentations.



Hats off to the conference producers (ie. Kevin Mcullagh, the Design Council and Northumbria University) on pulling together such diverse design subjects and issues.

I thought Core77 put together a good write up of the event. Check out Day 1 and Day 2 of the conference on their blog.

Instead of repeating what happened, I thought I would post some reflections here.

Here's what emerged from my mind map after Day 1:

- Lots of people, strong sense of energy and anticipation

- Logistics were not good- long lines everywhere (could have benefited with designers here but I think we were too busy networking) and what was with the stapled programme (guess had a nice hand-made feel to them..?)

- Steller presentations that outdid the break-out sessions

- 'Are the D Schools the New B Schools?' break-out session was disappointing. It sounded a bit like Nussbaum on BusinessWeek, only live. I thought we, as designers, could have gone a step further and discussed pragmatic ways design and business could foster an exchange

- Thought the Service Design panel got too hung up on definitions of Service Design and didn't focus on the key issue which was supposed to be about 'know-how.' Did I learn anything new? Not really, but great for validation of my future research

And on Day 2:

- I was impressed with the keynotes and presentations on Day 1, but Day 2 was awesome!

- There is so much out there we just don't know, until someone introduces them to us (thanks Peter Higgins). Such great work, ideas, stories, thinking... all out there waiting for us to discover it

- I appreciated a presentation solely focused on people. Because they really need to be featured as much as the rendered pictures of products

- The issue of different generations was brought up (though discreetly) on both days. I believe this is an important one to focus on especially given that emerging design studios are pre-dominantly run by designers in their 20's and early 30's

- Great observation, whoever made it, on the dominance of males both as delegates and speakers. Glad to see that others were picking up on it because it seemed quiet obvious. Also rightly questioned as, 'was this saying something about the state of the design industry today?'

- Richard Seymour challenged us with some great propositions (something like 10 in total). Getting us to really think about what we do as designers, our roles, our responsibilities and the thing I think we can forget from time to time which is, remembering why we are designers in the first place

And overall... I walked out of the Baltic feeling upbeat and excited to see where we go from here in this time of transformation. As one speaker noted, the media paints such a doomed picture of the world with pressing issues such as the environment and globalisation, and I do think, as designers, it is important that we continue, more than ever, to inject optimism, excitment, engagement and humanism into the world.

InterSections

Tomorrow the InterSections: Design Know-how for a New Era Conference begins at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art at Gateshead Quays.

Hosted by Northumbria University's School of Design (where I can be found on a daily basis), Dott 07 and the Design Council, it was a sell out conference 2 months ago and looks to be a great 2 days.

There will be capture of the conference here, and on the official InterSections Blog.

Four months on…. The Initial Project Application (IPA)

It’s now 4 months into my PhD and I have spent the past months transitioning from Australia to the UK; from big city to regional city; from full-time work to full-time student and while it has been a bit of a roller-coaster challenge, the dust has finally begun to settle.

Over the past months I have spent time getting to know the projects and the designers who have worked on them. I have also spent time with the Dott 07 Management Team and the Design Council. I have found conversation to be a powerful learning tool, especially with the lack of Service Design literature on designing public services (two key references here are the work of the former RED unit of the Design Council and Jim Collin’s monograph titled, ‘Good to Great and the Social Sector’).

The designers have especially helped me with recognising what have been the most topical and challenging issues in Service Design, and I thank everyone who has spent time talking with me.

The IPA is a research proposal I have to submit to the Northumbria University for approval of my study over the next 3 years. The University also needs to know that I will be making an original contribution to knowledge.

Here’s a brief overview of what I submitted (and the Panel just reviewed it today). My working title is:

Understanding the role of Design Practice in public design commission projects, and their broader relevance to Service Design contexts.

To flesh this out, I will be looking at the design practice (that is the methods, processes, tools, techniques and roles of the designer) used in the Dott 07 public sector projects. I will be looking at 7 projects, which used Service Design-type practices. These projects are:

1. Alzheimer 100
2. Design and Sexual Health (DaSH)
3. Low Carb Lane
4. Move Me
5. New Work
6. Our New School
7. Urban Farming

These 7 projects will form a case study, which will build evidence and an argument for the value and role of design in public sector services.

My original contribution to knowledge lies in thinking about Dott 07 as an artificial ecosystem, created by the Design Council, for designers to experiment and play in. The implications of this mean that there are conditions bespoke to the Dott 07 programme, that may not be relevant to the broader context. For example, the tolerance of failure in Dott 07 projects may be higher because the funding partners (the Design Council and One NorthEast) are not going to pull the plug like a commercial client might if things go a bit hairy. What I intend to do is identify what is bespoke to Dott 07 and what can be applied in the ‘real-world’ of Service Design. I hope to make a contribution here to the embryonic discipline and along the way, design a method to do this. I know that designers, researchers, academics are creating these artificial ecosystems all the time, but how do you then transfer and apply the knowledge and ensure a legacy?

To further illustrate what I mean, the Designing for Services project at Said Business School, Oxford University is a programme of similar nature.

A bit about Dott

Designs of the Time (Dott ) is a ten-year programme, to be initiated every two years in a different region of the UK. Each Dott consists of a suite of public commission projects utilising design-led interventions (i.e. Design processes, methods, tools and the roles of designers) to involve people (the public) in designing solutions to local issues. The key issues were:

- Education
- Energy
- Food
- Health
- Tourism
- Movement (transport)

The first Dott (Dott 07) was undertaken in North East England between 2005 and 2007.

To celebrate the projects, a showcase Festival will begin tomorrow on the Tyne River at Baltic Square. I will be blogging updates of the Festival here.

About a PhD in Design

My name is Lauren and I am undertaking a PhD in Design at Northumbria University. My PhD is co-sponsored by the Design Council, London and Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The brief set for my PhD is to explore emerging methods in design, namely Service Design, using the Design of the Times (Dott07) regeneration program happening in the north-east of England as my main case study. By case study, I mean a few things (and this list is not exhaustive):

• Capturing the stories of Dott07 ie. What has happened
  
• Capturing the design methods that have been used in Dott07’s many projects
  
• Capturing the learnings from the projects and look at what we might possibly take forward into Dott09 (and what would best be left behind).

I have set this blog up as a platform to share my ideas and add some discipline around capturing thoughts for my PhD. I welcome your thoughts, comments and questions in response to my posts and have opened up posting to everyone (ie. You don’t have to sign in as a Blogspot member).

I hope you enjoy reading and interacting with this blog. It’s one of the many ‘activities’ I have in store to engage people with my work and research, and also help me develop my thoughts throughout this three year journey.