Driving Sustainable Design

I came across this interesting article on John Thackara and the Dott 07 project.

From the Dott 07 website:

Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007) is a year of community projects, events and exhibitions based in North East England that explore what life in a sustainable region could be like – and how design can help us get there.

The community projects are:

• Urban Farming, which helps schools, communities and businesses grow their own fresh food in a variety of spaces in Middlesbrough, and help them make it into meals in special kitchens called Kitchen Playgrounds.

• Low Carb Lane, one street in Northumberland will look 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%.

• DaSH (Design and Sexual Health) seeks to improve screening and treatment provision for sexual health in Gateshead in consultation with service users. The aim is to develop a system where anyone contacting the service will be seen within 48 hours.

• Move Me in Scremerston, Northumberland looks for ways to improve transport provision within this small rural community. They’ll investigate how best to use public and private transport resources in a radically more efficient way, and thereby 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 will look how design can improve the daily life of people with dementia and their carers. The project will look at practical issues and seek to design new products and services that tackle them.
  
  
• New Work is a codesign project to develop services that meet practical everyday needs of micro-businesses across the North East.

Check out his blog, Doors of Perception