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1399 Johnston Street,
Granville Island
Vancouver, BC
V6H 3R9 Canada
Phone 604.844.3800
Toll Free 1.800.832.7788
Fax 604.844.3801
CURRENT ( 1923-1881 )
is published annually.
2013. All rights reserved.
www.current.ecuad.ca
Jonathan Aitken
Grant Gregson
Dr. Glen LowryCeleste Martin
Deborah Shackleton
Bonne Zabolotney
Deborah Shackleton
Bonne Zabolotney
Dr. Glen Lowry
Celeste Martin
Deborah Shackleton
Jean Chisholm
Samantha Matheson
Tara Westover
Celeste Martin
Daisy Aylott
Vivian Ziereisen
Megan White
Jean Chisholm
Chelsey Doyle
Johannes Schut
Leah Schwartekopp
Amanda WangenShiyao Yu
Fernanda Rivera
Vivian Ziereisen
Tevis Bateman
Winnie Wong
Vivian Ziereisen
Grant GregsonAnasa Visser
Jonathan Aitken
Kate Armstrong
Dr. Ron Burnett
Dr. Maria Lantin
Mari Nurminen
Ezio Manzini
Celeste Martin
Liz Sanders
Deborah Shackleton
Louise St. Pierre
Jean Chisholm
Vivian Ziereisen
Evans Li
Andreas Eiken & Kieran WallaceJean Chisholm
Beayue Louie
Sarah Wilson
Megan White
Grant Gregson
Hemlock Printers Ltd.
7050 Buller AvenueBurnaby, BC
V5J 4S4 Canada
+
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n this issue we eature articles written by internationally recognized
design researchers and educators, Liz anders o akeools and hio
tate University, zio anzini rom the Politecnico di ilano, and on
Burnett o mily Carr.
Liz anders illustrates how design is social now. he states: the conver-
sation is about design or experience, or service, and design or trans-
ormation. rough identiying and mapping the creative potential o
collective agency we transorm and in so doing lay the groundwork or
sustainable actions.
anzini helps us as design thinkers and makers to see how slow, local,
open and connected ( LC ) can become a scenario that li ts o the
page to become wisdom about sustainable and generative societies.
on Burnett asks us to look at design through the lens o the anthro-
pologist in a paper that addresses the concept o audiences in art and
design. e observes designers are now crossing the boundaries into
the ways in which people organize their lives ( design thinking, design
process ), and the many ways in which design thinking is applied to
businesses and to innovation.
Louise t. Pierre o mily Carr and ari urminen o Powertech Labs
reect on a 3-year collaboration between the universitys eco
studio series and Powertech, a subsidiary o BC ydro, wherein the out-
comes are as much about social innovation as they are about technical
and economic aims.
n Eat St. Case tudy: Designing nteractive Cookbooks, Celeste artin,
also o mily Carr, describes the evolution o an interactive ebook or a
broadcast television show that airs on the Food etwork. ocial learning
eatures prominently in the human-centred design approach.
We are also including interviews with the new mily Carr research direc-
tors ate rmstrong and onathan itken. rmstrong is the Director o
the ocial and nteractive edia Centre and itken is the Director o
the ealth Design Lab. rmstrong introduces us to Disruptive echnol-
ogies in Business and Design Culture as applied research that is reexive
in nature while itken describes social innovation and social learning in
the intersections between the design and healthcare sectors.
tudent praxis papers oer a range o project opportunities and
challenges that are LC relevant. e article by Beayue Louie examines
how participatory design strategies can serve as eective tools when
working with multiple design constraints. Louie articulates how milyCarr students were asked to collaborate with children with special
learning needs to create a textile-based product rom reclaimed abric
that endorsed sustainability among both the users and the designers; an
example o cosmopolitan localism.
ean Chisholms article ocuses on the importance o co-creation in the
developmental and end stages o project development or Bulletin, an
interactive digital space on Vancouvers local music scene. e resulting
project is a user-centred web space that enables interaction between
event planners, artists, and audience members.
s part o the Design or Democracy movement, arah Wilson writes
about collaboration between mily Carr aculty and students, and lec-
tions BC. e ocus o the paper is the process o creating an advertising
campaign to increase youth voter participation in the upcoming 2013
British Columbia provincial election
ustainer: Designing ustainable ystems is the embodiment o a
design partnership between ndreas iken and ieran Wallace. nother
local to global initiative in sustainability, the design team examines the
easibility o a to-go reusable ood container much like the systems at
play or carrying a bottle or water.
Current 04 is a tour o praxis-based, applied research as voiced by the
practitioners eatured in the issue. e publication is an exposition on
the current state o design research and in particular, those thoughts
and ideas around newly emerging spaces o design practice that are
resilient and which promote generativity.
Deborah Shackleton, Celeste Martin & Glen Lowry
Addendumur past issue, Current 03, received several international
design awards or both the print and iPad app publication rom the
University and College Designers ssociation ( UCD ), Creativity nter-
national wards, and dobe Design chievement wards.
EDITORS' NOTEWelcome to Current 04 and the theme o
ustainable & enerative ocieties; ocial earning & ocial Innovation
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CONTENTS
I ANThROpOlOgy & SySTEmS
04 Ron Burnett
nthropology & Design
07 Sarah Wilson
Designing the Youth Vote
II SuSTAINAbIlITy
10 Ezio Manzini
esilient ystems and ustainable Qualities
15 Louise St. PierrE & MARI NURMINEN
Patterning Dialogues: ow tructured teration upports Change
III CO-CREATION
20 Liz Sanders
ew paces, Places and aterials or Co-Designing ustainable Futures
24 Beayue Louie
Co-creating paces: e ag Project
IV INTERACTIVITy
28 Celeste Martin
Eat St. Case tudy: Designing nteractive Cookbooks
32 Je an Chis holm
Bulletin: n nteractive Project
36 Andreas Eiken & KIERAN Wallae
ustainer: e-imagining Food Packaging
V SOCIAbIlITy
40 Maria Lantin
oining esearch, rt & Design
41 Jonathan Aitk en
ealth Design ( interview)
44 Kate Armstron
Disruptive echnologies n Business & Design Culture ( interview )
46 Contriutors & Aknoledments
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ANThROpOlOgy&SySTEmS
ANThROpOlOgy & DESIgNb RON buRNETT
An increasingly common approach to graphic design research involves the application of user-centred
design ( UCD ) methods. Te focus of a UCD methodology is to understand and accommodate the needs
of users and audience members as a means for improving the designed artifact. [ 1 ]
Design practice is centred on audience( s ). t matters little whether the
audience is hypothetical, real or imagined, there is always someone
or whom designs are created. is is oten used as the undamental
distinction between design and art practices. e practice o creating
art on the other hand, is seen as personal and evolving out o processes
that dont have an overt goal in mind. Yet, there are audiences or art,perhaps best exemplied by the act that every major city in the world
has an identiable museum. nd, do artists try and understand their
audiences and cater to their needs? Lets leave that question open or
the time being.
e challenge o course is how do we understand audience, client and
user? r, in the digital design world, the agent, interactor or par-
ticipant? nother way o approaching audience is to create one, just
as pple did with the iPad and the iPod. otice that irrespective o
historical circumstances, projections or perceived needs, the term
audience remains abstract. is is because it is virtually impossible to
draw a straight line between or example, creating a logo and anticipat-
ing the response o groups o people to it or, developing a product
and knowing how clients or users will react to it. is is why designers
oten develop many alternative strategies to their designs and also work
iteratively on various prototypes; all with the goal o creating something
that will be closer to the perceived needs o the user.
n anthropology, eorts to understand both contemporary cultures and
ancient ones are circumscribed by the challenges o observation, analy-
sis and eldwork. Pr ior to the revolution in anthropological thought pro-
voked by eorge arcus and ichael Fischer [ 4 ] in the 1980s, there was
endless debate among anthropologists about the relationship between
observation and subjectivity. Put another way, to what extent does your
own cultural, class and ethnic background inuence what you see and
what you observe? t is clear that your own personal history, desires and
orientation will have a big impact on the conclusions that you draw
rom the observations you make. [ 5 ] e challenge thereore is to try
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understandin eretions. Our culture, class and ethnic background
make our research subjective, rather than objective. Designers must be aware o the
cultural lens they wear, and how it can impact their observations.
and articulate what you know and examine how that may inuence your
assumptions about other people. t means that eldwork is essential
only i you bring to it a sel-reexive awareness o the contingent nature
o the experiences you may have with complete strangers.
Designers are well aware o these obstacles and have developed many
dierent strategies to deal with them. ne o the most important
is testing designs with users and trying to learn about utility, reaction
and aesthetic response. But, how ar does the process o learning aboutresponse go? o what extent are designers able to test their assumptions
about their audiences? ese issues are even more complex i as is oten
the case, designers are now crossing the boundaries into the ways in
which people organize their lives ( design thinking, design process ), and
the many ways in which design thinking is applied to businesses and
to innovation.
Proessional design is now operating within an expanded and increasingly
complex eld. Some design proessionals take solving complex social
issues as their domain, oten but not always working in close collabora-
tion with specialists in public services rom healthcare to those working
with disadvantaged amilies to policing. Other designers and their ways
o working are welcomed into business schools to teach the next gener-ation o managers and leaders. Concepts and language that used to be
associated with designers now enter other specialist areas: policymakers
are told that public services should be more user-centered ( Parker and
Heapy 2006 ); businesses engage with customers by oering new meanings
or things ( Verganti 2009 ); the US Army is considering the role o design in
warare ( School o Advanced Military Studies n.d. ). Proessional design, in
particular design as practiced within the studio-based tradit ion o many
art schools, is taking a new place on the world stage.[ 3 ]
o much o the knowledge that we share in any given society is tacit. o
many o the assumptions we make about ourselves and about others are
unconscious. t is easy to say that designers should uncover their cultur-
al bias. [ 6 ] But, which methods are best suited to the task? anet urray
suggests bringing multiple stakeholders into the discussion o the design
process and elicit their dierent perspectives and needs. [ 3 ]
ere precisely is one o the key intersections o design and anthropology
both as disciplines and as practices. thnographers have always tried to
elicit responses rom their subjects. t became clear to many anthro-
pologists in the 1980s that the context, circumstances and pressure or
response oten overwhelmed not only the truth, but the capacity o
individuals to actually surace their insights and concerns. is was in
part the reason that arcus and Fischer began to talk about language
and representation. o say that a product is comortable or useul is to
use a particular language o description or analysis that may not reect
deeper or more complex concerns.
any products come and go in the marketplace and most are unsuc-
cessul. We are surrounded by an innite number o media, logos and
brands. ost are not successul. Focus groups, test audiences and sur-
veys are in constant use. Facebook gathers data on users, as does oogle.
e data gathering is now so large that designers are being asked to
develop visualizations o the inormation. ll o this activity is centred
on better understanding human behaviour. ll o it is intended to bring
some degree o coherence to the struggle to match human desires and
proclivities with images or products or artiacts. When design thinking
emerged more than a decade ago, it oered a response to the ebbs
and ows o a global, mediatized economy o signs and artiacts ; in this
context, proessional designers play increasingly important roles, lessas makers o orms and more as cultural intermediaries ( ulier 2008 ) or
as the glue in multidisciplinary teams ( elley and Van Patter 2005 ).
ey are interpreters o changes in culture who then create new kinds o
cultural orm. [ 3 ]
nthropologists have played the role o cultural intermediaries ever
since the discipline gained respectability in the 1920s. t was in the
1960s and 1970s that anthropologists began to seriously question not
only their practices in the eld, but also their assumptions about culture.
n some important respects the term culture is both too diuse and too
broad to mean much.
DESIgNERS plAy INCREASINgly
ImpORTANT ROlES, lESS ASmAKERS OF FORmS AND mORE AS
CulTuRAl INTERmEDIARIES.
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naiatin Assumtions. Designers need to recognize their own
assumptions and those o the audience to bring a sel-reexive awareness
to the design process.
6
ten, we read backwards rom human activities into cultural meanings
in order to explain behaviour. nd, we try to examine the symbolic
ramework behind those meanings. But, as much as cultures are systems,
the way people behave, act and respond to culture cannot be reduced
to their behaviour to the ways in which they act and respond to the
cultural and social demands o the day.
ere isnt space in this article to look at the powerul inuence o
behavioural thinking on design and designers. ore oten than not,what people do need not be tightly connected to what they say and
what they say may have little connection to what they do. imilarly,
designers tend to read their artiacts, as expressions o intention when
what they should be looking at are the dierences between their inten-
tions and what they have produced. ere are no perect points o sym-
metry here just as there are no simple strategies available to understand
human motivation and human choice. o amount o data collection
will narrow the complexity o human subjects, their motivations and
their conicted understanding o the cultures they inhabit.
began this short piece with a tease. Do artists try and understand
their audiences and cater to their needs? r do artists simply act on
their desires and create artiacts without reerence to the market or the
viewer? s this the dividing line between artists and designers? think
not. otwithstanding the ambiguities o the term audience, everyone
involved in creative practices is speaking to an other, to someone else
and they are hoping to be understood and appreciated. While design
is oten seen as more utilitarian, what could be more practical than
applying creative insights into the creation o objects that are ultimately
intended or some sort o consumption?
ere is a much more important reason to bring up this alse dichotomybetween the practical and the artistic. Designers, like anthropologists,
cannot operate under the illusion that they understand their audiences
any better than artists, who oten dont know whether they will have
an audience at all. t does not matter how many times designers create
and generate alternative strategies and scenarios or hypothetical users .
e connections between artiacts, subjects and creative practices are
thankully indirect and non-linear i not asymmetrical. e challenge
or designers is to accept, i not celebrate, complexity ( Figure 2 ). s
oger eesing, one o the great anthropologists o the 20th century said,
Feedback mechanisms in cultural systems may thus operate both neg-
atively ( toward sel-correction and equilibrium ) and positively ( toward
disequilibrium and directional change ). [ 2 ]
REFERENCES
ANThROpOlOgy&SySTEmS
[ 1 ] Fraher, . and artinson, B. Process and Pedagogy in Undergraduate raphic
Design ducation. Te Design Journal, 14, 4 ( 2011 ). 390412. [ 2 ] eesing, . eories o
Culture.Annual Review o Anthropology,3 ( 1974 ). 76. [ 3 ] imbell, L. ethinking Design
inking: Part . Design and Culture, 3, 3 ( 2011 ). 286287. [ ] arcus, . and Fischer, .
Writing Culture: Te Poetics and Politics o Ethnography. University o Caliornia Press,Los ngeles, 1986. eir work and the work o many others changed anthropology as a
discipline. am thinking o the work o dmund Carpenter, ames Cliord, ean Coma-
ro, Vincent Crapazano, ichel De Certeau, ohannes Fabian, Cliord eertz, eorge
arcus and ichael Fischer, Paul abinow and Ben-mi charstein. ee dmund
Carpenter, Tey Became What Tey Beheld ( ew York: D utton, 1970 ); ames C liord
( 1988 ); ean Co maro, Body o Power, Spirit o Resistance: Te Culture and History o a
South Arican People ( Chicago: University o Chicago Press, 1985 ); Vincent Crapazano,
uhami: Portrait o a Moroccan ( Chicago: University o Chicago Press, 1980 ); ichel
De Certeau, Te Practice o Everyday Lie ( Berkeley: University o Caliornia Press,
1984 ); ohannes Fabian, ime and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object ( ew
York: Columbia University Press, 1983 ); Cliord eertz, Te Interpretation o Cultures
( ew York: Basic Books, 1973 ); eorge arcus and ichael Fischer, Anthropology
as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences ( Chicago:
University o Chicago Press, 1986 ); Paul abinow, Reections on Fieldwork in Morocco
( Berkeley: University o Caliornia Press, 1977 ); and Ben-mi charstein, Te Dilemma
o Context ( ew York: ew York University Press, 1989 ). [ 5 ] n 1992, arcus gave the
Provosts lecture at ice University where he worked. e reected on the tumultuous
changes in anthropological thought. ere is an extract rom that speech. e core
o this crisis had to do with both language and authority in the conduct o thosedisciplines that produce current knowledge about society and culture. First, there
was the bedrock sense that the concepts developed in various disciplines to describe,
assimilate and domesticate reality were no longer adequate. e language o culture,
class, sets o binary distinctions such as modern vs. traditional, individual vs. society
etc. while these might have been critiqued piecemeal at dierent times in the past
in various disciplines now seemed en masse to no longer capture the magnitude or
quality o changes occurring in the contemporary world. ere was a sense, dierently
expressed in dierent disciplines, o the need or a major overhaul o ways o thinking
and writing, and ultimately o questions asked. is was ar rom a cosmetic or partial
sel-critique and it has led to a variety o productive and not so productive debates
about dierent models o work and dierent objects o study in elds ranging rom
economics, to history, law, architecture, art, and philosophy. [ 6 ] s anet urray has
done in her recent book, Inventing the Medium: Principles o Interaction Design as a
Cultural Practice, Press, Cambridge. 2012.
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ccording to omas Darwin, [ o ]ur capabilities are tested by the act that many ( i not most ) o
the situations we encounter as communities present us with wicked problems. e most salient
eature o wicked problems rom the standpoint o design is that they dey our typical approach
to problem solving. [ 3 ] e issue o increasing youth voter participation can denitely be con-
sidered a wicked problem. ere are many acets within the issue that needed to be addressed.
ttitudes and ideas around voting have changed with every generation; a eeling o civic duty
motivates previous generations, while political issues and ease o voting motivate todays youth
voters. ur group was given one major constraint: because lections BC is a non-partisan agency
we were not able to use social, political or environmental issues as a platorm or our campaign.
CROSS DISCIplINARy COllAbORATION
e oundation o mily Carr s Design or Democracy course is based on collaboration. e class
consists o students majoring in interaction design, communication design, industrial design, andcritical studies. n her text ZB: Design and the Fedx project, aggie Breslin speaks to the val-
ue o collaboration in design: Design research and the idea o connecting with users has become
an acknowledged, i underused, value. [ ] ow the key to great products is widely thought to be
collaboration among a diverse set o disciplines, which can include visual designers, programmers,
industrial designers, architects, engineers, anthropologists, researchers, and sometimes even users
themselves. [ 2 ] Collaboration between disciplines is a valuable part o the design process . e
Design or Democracy course has been a valuable experience or students as it demonstrates the
benets o industry collaboration.
WhERE DO WE START?
s a class, we reected the age range we were targeting, and we consisted o both voters and
non-voters. n essence, we were designing or ourselves. s a class, we rst broke the problem
down by media platorms: print, web, social media, video, and guerrilla marketing. We discussedour individual strengths within each o the areas and divided ourselves into groups, with each
group being assigned one o the platorms based on their experience. Youth voter participation is
a large issue; we had broken up into groups based on our strengths, but now what?
.P. anjan describes the creative process by saying that [ t ]he process o design is the path o
human intentions being pursued by the designer or user o design through the stages o explo-
ration, composition, judgment and action. e stages are iterative and the designer revisits the
previous stages to develop conviction and build support or the next move orward. [ 4 ] s a
class, we struggled with how to begin tackling such a large problem. ost people who take part in
creative processes know that addressing such a large issue is never linear. roughout this process,
we jumped back and orth to previous and later solutions.
AbSTRACT
e ocus o this paper is the process o
creating an advertisement campaign to
increase youth voter participation in the
upcoming 2013 ritish olumbia provincial
election under the leadership o Proessor
hris ethrington. e voter campaign is
created through a partnership betweenlections and mily arr University o
rt + esign. rough collaboration with
students in dierent design disciplines we
broke the problem down into 4 dierent
avenues to successully address the physical
and psychological obstacles to youth
participation. In this paper we consider
youth voters as those between the ages o
1826. e goal o this project is to create
a multi-platorm design and social media
advertisement campaign.
KEyWORDS
election, ritish olumbia, democracy,
design, advertisement, campaign, youth
DESIgNINg ThE yOuTh VOTE
b SARAh WIlSON
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FIGURE 1. Kieran Wallace and Megan Whites VoteBCbranding strategy aims to
motivate youth voters by addressing common attitudes and deterrents.
8
n important part o the process was a meeting with representatives
rom lections BC or a project brieng. We hoped the meeting would
help us to identiy a clear direction or starting our process. n the
meeting, lections BC expressed three main issues that they needed
to address with the campaign: registration ( getting voters to register
beore going to the polls ), the exibility o voting ( explaining the conve-
nience and ease o voting ), and eligibility ( inorming recent immigrants
and youth o their right to vote. )
ter our meeting with lections BC, we started collectively brainstorm-
ing the three issues that were mentioned in the meeting. We discussed
the type o approach we elt would be most eective at reaching those
who ell within the age range o 1825. We did not want to build on theattitude you dont vote and you should, which we elt would be too
negative. We elt the attitude o you want to vote? Let us show you
how would be more eective with the youth demographic. We initially
considered the use o humor in order to break rom the serious nature
o materials that had been eective with older generations. rough
researching other youth campaigns, we discovered that our age group o
1825 does not respond well to the use o guilt to motivate action. e
best way to reach youth is though humor.
CO-CREATION
n his article, Design and Democracy, ui Bonsiepe speaks to they way
design should interpret the need o social groups. [ 1 ] n the last ew
years, there has been a movement within the design community toconnect the designer with the user though co-creation. We created a
co-creation kit to gain insight into youth attitudes towards the voting
process. e user created a collage o the obstacles in his everyday lie
that might impede him rom taking part in the voting process. e
co-creation session yielded valuable insight into the attitudes toward
and the importance o voting within the everyday lie o youth. We live
in a ast paced world heavily reliant on technology; 1825 year olds do
almost everything online. rough the co-creation kit, we learned that
convenience plays a huge role in whether or not youth voters make it
out to the polls. Consequently, we narrowed the project scope to ocus
only on location and ease o voting.
ITERATIONS
During our meeting with lections BC, they brought to our attention an
interesting piece o inormation: in BC, when voting in a provincial elec-
tion, voters are able to cast their vote at any polling station in BC. is
was a jumping o point or our development o the idea o ocusing on
the convenience o location. umerous iterations were created around
the concept o location. ne iteration was a bus poster mapping out
the 99 bus route in correlation with the locations o polling stations
( shown by green dots ). deally, on election day someone riding thebus would be able to check the polling station closest to the stop they
need to get o at. nother iteration ocused on placing an image o a
voting booth in public spaces around Vancouver with the tag line its
that easy. e strategy was to place the booths in busy public spaces to
communicate the idea that polling stations are closer than you think.
bRANDINg
ter viewing all the iterations, we came together as a class and decided
that our scope was too limited; the idea o location did not successul-
ly address all o the issues put orth by lections BC. e main question
we wanted to address was why vote? We collectively went back to
brainstorming. We rst had to gure out the questions we needed to
ask to get the answers we wanted. We identied common attitudesabout voting held by non-voters. e attitudes are as ollows:
Voting doesnt aect me; have no eect
Voting takes too much time; m busy
dont know enough about the political parties
dont know i am eligible; how would register?
o be successul in motivating youth to vote, we needed to address
these our attitudes. ne student came up with the slogan VoteBC
( with BC considered an abbreviation o because as well as British
Columbia ). We used the slogan VoteBC and narrowed down the our
attitudes into 23 word subsections ( see Figure 1 ):
Vote Because ts mportant
Vote Because ts asy
Vote Because You now tu
Vote Because You Can
AS A ClASS , WE REFlECTED ThE
AgE RANgE WE WERE TARgET INg,
AND WE CONSISTED OF bOTh
VOTERS AND NO N-VOTERS.
IN ESSENCE , WE WERE DES IgN INg
FOR OuRSE lVES.
ANThROpOlOgy&SySTEmS
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FIGURE 2. Sarah Wilsons awareness campaign uses the lost/ound poster
typology to show the consequences o not exercising the right to vote. Tese
posters are unbranded and emulate personal yers in the city landscape to inspire
curiosity and urther viewer engagement.
FINDINgS
s a class , we divided into our avenues to create mock ups o mate-
rials that t into the categories o ts mportant, ts asy, You
now tu and You Can. Figure 2 shows a nal mock up o a poster
campaign based on lost and ound yers posted around Vancouver and
addressing the category ts mportant. e poster is meant to slip
into the everyday lie o commuters on the streets o Vancouver, while
remaining non-intrusive. We wanted the poster to side step the eeling
o being sold a product or service, and encourage a eeling o awareness
and discovery. e posters are anonymous and unbranded; we want
the viewer to question who is behind the posters and take down the
website link to nd more inormation. dvertisements are most eec-tive when the viewer eels that they had some part in the discovery o
more inormation.
e poster states: the ollowing people have lost the right to vote, then
proceeds to list a number o occupations and amily relations, such as
brother or sister. ter reading the list, the viewer discovers that the list
covers absolutely everyone. e main goal o the poster is to make the
viewer contemplate the consequences o the loss o the right to vote.
e development o the youth voter participation campaign is still
ongoing. s a class, we consolidated all o our rendered mock ups into
a design tool kit to submit to lections BC. ur ndings will be passed
on to axi, a Vancouver advertising rm in charge o the lections BC
account. e course, Design or Democracy, was an experiment and
a view into real industry practices. is course really challenged us as
a group to implement the creative process that we have been taught
so extensively at mily Carr. s a class , we experienced working with
people with diering opinions and collaborating with dierent design
majors. ur dierences led us to create a large array o iterations and
ideas that collectively ormed a number o strong creative directions.
ACKNOWlEDgmENTS
ank you to lections BC or reaching out to mily Carr University o rt+ Design and giving us the opportunity to work with them on this project.
ank you to Chris ethrington or encouraging our class through the
creative process.
REFERENCES
[ 1 ] Bonsiepe, . Design and Democracy. Design Issues, 22 ( 2 ). 2734. [ 2 ] Breslin, .
ZB: Design and the Fedx project. Design Issues, 24 ( 1 ). 4154. [ 3 ] Darwin, . From
the town hall into the studio: Design, democracy, and community resilience. Te
Journal o Design Strategies , 4 ( 1 ). 2933. [ ] anjan, .P. and-head-heart: ethics in
design. Te rellis, 2 ( 5 ).
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RESIlIENT SySTEmS
& SuSTAINAblE QuAlITIESSmAll, lOCAl, OpEN, CONNECTED: AN EmERgINg SCENARIO
b EZIO mANZINI
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RESIlIENT SySTEmS
But how do we design a resilient socio-technical system? Lets look to
natural systems; their tolerance o breakdowns and their adaptation
capacity ( that is, their capability o sustaining over time ) may give us
direction. [ 6, 13 ] s a matter o act, it is easy to observe that lasting nat-
ural systems result rom a multiplicity o largely independent systems
and are based on a variety o living strategies. n short, they are diverse
and complex. ese diversities and complexities are the basis o their
resilience that is, o their adaptability to changes in their contexts.
iven that, it should be reasonable to conceive and realize something
similar or man-made systems. e socio-technical systems that, inte-
grated with natural ones, constitute our living environment should be
made o a variety o interconnected, but ( largely ) sel-standing elements.
is mesh o distributed systems, similarly to natural ones, would be
intrinsically capable o adapting and lasting through time because even
i one o its components breaks, given its multiplicity and diversity, the
whole system doesnt collapse. [ 9 ]
ow ar are we rom this complex, and thereore resilient, man-made
environment? n my view, this question has no single and simple answer;
contemporary society demonstrates a contradictory dynamism thatorces us, on this point as on many others, to describe what is happen-
ing as a double trend: the mainstream, unsustainable trend, enduring
rom the last century, and a new, emerging trend. n our case, we have
the clash between the big dinosaurs o the XX Century, and the new,
interconnected small creatures o the emerging new world.
Considering this metaphor, we can see that the mainstream processes
o modernization, held over rom the last century, are moving in the
wrong direction, trying to kill ( what remains o ) traditional agricul-
ture and cratsmanship and pushing toward global agro-industrial and
industrial production. n other words, we can see powerul interests
at work promoting large plants, hierarchical system architectures,
and process simplications and standardizations. ese interests arethereore, consciously or not, using their power to reduce biodiversity
and socio-technical diversity and, consequently, to increase the overall
ragility o the system.
Luckily, at the same time, something else happened and is happening;
new generations o distributed systems emerged and are emerging. is
emergence is driven by dierent actors: the power o technological net-
works and a growing number o enthusiasts ( who, wherever these dis-
tributed systems become possible, tend to adopt them enthusiastically ).
[ 3 ] is complex trend towards distributed systems can be described as
having three main waves o innovation.
e rst evolution occurred when the architecture o inormation
systems shited rom the old hierarchical systems to new, networked
structures ( distributed intelligence ). is change started with the diu-
sion o distributed intelligence and the radical changes in our systems o
organization it made viable. e result is that rigid, vertical organization-
al models that were dominant in industrialized society are melting into
uid and horizontal ones as new distributed orms o knowledge and de-
cision-making become more common. [ 23,1 ] e success o this innova-
tion is such that, today, networked architecture is considered an obvious
quasi-natural state. But o course this is not the case; beore laptops
and the nternet, inormation systems, concurrent with the mainstream
model at the time, were based on large mainrame computers and their
consequently hierarchical ( and thereore ragile ) architecture.
e second wave o innovation has altered energy systems. ese shits
are driven by a cluster o dynamic elds, including those producing
small, highly efcient power plants, renewable energy plants and smart
grids that intelligently connect them ( distributed power generation ).
oday, these new but already viable solutions are challenging the ( still )
mainstream systems, which are based on large power plants and hierar-
chical ( stupid and ragile ) grids. Distributed power generation is one othe main components o the ongoing and powerul green technology
trend. t is reasonable to think that energy systems will ollow the tra-
jectory o inormation systems, moving increasingly toward distributed
system architectures. [ 18 ]
e third wave o innovations toward distributed systems challenges
mainstream globalised production and consumption systems. ese
production systems include initiatives ranging rom the rediscovery o
traditional cratsmanship and local arming, to the search or hyper-light
and lean production, to the hypothesis o networked production sys-
tems based on the potentialities o new orms o micro-actories such as
ab labs ( small-scale workshop[ s ] oering personal digital abrication )
[ 5 ] and by the makers movement ( [ a ] subculture representing a tech-nology-based extension o DY culture. ) [ 10 ] While this trend is still in its
initial phase, the whole production and use system must be re-shaped
ollowing a new localization principle; products must be designed so that
their production can be as near as possible to where they will be used
( point o use production ). is principle can be implemented by mixing
traditional technology, cratsmanship and high-tech solutions.
ese three waves o innovation have one actor in common: they reer
to a globalisation aimed at using local resources and reducing distances
between both production and use, and producers and users. range o
very dierent motivations has driven this result.
For a long time, we have known that, whatever our uture society will be, it will be a risk society [ 2 ] a
society likely to be aected by dierent kinds o traumatic events ( rom natural catastrophes, to war and
terrorism, to fnancial and economic crisis ). We have known or a long time, thereore, that the precondition
or every possible sustainable society is its resilience its capability o overcoming the risks it will be exposed
to and the stresses and breakdowns that, inevitably, will take place. [ 24 ] oday, the implications o this risk
society are no longer only projected. ey are becoming evident worldwide in our daily lie experiences; the
notion o resilience is moving into the vocabulary o more and more people. It would be wise to accelerate its
entrance into policy makers agendas and into the design communitys aims and practical actions.
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SRENGHENING SYSEMS. Focusing on local resources and reducing
distances between production and use can result in stronger systems and more
resilient communities.
2
SuSTAINAbIlITy
ne o them is the search or efciency in dealing with inormation,
energy and production in the quest or lean production, with products
specically created not only or whoever needs them when he or she
needs, but also in the same place ( or at least, as near as possible to the
place ) where it will be used or consumed. e second strong motivation
is the desire to use local and minimal resources. third motivation is an
interest in quality o proximity : a perceived quality deriving rom the
direct experience o the place where a product comes rom and o the
people who produce it, as with the creation o new local ood networksin which citizens and armers are linked at the local level. [ 19, 20 ] Last
but not least, there is a growing demand or sel-sufciency ( in ood,
energy, water, and products ), in order to promote community resilience
to external threats and problems. [ 22, 7 ]
SuSTAINAblE QuAlITIES
Distributed systems are the result o complex, innovative processes
in which technological components cannot be separated rom social
ones. While centralised systems can be developed without considering
the social abric in which they will be implemented, this imposition is
impossible when the technological solution in question is a distributed
one; the more a system is networked, the larger is its interace with
society and the more the social side o innovation has to be considered.
n other words, with regards to our discussion here, we can say that no
resilient systems can exist without social innovation.
Considered all that, the good news is that social innovation is spreading
worldwide. [ 16, 17 ] nd that the emerging ways o living and producing
these innovations generate are largely convergent with the trend toward
resilient distributed systems.
n act, in its complexity and with all its contradictions, contemporary
society is developing a growing number o interesting cases in which
people have invented new and more sustainable ways o living. [ 15 ] We
are increasingly seeing, or example, groups o amilies sharing services
to reduce economic and environmental costs, while also improving their
neighborhoods; new orms o social interchange and mutual help, such
as time banks; systems o mobility that present alternatives to individ-
ual ownership and use o cars, such as car sharing, car pooling, and the
rediscovery o bicycles; and the development o productive activities
based on local resources and skills that are linked to wider global net-
works ( e.g., certain products typical o a specic place, or the air and
direct trade networks between producers and consumers establishedaround the globe ). Further examples touch on every area o daily lie and are
emerging all over the world. ( o read more about them, see: D. ) [ 4 ]
Being localized, small, connected and open ( to others ideas, culture and
physical presence ), these promising social innovations actively contrib-
ute to the realization o resilient, distributed socio-technical systems.
nd vice versa: distributed socio-technical systems may become the
enabling inrastructure o a society where these kinds o social innova-
tions can ourish and spread. [ 12 ]
Behind each o these promising social innovations there are groups
o people who have generated them groups o creative and entre-
preneurial people who invented, enhanced and managed innovativesolutions, recombining what already exists without waiting or larger
changes in the system ( in the economy, in institutions, in large inra-
structures ). Creative communities that challenge traditional ways o
doing things introduce behaviours that, oten, present unprecedented
capacities or bringing individual interests into line with social and
environmental ones ( or example, they oten incidentally reinorce the
social abric ). n doing so, these communities generate ideas about a
more sustainable wellbeing a wellbeing where greater value is given to
a new set o qualities. [ 8 ]
People involved in these innovations compensate or their reduction
in consumption o goods and space with an increase in something else
that they consider more valuable. is something else is qualities o
their physical and social environments that, or them, substitute or
the unsustainable qualities that have been predominant in industrial
societies until now. e most evident newly valued qualities are the rec-
ognition o complexity as a value; the search or dense, deep, and lasting
relationships; the redenition o work and collaboration as central
human expressions; and the human scale o the socio-technical systems
and its positive role in the denition o a democratic, human-centered,
sustainable society. e qualities that these rameworks generate
radically diverge rom the ones that mainstream models have spread
worldwide in the last century. For this reason, we can reer to them, as
a whole, as disruptive qualities qualities that clash with mainstream
ways o thinking and doing.
n this battle between cultural and behavioral models, several dierent
social actors play a role. mong them designers ( who are, or should
be, the most inuential players when the topic at stake is daily lie expe-
rience and its quality ) are doing their part, on both the sides o the
ront. n the past, they did a lot to promote the past centurys unsus-
tainable qualities. oday, many o them are continuing in this same old
direction. But others are starting to play a dierent role ( and a poten-
tially very important one ) in promoting the new, sustainable, disruptive
qualities. is battle is still at its beginning. t is, and will be, a dramatic,
ascinating conrontation.
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DISTRIbuTED SySTEmS
ARE ThE RESulT OF COmplEX,
INNOVATIVE pROCESSES IN WhICh
TEChNOlOgICAl COmpONENTS
CANNOT bE SEpARATED FROm
SOCIAl ONES.
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SuSTAINAbIlITy
EmERgINg SCENARIO
esilient systems and sustainable qualities are two elements o an
emerging scenario characterized by our adjectives that appeared sev-
eral times in the previous paragraphs: small, local, open, and connected.
Considered together, these our adjectives outline the emerging scenar-
ios main characteristics. ndividually, they are comprehensible ( since
everybody can easily understand their meanings and implications )
but, considered as a whole, they generate a totally new vision o how a
sustainable, networked society could maniest. n my view, this LC
cenario ( where LC stands or small, local, open, connected ) could
become a powerul social attractor, capable o triggering, catalysingand orienting a variety o social actors, innovative processes and design
activities. [ 11, 12 ]
ore precisely, the LC cenario is neither a dream nor a orecast
o what the uture will be. t is a motivating vision o what the uture
could be i a large number o social actors move in the direction that it
indicates as viable and desirable. [ 14 ] o be implemented, thereore, the
LC cenario requires a large number o converging design programs
to ocalize and develop an array o themes that, as a whole, outline a
possible ( and in my view necessary ) design research program. ese
themes include collaborative solutions ( systems o products, services,
and communication capable o empowering people and communities
to collaboratively solve everyday lie problems ); updated cratsman-
ship ( the development o traditional and high-tech cratsmanship
within the ramework o the network society ); territorial ecology ( the
sustainable valorisation o the physical and social resources o a given
place or region ); and sustainable qualities ( the widening and deepening
o emerging qualities that are driving peoples choices toward more
sustainable ways o being and doing ).
o conclude, to make the LC cenario meaning, motivations and
implications clearer ( and to underline its novelty ), lets take a step
back in time. ome orty years ago, .F. chumacher wrote his amous
book Small is Beautiul. [ 21 ] t the time, he made a choice in avour o
the small and local on cultural and ethical grounds as a reaction to the
prevailing trend toward the large scale, standardization and loss o sense
o place he saw around him. oday, we ollow chumacher or these and
other new and compelling reasons. But at the same time, we have to
recognize that in these our decades things have deeply changed. What
at chumachers time was only a utopia is today a concrete possibility.
Forty years ago, the small that chumacher reerred to was really small.
n act, it was so small it had little chance o inuencing things on a large
scale. e same can be said or his concept o local it was truly local
as it was ( quasi ) isolated rom other locals. n contrast, at the time, tech-
nological and economic ideas were largely driven by ideas o economy
o scale and the bigger the better. Prevailing trends discounted any
possibility that the small could be beautiul i economy and eective-
ness were taken into account.
oday, as we have seen, the context is extremely dierent. oday, the
small can be inuential on a large scale, as it acts as a node in a global
network. e local can break its isolation by being open to the global
ow o people, ideas and inormation. n other words, we can say that
today, in the networked society, the small is no longer small and the
local is no longer local. e small and the local, when they are open
and connected, can thereore become a design guideline or creating
resilient systems and sustainable qualities, and a positive eedback loop
between these systems.
REFERENCES
[ 1 ] Bauwens, . Foundation or P2P lternatives, Peer to Peer and Human Evolution,
2007. etrieved rom P2P Foudation: p2poundation.net. [ 2 ] Beck, U. Risk Society.
Polity Press, Cambridge, 1992. [ 3 ] Biggs, C., yan, C. and Wisman, . Distributed
Systems: A design model or sustainable and resilient inrastructure. VL Distributedystems Brieng Paper 3, University o elbourne, elbourne, 2010. [ ] D, 2012.
etrieved rom DESIS Network: http://www.desis-network.org. [ 5 ] Fab Lab, Wikipedia:
Te Free Encyclopaedia. etrieved rom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab [ 6 ] Fik-
sel, . Designing esilient, ustainable ystems. Environmental Science and echnology,
37. 53309. [ 7 ] opkins, . Te ransition Handbook: rom oil dependency to local resil-
ience. reenBooks, U, 2009. [ 8 ] gou, F. and anzini, . Collaborative Services Social
Innovation and design or sustainability. Polidesign, ilano, 2008. [ 9 ] ohansson, .,
ish, P. and irata. . Distributed economies. new engine or innovation. in the
Journal o Cleaner Production, lsevier, 2005. [ 10 ] aker Culture, Wikipedia: Te Free
Encyclopaedia. etrieved rom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aker_subculture [ 11 ]
anzini, . mall, Local, pen and Connected: Design esearch opics in the ge o
etworks and ustainability.Journal o Design Strategies, 4 ( 1 ). [ 12 ] anzini, . LC,
e merging cenario o mall, Local, pen and Connected. in arding, . ed. Grow
Small Tink Beautiul, Floris Books , dinburgh , 2011. [ 13 ] anzini, . rror-Friendli-
ness: ow to Design esilient ocio-echnical ystems. in oobun, . ed. Scarcity:
Architecture in an Age o Depleting Resources Architectural Design, 2012. [ 1 ] anzini,
., gou, F. and eroni, . Design orienting scenarios: enerating new shared visions
o sustainable product service systems. UP in Design or Sustainability, 2009. [ 15 ]eroni . Creative communities: People inventing sustainable ways o living. Polide-
sign, ilano, 2007. [ 16 ] ulgan, . Social innovation: What it is, why it matters, how it
can be accelerated. Basingsotke Press, London, 2006. [ 17 ] urray, ., Caulier-rice, .
and ulgan, . Te Open Book o Social Innovation. nnovating Public ervices,
London, 2010. [ 18 ] Pehnt et al. Micro Cogeneration: owards Decentralized Energy Sys-
tems. pringer, Berlin, 2006. [ 19 ] Petrini, C. Slow Food Nation. Why our ood should be
good, clean and air. izzoli, ilano, 2007. [ 20 ] Petrini, C. erra Madre. Forging a new
network o sustainable ood comunities . Chelsea reen Publishing Company, London,
2010. [ 21 ] chumacher, .F. Small is Beautiul, Economics as i People Mattered. Blond
and Briggs, London, 1973. [ 22 ] ackara, . In the bubble: Designing in a complex world .
e Press, London, 2005. [ 23 ] von ippel, . Te Democratization o Innovation.
Press, Cambridge, 2004. [ 2 ] Walker, B., and alt, D. Resilience Tinking: Sustain-
ing ecosystems and people in a changing world. sland Press, Washington, 2006.
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pATTERNINg DIAlOguES
b lOuISE ST. pIERRE & mARI N uRmINEN
DESIgN RESEARChERS AT
pOWERTECh lAbS
arah Bailey
evan Dgostino
ames allam
Cla Lautrey
manda Leppi
ayeli antos
ADDITIONAl FACulTy
eco core studio :
lne Day Fraser and arah ay
FINANCIAl SuppORT
atural ciences and ngineering
esearch Council o Canada
good conversation can change everything. s this three-year partnership between Powertech
Labs and mily Carr University o rt + Design demonstrates, good conversation can seed insights
and change trajectories. n our case, iterative dialogue claried business strategy, identied new
markets, and deepened understanding about the technical and social systems surrounding the
use o energy in British Columbia. t also helped us realize how important it is to connect with
local communities when implementing sustainable change.
t the onset o the relationship, there were many unknowns. Powertech Labs, an engineering and
testing company or the energy industry, had no prior exposure to design. ndustrial designers at
mily Carr had little experience testing design methods or sustainability. Working together, we
developed a structured dialogue that allowed or experimentation, reection, and regular revision
to our approaches.
ere were three distinct phases over the three years. ach phase eatured design research con-
ducted during the summer term that provided a oundation or students who were working to
develop ideas and concepts in the sustainable design studio course that was scheduled to ollow
( eco ). e regular pacing o the phases allowed time or the learning on both sides to guide
the relationship ( Figure ).
hOW STRuCTuRED ITERATION SuppORTS ChANgE
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phASE 1:
ClEANER TRANSpORTATION
SummER 2010
FAll SEmESTER 2010 FAll SEmESTER 2011 FAll SEmESTER 2012
SummER 2011
SpRINg 2011 SpRINg 2012
SummER 2012
phASE 2:
ClEAN AND SmART ENERgy
phASE 3:
ElECTRIC VEhIClES IN COmmuNITIES
6
SuSTAINAbIlITy
phASE 1: ClEANER TRANSpORTATION
e rst phase is best understood as typical design collaboration. ur
ocus was on the transition to cleaner transportation solutions, particu-
larly electric vehicles ( Vs ). Powertech Labs was interested in exploring
new market opportunities in V-related services, but as a company that
normally worked directly with other businesses, they were not amiliar
with researching and working with consumer-driven markets.
e partnership with mily Carr was Powertechs rst step towardsincluding design as a part o their innovation process. n the summer
o 2010, we placed two student design researchers inside Powertech
Labs. ey were given a ramed set o research questions and two very
specic tasks.
ey were to unction as design ambassadors to help Powertech Labs
understand what industrial design could oer them. o this end, the
design researchers used ormal and inormal methods to communicate
ideas and make their progress visible. ey posted design drawings and
presentation panels in common spaces, engaged the employees in casu-
al hallway conversations, invited these new colleagues to brainstorm
with them, and prepared ormal project presentations.
Parallel to this, they conducted preliminary design research to under-
stand the social and cultural barriers impacting the adoption o Vs.
ey used many methods in this research-intensive summer including
interviews, observations, scenario building, system analysis, inspiration
gathering, and prototyping. n addition to end user and secondary
research, they solicited input rom engineers at Powertech Labs about
current technical capabilities, inrastructure constraints, and challenges
related to charging Vs.
e ndings o the research team helped Powertech Labs understand
how end users perceived V-related innovation. everal emotional
and practical barriers to the shit rom conventional gasoline powered
vehicles were identied: the amount o time it took to charge a vehicle,
the limited travel distance with one charge, and the generalized ear o
new technology. Figure 2 shows a probable mental model or how an
V driver in Vancouver might plan a drive. is illustrates how dierent
it is rom planning a trip with a gasoline powered vehicle. cademic
research describes how the disruptive nature o change [ 1, 3, 6 ] can be
mediated by engaging the public end-users when developing new solu-
tions. Further, when discussing the standard barriers to the diusion
o innovation ( Figure 3 ), ogers suggests that one way to overcome
them is by aligning with the values, needs, and practices o our existing
social system. [ 5 ]
n addition to the social system, V charging solutions must integrate
with the existing physical systems, such as the electrical grid. Consid-ering how much Vs change the way we uel our vehicles as well as the
related business models, we learned how important it is to nd right
balance between system disruption and alignment with existing systems.
For example, we experimented with building on amiliar and well-ac-
cepted concepts by placing the chargers in parking lots and powering
them rom the electric grid. is did not divert us rom sustainability
related goals, as electricity is 90% hydroelectric in British Columbia. [ 2 ]
o initiate the second hal o phase 1, the research team handed o their
ndings to students in the eco studio. is new group o students
developed V charging concepts. 30 was a mobile app that
would help people coordinate the thirty minutes o charging time with
nearby service opportunities such as haircutting, a massage, or groceryshopping. cg was a scheme to set up charging stations
at rest stops across Canada that would allow amilies to enjoy unique
aspects o a region while waiting or their car to charge. ther students
ocused on social and cultural norms. Q p challenged
the orth merican expectation or speed and efciency, and suggest-
ed that we might design situations dierently so that waiting might be
reramed as an enjoyable activity.
t the end o the 2010 all semester the students presented 12 dierent
ideas to Powertech Lab executives and initiated a wide-ranging dialogue.
is revealed new market opportunities and customer segments or
the company to pursue. t also acilitated a shit in thinking rom the
installation o charging stations as an engineering task, to designing
the user experience around charging. n many cases, this would have
been hailed as a successul completion to the project, but our collab-
oration continued through two more iterations. is is where greater
learning took place.
Fiure 1.Research and ecoANK development phases 2010-2012
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ChARgE
STATION
SQuAmISh
TO uR IS T CE NT RE
WhISTlER VIllAgE
mINTER gARDENS
lANglEy COlOSSuS
bAKERVIEW ECOFARm
RIChmOND IKEA
hOmE ChARgINg publIC ChARgINg
~120Km~60Km
phASE 2: ClEAN AND SmART ENERgy
ncouraged by the new strategies developed or V charging in phase
1, Powertech Labs requested exploration about a dierent topic the ol-
lowing year: energy consumption in the home. t the time, Powertech
was doing a business analysis to see i they were going to enter the
energy management market at the consumer level, and mily Carr wasinterested in investigating how design could support energy reduction.
ost available data shows that energy consumption is steadily increas-
ing across orth merica . [ 7 ]
s with the previous phase, this was divided into two parts. n the sum-
mer o 2011, the design research team conducted probes and contextual
interviews to understand power usage in the home. ey learned about
the electric power system and related technologies rom Powertech
Labs engineers. e preliminary ndings were presented to a new group
o students in the all eco studio, and these students developed
proposals. g- was a power socket that would respond with earul
acial expressions i you were overloading it. fwas an online
game that coordinated a cooking competition potluck that included
criteria about the amount o power used during cooking. tudents also
looked at alternative energy sources to oset supply rom the grid, so
some projects harnessed solar energy to power small appliances, orcollected kinetic energy that is generated in domestic activity.
nce again, prototypes, models, videos and storyboards were brought
to Powertech Labs or discussion. is had unexpected results . rough
this conversation, Powertech gained enough understanding o behavi-
ours and values around energy management at the consumer level
to help them see clearly that this was not an attractive market. is
exemplies the value o exploratory questioning, ollowed by thought-
ul reection. ealizing what will not work is as important as gaining
insights into what will work.
Fiure 2. Getting drivers to re-think transportation lengths and routes was an
important initiative by Powerech. By placing electric vehicle charging stations in
strategic points in and around Vancouver, new attitudes towards route planning
and transportation can be created.
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ChARgINg SuppORT lOCAl buSINESS
pOINTS CARD:
pending points
riving points
harging points
DOCKINg pOINT AND SIgNAgE INCluDINg:
Ino about program and how to join.
ap o local businesses and events.
Partners o the program.
Ino about Vs and charging stations.
8
SuSTAINAbIlITy
phASE 3: ElECTRIC VEhIClES IN COmmuNITIES
By 2012 the ground had shited. Powertech Labs now employed the
summer researchers as designers working alongside their rst in-house
designer. Design had become part o their business. e learning engen-
dered through the rst two phases, along with this new internal exper-
tise, helps us to establish new objectives: Powertech now wanted to
engage with communities to determine what V charging stations could
look and eel like in their neighborhoods, and to reveal engagement and
social innovation opportunities at the community and municipal level.
is shit to researching specic and locally grounded innovation
enables what zio anzini would call quality o proximity. [ 4 ] e
design proposals that resulted during the 2012 eco core studio pro-
vide examples o this. c T was a tour company
that mapped sustainable initiatives and companies around Vancouver.
Participating communities would implement V charging stations
combined with a tour hub that would supply access to local tours, Vs,
and inormation. e V c integrated a charger with a projector
that could display large images to create a point o reerence, inorma-
tion, and interaction at that location. is would oer an incentive or
cultural institutions to become early adopters o the V charging inra-
structure. xp c; Dv g was a program to incentivizeor drive change in communities. Using the Commercial Drive area o
Vancouver as a case study, the project proposed to create incentives or
V use by connecting V charging with opportunities to support local
businesses ( Figures 4 and 5 ).
e work done in phase three reafrmed the importance o designing
or local context, with local communities. ese projects built on the
knowledge gained in phase one, where it became clear that dealing
with the social side o the innovation was as important as dealing with
the technological side, and that sustainable design could not progress
without social innovation.
INNOVATORS lAggARDSEARly
ADOpTERS
EARly
mAJORITy
lATER
mAJORITy
eorey oore, Crossing the Chasm: arketing and elling Disruptive Products to ainstream Customers, 2002
FIGURE 3. Te innovation adoption curve shows that
attempting to convince a mass o people to adopt a new
idea is useless. It is the innovators and early adopters that
need to be persuaded rst.
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EV CAR
COmmuNITy
mAppINg
WAyFINDINg
TO uC h SC RE EN
ICONS
ChARgE STATION
[ 1 ] Christensen, C. and aynor, . Te Innovators Solution. arvard Business chool
Press, Boston, 2003. [ 2 ] eneration ystem, 2013. etrieved anuary 26, 2013, rom
BC ydro: http://www.bchydro.com/energy_in_bc/our_system/generation.html. [ 3 ]
Leonard, D. Wellspring o knowledge: Building and sustaining the sources o innovation.
Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 1998. [ ] anzini, . esilient ystems and
ustainable Qualities. Current, 4. 1013 [ 5 ] ogers, . Diusion o Innovations. e Free
Press, ew York, 1995. [ 6 ] Veryzer, . ey actors aecting customer evaluation o
discontinuous new products.Journal o Product Innovation Management , 15. 136150.
[ 7 ] Worldwide rends in nergy Use and fciency, 2008, 43. etrieved anuary 28,
2013, rom nternational nergy gency: http://hopi.iea.org:10000/search/search/C.
view=deault/results?q=usage+trends.
REFERENCES
SummARy ThOughTS
e essence o this collaboration is that multiple modes o conversation
over a period o time allowed or eective reection. Design research in
phase one illustrated the scope o the challenges in shiting to Vs. n
phase two, demonstration prototypes helped Powertech Labs visualize
and discuss the boundaries o their core business. ese conversations
and reections led to the phase three shit rom a single user to local
communities. is process resulted in actionable design solutions orPowertech Labs, and a deeper understanding o sustainable design.
e iterative approach to the project also allowed us to modiy our
collaborative strategy based on the companys state o readiness or
design and community engagement. n the early project stages, the
process was more structured, allowing Powertech Labs to become
comortable with a design approach to innovation. s the project
moved to the second year and Powertech Labs became more amiliar
with design, we used generative approaches to explore more reely.
n the third phase, Powertech Labs took more leadership in dening
a research ocus based in community engagement. e pacing and
reexive nature o the process allowed mily Carr to understand the
mindset and receptiveness that the partner company had towards
design and social innovation, and to adapt as those needs changed.
t illustrates how conversations between companies, designers, and
communities that include critical reection and constant revision can
help us discover a way to a sustainable uture.
Fiure . ( Opposite page ) Elore Loal; rie Chane aimed to
connect EV charging stations with local Vancouver businesses. Tis was meant to
incentivize EV use while also supporting the local community.
Fiure 5. Te Elore Loal program would encompass the below
components or its tour system. Tis project promoted not just electric vehicles,
but also sustainable community activities.
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NEW SpACES, plACES &
mATERIAlS FOR CO-DESIgNINg
SuSTAINAblE FuTuRESb lIZ SANDERS
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plACES, SpACES AND mATERIAlS
IDEA
hEAD
hEART
bODy
EVERyThINg IS SOCIAl NOW
Design has been growing in scope to embrace the larger social contexts
o products and services. n the past, design was ocused mainly on
material concerns with the embodiment o design ideas in the orm o
products, environments or communication systems. But now the con-
versation is about design or experience, design or service, and design
or transormation. veryone wants to play in the social design spaces.
Designers, students and educators talk about design or social good
and design or social impact. People rom the business community talk
about social innovation. e art community is exploring social practice.
ocial practice can mean anything rom art work about social issues, to
provocative art installations, to community-based, participatory practices.
Who will be involved in the emerging social design spaces? What roles
will designers play when everything is social? e answers to these ques-
tions will vary depending upon the mindsets o the people involved.
ocial design spaces are prolierating rapidly and the landscape can be
conusing. But some patterns can be seen. Designers have ( at least )
three mindsets to choose rom:
1. esin or eole: ere designers are considered to be the
experts in designing or others. e ocus in practice is on the tradition-
al orms and ormats o objects, spaces and systems.
2. esin ith eole: ere designers take on new roles. Becausethey invite end-users and other stakeholders into the design process
as co-designers, designers become acilitators who help others to be
creative. n advantage to this approach is that the co-designers will take
pride in and ownership o the process, leading to sustainable results.
3. esin or hane: ere designers turn to the applied social
sciences and use probing, provoking, and other interventional means o
getting people to change their behavior. For example, this approach is
being explored in addressing healthcare situations such as obesity. But
some people are concerned with this approach since it has the potential
to inringe on personal rights.
n this short paper ll talk mainly about design with people wheredesigners learn to acilitate the creativity o others. n order to design
with people we need to know more about how spaces, places and mate-
rials can contribute to creativity.
CONTEXTS OF CREATIVITy: A FRAmEWORK
ere are many competing theories about what creativity is and how it
works. Contexts o Creativity [ 8 ] is not another theory about creativity.
nstead, it is a ramework or organizing what we know about creativity
in order to help people acilitate the creativity o others. Figure 1 shows
the layers o context that contribute to individual creativity. t shows
that individual creativity is not only in the head ( as once was thought )
I were to design sustainable utures, well need to do it collectively. ow can we oster collective
thinking and creativity? Unortunately, we dont know much about the spaces, places and materials
that can support and inspire collective creativity. Its time we learned.
but in the heart as well because creativity is aected by emotion. nd
creativity takes place in the body. t is evoked through activity and
motion. [4 ] nd the last layer shows that creativity is aected by the
environment and the materials that are present.
Collective creativity is shown in Figure 2 as a group o diverse individuals
connected in thought and action while working together on a very big
idea ( i.e. , the green splat ). Collective creativity uses all o the contexts
o creativity ( head, heart, body, places, spaces and materials ) to support
and scaold the shared space o thoughts and ideas. When collective
creativity is working well, everyone contributes simultaneously to the
big picture that comes rom the shared mind and body space. e
co-construction o the big picture is essential or collective creativity
and this is where the importance o the materials comes into play. e
tools and materials must possess generative potential. [ 7 ] Communica-
tion design will soon undergo radical transormation as we learn more
about creating such materials and tools to support and provoke creativity.Th RE E DI ST INC T mI ND SE TS Ab Ou T SO CI Al DE SI gN
CAN bE SEEN IN pRACTICE
FIGURE 1. Individual creativity
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2
CO-CREATION
hOW muCh DO WE REAlly KNOW AbOuT CREATIVITy?
We know a lot about creativity in individuals but very little about
creativity shared between people. [ 8 ] e matrix in Figure 3 distin-
guishes between individual and collective creativity across three levels
o context that could aect the output o creativity: the socio-cultural
space, the physical environment, and the space o tools and materials.e size o the splat indicates the amount o research in each o the
cells. We know the most about individual creativity in the socio-cultural
space, ollowed by individual creativity in the physical environment. e
other our cells are largely unexplored. ( But see anders [ 8 ] or more
inormation on these our cells ).
ere is not much research at all on collective creativity. ere is some,
such as socio-technical environments to support social creativity in
urban planning, collaborative learning, and collaborative sotware
design. [ 3 ] But theres not much more than that. nd theres not much
research about the impact o tools and materials on creativity, although
this is an area that have explored in practice and described in a book
called Convivial oolbox. [ 7 ]
SOuRCE OF INSpIRATION:
TR AN SF OR mATI ON Al gR Ou p EX pE RIEN CE S
ince we dont have much to draw on rom the published research on
the impact o spaces, places and materials on creativity, it makes sense
to look or other sources o inspiration.
enee Levi [ 5 ] studied transormational group experiences and ound,
unexpectedly, that the place or space in which magical moments in
groups happened was identied by over hal o the studys participants
as inuencing their elt shit rom a collection o individuals to a true
collective able to think and work together. is nding was surprising
to Levi in that she did not anticipate it, nor did she ask about it. he
explored extraordinary group experiences urther [ 5 ] and ound the
ollowing qualities to be important.
e place is distant rom peoples daily lives. ere are welcoming elements o the acility ( e.g., long entrance
roads, people to greet you ).
e main meeting room is the right size and shape.
ere are places or sitting and walking side by side.
e space contains symbols ( e.g., objects or materials ) that can be
called upon to evoke meaning.
ere are open interior spaces with both public and private spaces
available within them.
e windows oer views o nature.
atural materials have been used in construction.
e space contains elements that remind people o home.
e ood is resh and healthy.
ere are opportunities or people to explore and challenge themselves.
Levis research covered many other qualities o transormative spaces.
e list above descr ibes only the physical environmental attributes.
nspiration comes also rom alternative approaches or the education
o very young children: Waldor, eggio milia and ontessori. [ 2 ]e
eggio milia approach is explicit about the environments and materials
needed to scaold the childs learning. n act, eggio milia practi-
tioners reer to the environment and the materials available in it as the
ANOThER SOuRCE OF INSpIRATION:
REggIO EmIlIA pRESChOOl
FIGURE 2. Collective creativity
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REFERENCES
[ 1 ] Cadwell, L.B. Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An Innovative Approach to Early
Childhood Education. eachers College Press, ew York, 1997. [ 2 ] dwards, C.P. ree
approaches rom urope: Waldor, ontessori and eggio milia. Early Childhood Re-
search and Practice, 4 ( 1 ), 2002 [ 3 ] Fischer, . ocial creativity: aking all voices heard.
in Proceedings o the HCI International Conerence ( C ), ( Las Vegas, 2005 ). [ ]
Leung, ..-y., im, ., Polman, ., ng, L.., Qiu, L., oncalo, .. and anchez-Burks,
. mbodied me taphors and creative acts . Psychological Science, 23 ( 5 ). 502-509,
2012 [ 5 ] Levi, . roup agic: n nquiry into xperiences o Collective esonance.
Dissertation bstracts nternational ( U o. 3098829 ), 2003. [ 6 ] Levi, . Te
Powers o Place: An Inquiry into the Inuence o Place, Space and Environment on
Collective ransormation. 2008. etrieved rom http://www.collectivewisdominitia-
tive.org/papers/levi_place.pd. [ 7 ] anders, .B.- and tappers, P.. Convivial oolbox:
Generative Research or the Front End o Design. B Publishers, L, 2012. [ 8 ] anders.
.B.-. Creativity in strategic thinking. in Wolters, ..., rome, . and inds, . eds.
Enhancing the Armys Strategic Tinking Capability: Insights to Assess, Develop, and
Retain Strategic Tinkers, esearch eport or U.. rmy esearch nstitute or the
Behavioral and ocial ciences, 2012.
third teacher ( who is in addition to the two teachers who collaborate
daily on each childs learning journey ).
e spaces, places and materials in a eggio milia school are described
as ollows ( adapted rom Caldwell ). [ 1 ]
e ront door welcomes you.
atural light ows into as many parts o the space as possible.
e halls are much larger than normal, with places to stop and sit
as you go.
ere are studio spaces in each classroom as well as spaces designat-
ed or small and large group activities.
Provocation stations with careully selected and arranged materials
invite manipulation and exploration along a specic theme.
Large inner windows connect the interior spaces.
Wall-size outer windows provide views to the outside and doors to
the outside can be ound in every classroom.
e walls are painted a neutral color so that you can see the chil-
drens projects that are exhibited on the walls in the classrooms andthe hallways.
ere is documentation about each project in the orm o state-
ments made by the children as they talked about their projects.
wide range o quality materials is available: tempura paint, water-
color, wire, weaving, collage, natural materials, cardboard/paper
construction, and light, color and transparency at the light table.
ese materials are beautiully arranged and displayed in containers
that sit on low shelves backed by mirrors.
For photos o eggio milia inspired environments and materials, see
http://pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=reggio+emilia+spaces
ImAgINE A FuTuRE
What i we combined the qualities o eggio milia preschool environ-
ments with the qualities o transormational group spaces to create
spaces, places and materials or adults to engage collectively in creative
thinking and making? ese environments or co-designing will have a
positive impact on peoples ability to address complex social issues andimagine uture possibilities. ey will be the new materializations o the
social design spaces. we learn to master the new spaces, places and
materials or co-designing, well see a uture capable o supporting new
levels o conviviality and cultural sustainability.
FIGURE 3. How much we know about creativity
INDIVIDuAl CREATIVITy COllECTIVE CREATIVITy
Th E SO CI O-C ulT uR E SpAC E
Th E ph yS IC Al EN VI RO Nm EN T
Th E Sp ACE OF TO Ol S
AND mATERIAlS
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CO-CREATION
AbSTRACT
is article examines how participatory
design strategies can serve as an eective
tool when working with multiple design
constraints. mily arr University o rt +
esign students were asked to collaborate
with children with special learning needs
to create a textile-based product rom
reclaimed abric that endorsed sustainability
among both the users and the designers.
KEyWORDSco-design, design constraints, interactive
textiles, children, learning disabilities,
participatory design, sustainable thinking,
systems
CO-CREATINg SpACES: ThE TAg pROJECT
b bEAyuE lOuIE
enneth ordon aplewood chool ( ) is an independent school that specializes in teach-ing children with dyslexia and learning disabilities. wned and operated by e ociety or the
ducation o Children with pecic Learning Disabilities, employs the rton-illingham
teaching method, which avours visual, auditory, tactile and kinesthetic cues. [ 2 ] n 2010,
relocated rom Burnaby, British Columbia to its present location in orth Vancouver, BC.
econd-year design students rom mily Carr, working in pairs, were asked to create an interactive
textile-based artiact or system that would encourage sustainable practices within the
community. ach team was matched with a group o three to our Division 6 students rom ,
who would serve as co-creators on the project. e resulting design would be gi ted to and
its students or implementation in their school.
DEFININg ThE pROblEm
Prior to this project, the majority o our design bries have been directed towards theoretical users
and allowed or blue sky ideation designing without limits. n order to gain practical experi-
ence, we were challenged to apply our knowledge and skills to a set o complex, real-world issues
that contained multiple non-negotiable parameters. Working with users with very specic needs
and limitations, we were asked to use participatory design techniques to create a product that not
only encouraged sustainable practices, but considered such practices in all acets o the produc-
tion process as well.
e project was subjected to numerous constraints. ur product had to:
be made rom reclaimed heerll - abric ( a berglass and polytetrauoroethylene
composite ) rom Canada Places ormer roo, donated by e-Fab Vancouver;
use only textile manuacturing techniques;
not exceed 2 square metres in size;
be made o repetitive elements;
emphasize dynamic relationships;
be geared towards children, actoring in ergonomics, saety, unctionality and durability;
take into consideration the learning needs o the students.
mEThODOlOgy
Preliminary Researh. n order to present sustainability to the students in tangible, accessi-
ble terms, we elected to ocus on environmental issues that were common to our region. iven
proximity to the Burrard nlet, we narrowed the initial scope o our research to environ-
mental issues related to water, such as consumption, conservation and marine debris.
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Cultural Proe. Based on our research ndings, we created a
cultural probe or each student that consisted o a team-building
puzzle, exploratory drawing and collage exercises, a scavenger hunt and
an ideation activity involving common recyclable objects. ese probes,
which would provide glimpses into the everyday lives o our students,
were intended to serve as beacons or [ our ] imagination. [ 1, 3 ]
ter receiving the completed probes back, we discovered that while
our group was aware o the environment, their knowledge waslimited to abstract recycling practices typically associated with public
advocacy campaigns. Furthermore, they expressed little interest in the
subject o water, rendering our preliminary research moot. ather than
relegate our students to the role o mere users, we abandoned our initial
concept in avour o creating a co-design space at this early ront end o
the design development process where the students would work
with us in a more emancipatory role. [4, 5 ]
Co-esin Sessions. o encourage ree-orm dialogue that would
reveal potential design opportunities, we organized two co-design
sessions that alluded to sustainability as a by-product o each activity
rather than the ocus.
e rst session consisted o:
a student-led tour o ;
a gurine workshop where each student:
created a superpower character using ound objects and scrap
material; and
ater classiying their character as a hero or villain, determined
what their character would do i it was on a planet with no trees,
plants or water; and
a round robin storyboarding exercise that was altered on site, based
on the students interests, into a riend-or-oe workshop where each
student created an accessory, companion or enemy or their original
character out o modeling clay.
e second session consisted o a material and orm exercise that bore
similarities to our own design exploration with heerll - abric.
Using only the scrap textiles we provided, the students were
asked to make something out o at least two pieces o abric that were
connected together without the use o adhesives or asteners.
FINDINgS
e topic o superhe