Stephanie Flanders
As you see from your programmes the second session this morning going into lunch is 2 rapid fire panels about capital skills and places. I think the first one in a sense is about people and places and creativity and we have 2 speakers very well placed to talk about that. First will be Graham Hitchin who’s Project Director of the International Centre for Design and Innovation, for the London Development Agency, he’s in that position on behalf of the Design Council and the LDA. He’ll just speak for a few minutes and he’ll be followed by Professor Stuart MacDonald who’s Head of Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen but was formerly Director of the Lighthouse in the Glasgow, which of course figured very prominently as an exemplar of its kind. In fact there’s very little of its kind in the Cox review. So first just a few minutes from you Graham.
Graham Hitchen
Excuse me. I’ll try and rustle through a few things I’ve got to say. Originally the programme for this session I think had Tony Wilson as one of the speakers on this session and I was quite looking forward to being alongside Tony Wilson. Tony Wilson for those of you who don’t know was the founder of Factory Records in Manchester in the 1980’s and set up the infamous Hacienda nightclub. I was looking forward to comparing notes with him around how to find and generate talent and new ideas because it struck me that what happened in Manchester in the 1980s was an example of the sort of crucible of new thinking and new ideas and innovation that actually it might be worth mimicking in some way or another. Certainly that period was one which generated, and that nightclub and Factory Records stimulated new talent; Joy Division, Happy Mondays, New Order, they’re the big headlines but a whole series of other acts that emerged out of that period.
Innovation, well we may not want to mimic this particular type of innovation but the idea of a record sleeve that’s so fantastically designed that it actually cost the production company money each time somebody buys it because it costs more money to produce than actually they somehow had calculated you got back in returns. Well so very, very innovative and there’s no doubt whatsoever that that period did help to transform the music industry. The music industry is now one of the leading UK industries, certainly one of the biggest creative industries in the UK.
So I think phenomenal moments, a moment of change and transformation. Now you can only push these analogies so far I think, and there are probably aficionados of 24 hour party culture in the room so I won’t dwell on this too much but I think there’s something interesting here about that analogy with dance floors, with nightclubs.
Christopher Frayling who’s not here, Rector of the Royal College of Art always talks about the ballroom of romance for example, the ballroom of romance being that space where creative people meet, where new ideas are hatched and where business gets done.
So what is it about a nightclub or a dance floor that can do that? It seems to me it’s probably a combination of a staged show and a happy coincidence of people meeting and interacting. A formal presentation but also very very informal participation. A mix of styles and genres meeting together, mixing, trying out new things, not afraid to make mistakes and coming up with new ideas.
Allegedly the Hacienda had very poor sight lines and awful acoustics so clearly it wasn’t the building. Now how is all this relevant because you’re expecting me to talk about the National Centre for Design and Innovation, one of the recommendations made by Sir George Cox in his report last year.
Well London Development Agency picked this up, I picked this up mid year and we’ve been looking at different models for a design centre and how it can work, what it might mean. We’ve been looking at different methodologies for stimulating innovation, for actually creating that space where design can start to transform UK business and the LDA is currently considering one aspect of the proposal so I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to provide too much detail but I do want to give you some perceptions and lessons that have been learnt.
The research we’ve undertaken hasn’t involved visits to the Hacienda and other nightclubs but it has involved visits to the US, I was part of a delegation that went to the United States in September courtesy of the Design Council and the Higher Education Funding Council, looking at different design schools, different models there. We’ve also been looking at Asian and European centres and different ways in which design is promoted through centres or distributive models of support.
I’m conscious of time but I think it’s worth just a couple of those, it’s quite interesting the D-School in Stanford, quite a well established and good reputation now as something, a place that’s leading thinking about design and business, it’s a portacabin. It’s a programme that’s held together by really inspiring people, bringing together students from different disciplines to try out new things around projects. They have plans to grow into a very big building further down the line, but that’s further down the line and the first instance it’s bringing people together, collaborating around projects in new ways.
North Western University has a fantastic centre that’s sponsored by Ford, an engineering design centre. A fantastic space but which mixes together a very commercially orientated and manufacturing sort of centre with designers, and designers that are brought in to interact with technologists and with manufacturers. And MIT media lab, another place which is about research but is research on projects where actually different people are brought together to work around those projects, in a centre which facilitates interaction.
And as I say we’ve looked at centres in different places as well. Now in all of these places space is key, space is very very important, but space, physical space is simply the stage, it’s the dance floor. Where there is successful innovation in those places and where those places we think have been successful and are being successful and are starting to stimulate new thinking and generate innovation, is where they’ve been a meeting point for different disciplines. It’s the classic line which I often use which innovation doesn’t come from people in white coats working in laboratories.
Well actually sometimes it is about bringing people in white coats into design spaces and actually not being afraid to mix science and design and mixing science, design, technology and business and bringing different disciplines together. There has to be a strong formal programme of activity but there also has to be an incredibly strong informal networking which needs to be managed. Facilitating partnerships interactions that may not happen otherwise.
Generally speaking the public sector has not had, it’s had a significant but not the lead role in making these things happen so it’s that combination of formal, informal showcase and staged with the impromptu networking of collaboration.
So just to finish with where we’re at, of what was a National Centre for Design and Innovation, it’s not a centre, it’ll be a trading place, a place of exchange, exchange of ideas and innovation, very much as Bill from Nokia was talking before about a crossover. A meeting point for different disciplines. There will be a very strong programme which is about new thinking and new research and the role that design can play in addressing major challenges like climate change. So there will be a strong programme at the heart of that, but that will be matched with an incredibly strong informal networking and spaces for networking and activities that actually facilitate new collaborations and very very informal collaborations. It will be business driven but it will also have higher education at the heart because it’s about new thinking, new practice and new thinkers bringing innovators into space with business. Working around projects but actually spaces for new thinking in a very, very informal and collaborative way.
So that’s a very very fast, not quite a journey through but I suppose highlighting of some of the ideas that we’ve been working with, and out of that a brief is being developed for an international design exchange, an international design business exchange which as I say is currently with the LDA and all being well a business plan will be worked up and a delivery vehicle will be established in the new year to take that project forward. But that project and what I’ve described in effect is the dance floor for international design-led innovation.
Thank you.