Sharing as a design challenge

Sustainist Design Workshop@PICNIC '12

Part of: PICNIC Festival 2012

Location

Eye
IJpromenade 1, 1013 KT Amsterdam
website

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Sharing is one of the key qualities that will drive innovation and social design in the so-called era of sustainism (a term coined by Michiel Schwarz and Joost Elffers), the 21st century operating context of global connectivity, sustainability, open exchange and a resurgence of the local. The last years have seen a formidable growth of initiatives that are based on sharing and new forms of ownership – from shared products and services, to places, and of course information. The mindset and practice of sharing and open exchange can be seen in many of what’s being presented at this year’s PICNIC Festival.

We take sharing as an exciting design challenge. Can we learn to design for sharing? What would it mean if “shareability” would be taken as a design criterion right at the outset of our innovation processes? How might we bring shareable attributes into the process of designing products, services, environments and situations?

Share @ Open Sustainist Design Workshop

Such questions are the starting point of this 90-minute workshop where we explore what such a “sustainist design” process around sharing would look like. The workshop incorporates elements of our current and on-going project Open Book for Sustainist Design, where we invite designers and non-designers to contribute examples of value-based design that is both socially and ecologically sustainable. The project will culminate in a design guide, the Sustainist Design Primer, to be published early next year.

At PICNIC, we welcome all people who—like ourselves—are interested in working together to develop new practices of collaborative design and innovation.

We are looking for a group of 20-30 people, designers and non-designers, to actively take up this design challenge. Share your ideas on “sharing by design.”

Workshop agenda

Introduction — “Sustainist Design” as new perspective.
Short presentations framing and introducing the design challenge. How the “lens” of sustainism opens new opportunities for design and innovation. Open Book for Sustainist Design as starting point. How might we design for sharing? Outlining the design challenge addressed in this workshop.

Designing Round 1 — Sharing as design question (working groups).
What might design for sharing look like? What shareable attributes to bring into the design process? Formulate your design challenge.

Designing Round 2 — Developing design concepts for sharing/shareability (working groups)
Actively entering into the design process in response to a design question. From an idea to a design concept for sharing.

Presentations — Visualisation of design concepts.
Group presentations of outcomes of the design exercise. Visualising the results of the workshop, that will result in a poster presentation at PICNIC (online and offline).

Discussion — Furthering the practice of design for sharing and sustainist design.

Read More about the 'Sharing as Design Challenge' workshop