John Thackara
Programme Director, Dott07
Dott 07 is about creating demand for new and more sustainable ways to live. This year, throughout the North East of England, different communities have been challenged to address the question, ‘How do we want to live?’
Dott 07 (Designs of the time) is a year long project exploring how design can make a positive difference to our lives.
It’s a collaboration between the Design Council and the regional development agency One North East. We have been working with communities and individuals in the region during 2007 and projects are due to be completed by the end of 2007.
The aim is to involve people in a variety of design projects as active participants.
Dott 07 has selected five core themes that are inspired by aspects of daily life where things can be improved. Each Dott 07 project or activity is assigned to a core theme; Health and Wellbeing, Food and Nutrition, School and Community, Energy and Environment or Mobility and Access.
A year of community projects looking into how design can help in situations as diverse as alzheimers care or energy consumption, culminates in a Festival in Newcastle that runs from 16-28 October. There will be a series of debates, talks by some of the partner organisations that have helped make Dott 07, and exhibitions to explain what design did for projects in Dott's five core areas.
Come along to celebrate the achievements of all the people involved and to learn about the high and lows of conducting public-facing design research. The most successful projects will be rewarded with a Creative Community Award.
While you are there, find out how to particpate in similar projects and what lessons Dott 07 has learnt for Dott 09, the next project to focus on accelerating a region's transition to sustainability through design.
Dott 07 is inspired by the question ‘Who Designs Your Life?’.
It has focused on six community projects, with the involvement of up to 100 schools in an eco design venture, and exhibitions and events that explore how good design can benefit our lives are planned for the Dott 07 Festival.
The community projects are:
- Urban Farming, which has helped schools, communities and businesses grow their own fresh food in a variety of spaces in Middlesbrough, and seen them making it into meals in special kitchens called Meal Assembly Centres.
- Low Carb Lane, where one street in Northumberland looked at a range of ways of making their homes more energy efficient, cutting their carbon emissions and reducing their demand on the National Grid by up to 60%.
- The DaSH (Design and Sexual Health) project looked at improving screening and treatment provision for sexual health in Gateshead in consultation with service users. The aim was to develop a system where anyone contacting the service will be seen within 48 hours.
- The Move Me project in Scremerston, Northumberland has the aim of improving transport systems within this small rural community. It looked at how best to use public and private transport and make it easier and more energy efficient for people to get around.
- OurNewSchool brings together a whole variety of people to learn, share thoughts, discover opportunities and come up with new ideas to improve people's experiences of being at school. OurNewSchool at Walker Technology College has the support of designers and other experts. Students, staff and people from the wider school community explore how to change the ways things work and collaborate to design and try out solutions.
- Alzheimer 100 looked at how design can improve the daily life of people with dementia and of their carers. The project focused on practical issues and sought to design new products and services that tackle them.
Dott 07 participated in an RSA Design Direction competition in conjunction with Doors of Perception. Students from all over the world, as well as the North East, looked at how design can lessen the environmental impact of tourism, making the industry sustainable.
The Eco Design Challenge saw year eight pupils across the region working with professional designers to redesign an aspect of school life to reduce their environmental and ecological impact. The Dott 07 Festival will have a dedicated Schools Zone where you can see their ideas.
The Design Showcases are an exiting range of exhibitions and events that have run from March 2007 and will culminate the Dott 07 Festival in October. They are intended to show the best of the region’s design and creativity and provoke stimulating debate about the way we want to live.
The Dott legacy will continue in the North East, through everyone who has participated. Meanwhile here at the Design Council we will be gathering all of the lessons learned from the Dott projects and using them to feed into our own work as well as to contribute to the thinking behind the next Dott in 2009.
The Dott will move to a different region or nation in the United Kingdom every two years for the next decade, drawing on the experiences and achievements gained here. It will encourage people to think about design innovation as something that contributes to the cultural, economic and social success of the country.
