Dott Blog - Movement

The Institute of the Future Reveals All

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:55:00+0100

The Great Movement Debate should be renamed The Great Movement War. The Government is in a muddle over it and so are we. The recent Climate Change Bill commits the government to moving towards a low carbon economy while at the same time The Government’s recently published White Paper on transport identifies an “urgent need” for extra aviation capacity in the South East of England. With all this talk of travel, it seems like the government is going nowhere. Caught between a rock and a hard place over transport might be uncomfortable for their conscience but whatever inner battle they have, there are plenty of battles on the outside too. [More]

Past, Present and Future in Allendale

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:55:00+0100

I had an evening to remember in Allendale. I am happy to report that I am not alone in this. While visiting the Dott 07 Design Camp sites, Christopher Bacon and his wife Anne told me about theirs. Over thirty years ago, when they were students, they drove up to Allendale from Norwich one day... ‘It was pouring with rain; it was wonderfully dramatic because with the rain and the wind, the hills looked like there were giants crossing the mountains, and we picked up all this purple fluorspar - great big crystals of it; we took them back to his grandmothers house to show her and they’d dried out; like fairy gold they didn’t look beautiful anymore because they weren’t wet. I’ll never forget that day.’ Whatever magic they shared on that wet, bejewelled walk, when Christopher and Anne wanted to move house 12 years ago, they chose Allendale. After a visit to the striking Dott 07 Design Camp light installation at the old Allen Mill, followed by some locally brewed beer in The King’s Head, I’d move there myself! [More]

A Seasonal Palette For Dott 07

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 12:15:00+0100

Landlines, a pilot project developed from Dott's Design Camp, has captured the imagination of farmers, tourists and commuters along the East Coast railway line. Artist Steve Messam and farmer Rod Smith collaborated to redesign the landscape of Beals Farm, Northumberland. The design, the size of three football pitches, was ploughed in such a way to create a temporary landscape design for passing rail travellers - 15,000 per day. [More]

We Love Urban Camping!

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:33:00+0100

If you wanted to stay in Dott 07's Urban Campsite you've missed your chance. The campsite gate closed last night. The temporary tourist accommodation was housed under an arch of Byker Bridge, in Ouseburn. By all accounts the working protoype, an idea developed by designers during Design Camp, went down a storm - the only downside was Jack Frost visiting during the night.

'I stayed Friday and Saturday night. I slept in a myhab cause I wanted to experience what pod life was like. I would live here the whole year if I could!' Neil

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Dott Debates - The Movement Dilemma

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:28:00+0100

Thursday 18 October – 13:00-16:00
Location: Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art

The debate suggests that the movement of people and goods around the world consumes vast amounts of matter, energy, space, and time - most of it non-renewable. Should sustainable development therefore be concentrated in cities, where economic progress can most feasibly be de-coupled from transport intensity? Or are there ways to ensure that rural communities have access to services by using transport resources more smartly? And could new forms of sustainable tourism be enabled by access to territorial and cultural assets that already exist? [More]

Win a bike in the Welcomes Zone at the Dott 07 Festival

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:00:00+0100

Welcoming is big business. Take a minute now to think about that café you love to return to, that holiday you’d take again if you could, or that hairdresser you just can’t bring yourself to change. Just how much does ‘feeling welcome’ in those special places, really influence your choices about them? It’s probably not all about haircuts and nice coffee but just what exactly is it? People and places that we experience as ‘welcoming’ have that magic ‘something’ about them... if you could bottle it, you’d make millions. Why not try! Bring your welcome ideas, thoughts and experiences directly to the Welcomes Zone at the Dott 07 Festival and you could win a spanking new Dawes Bike and a glowing Wattson device. If that’s not a welcome prospect, I don’t know what is! [More]

Cars, Rappers and Jewels at the Dott 07 Festival

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:38:00+0100

How do I become a Sustainable Tourist for a day? What is ‘Mapping’ and can I do it now? Is there any other way to get to work or school if public transport isn’t reliable? Explore the Dott 07’s Movement Zone and you will be taken on a trip across the Northumberland wilderness, down to the Durham Necklace Park, then up to the town of Scremerston and all without moving from Baltic Square. If that’s not sustainable movement, then I don’t know what is! [More]

Dreams Become Reality at the Dott 07 Festival

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:28:00+0100

Get down to the New Work planet at the Dott 07 Festival and have your mind opened to the future of work as we know it. In true Back to the Future style, time machines have arrived at the work place. As you enter the festival from the Millennium Bridge or Gateshead, you will be hit by a bolt of lightening that would have transported Michael J. Fox straight into Baltic Square for Back to the Future VI, if it wasn’t for Hollywood’s obsession with Harry Potter. Yes! The New Work space at the festival will transport you in a serene ‘office’ space, where the whiff of freshly ground coffee will filter through as you indulge in a relaxing massage or a spinal analysis. Or why not ease the stress of the festival crowds by chilling on comfie sofas as you feast your senses on the delights of the specially designed office ‘garden’. Take time to ask the question: ‘do I work to live or live to work?’ Experience tips for organising your work and home life balance and speak to experienced professionals about your business dreams. [More]

Young International Designers Have Plans For The North East

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 12:02:00+0100

Young designers from around the world presented their final concepts for the Dott 07 project 'Design Camp' on Friday 20 July in Allendale, Northumberland. Before I begin, I want to put three ideas in your mind, to give you a flavour of the afternoon's designs:

Wake up 15 feet above the ground to a waft of sizzling bacon.
Your breath is stolen by a burst of ghostly blue.
Look up as it billows, and feel the breeze on your face.

Right, with those in mind, do read on and I shall explain.

The young designers taking part in the Design Camp spanned eight nationalities and umpteen design backgrounds: from fine art to product design and interior architecture. In groups they have created concepts to enhance Sustainable Tourism in the North East. Steve Messam, Senior Producer on the project spoke to me about how busy they had all been. [More]

Campers Head for Deneholme

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 08:58:00+0100

Last week participants of Dott's Design Camp worked on their concepts for sustainable tourism while they enjoyed the surroundings of Deneholme in Allendale. The teams used the information they had gathered during the last few days on existing tourist attractions in the North East, and the more specialist research they have done, specific to their particular project: Windfarms; Urban Camping and Allendale Heritage.

After a renowned Deneholme dinner made form local produce (I’ll never be able to look those cute little lambs outside in the face again) a day of brainstorming culminated in each group giving a preliminary presentation of their concepts to the rest of the group.

The Urban Campers considered: turning camping on its head and introducing luxury to the site, think chandeliers, red carpets and tent service. They looked at how the campers once at the site might travel around Newcastle in a sustainable way, involving bikes from the Recyke Y'Bike scheme in Byker; and explored how the strong sense of community that makes the Ouseburn such an interesting place could be involved in the building and running of the Urban Campsite. [More]

Design Camp Explore Ouseburn

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:47:00+0100

The designers developing a concept for Urban Camping, along with their mentor for the day, Swedish artist/designer/entrepreneur, Mikael Genberg, explored part of a disused structure at the mouth of the Ouseburn, the proposed site for Urban Camping (exact location to be revealed). Mikael, who has worked on many concepts for accommodation, including underwater hotels and treehouses bounced ideas around with the other designers on how the space could be used to create accommodation for people to 'camp' sustainably in the area, a loose brief, but one that requires the development of a concept that has 'never been seen before' allowed the group to come up with a whole host of ideas.

The designers explored and gathered research from around the Ouseburn, experiencing what it had to offer. A meeting with Peter Kay from the Ouseburn Trust gave a good insight to the history of the Ouseburn and the sense of community that has made the Ouseburn the place it is today, as well as issues that will inform developments in the future. [More]

Design Camp Go Mapping

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:32:00+0100

The campers arrived in Durham on Monday morning and assembled in Clayport Library where they were introduced to the concept of Mapping the Necklace and shown some footage of how other groups had mapped the area during the project. A few, perhaps slightly confused but certainly intrigued faces set out into Durham, loaded with tracking devices provided by Durham University to explore and map the area. The tracking devices allowed us to map out the routes that were taken back in the library on a laptop.

Later in the afternoon we reassembled back at Clayport Library so that each group of mappers could present back the ways in which they mapped the necklace. A whole array of concepts had been used, from the eccentric to the mathematically planned. [More]

Urban Camping in Newcastle

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:05:00+0100

Dott's Design Camp kicked off on Thursday evening at the Explorers Club in the Robert Stephenson Centre. 17 designers, spanning multiple disciplines, from around the world are working together to develop sustainable solutions to improve tourism in the North East. The design teams are working in four locations across the region.

Throughout the 10-day camp, the teams will work with local co-ordinators and the local community to develop ground-up approaches to the design challenges. Domain experts from around the world will act as mentors to the teams through a series of day and evening sessions.

Camp co-ordinator Helen Jamieson is on-site covering the various locations, writing blogs to keep us informed with what's going on in camp. On Saturday Helen met with the Urban Camping team to take a trip round Newcastle. Here's what happened...
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Explorers Club - Sustainable Tourism

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:00:00+0100

On 12 July at the Robert Stephenson Centre a little bit of magic was in the air. It was the launch of Dott 07’s Design Camp project, which focuses on sustainable tourism in the region. The gathered group of intrepid explorers were taken on a trip from the RSC centre, across the Northumberland wilderness to the Durham Necklace Park, then down to the romantic valleys of Southern Italy and back. Just like the iconic salmon in the Tyne River, the group ended up where they started and all without adding one ounce of CO2 to the atmosphere. If that’s not sustainable tourism then I don’t know what is!

Together with the Royal Society of Arts, Dott 07 has invited 17 young designers from the UK and abroad to work with local people in the region on the development of radical new forms of tourism. Projects to be realised over the coming weeks will include urban camping in a disused city centre space; new ways to access and experience the industrial heritage of the North Pennines; and turning wind farm installations into spectacular new kinds of tourist destinations. This challenge is not for the faint hearted. Take wind farms, they are arguably associated with having a negative impact on tourism and even if the wind farm developers appreciate the aesthetics of their creations, they have certainly never been in the tourist trade before. In the North Pennines, there already exists an award-winning mining museum at Killhope – but unconventional access to the heritage remains untapped. As for urban camping, it has quite simply not been done before! [More]

Nuggets of Gold in Scremerston Village

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:31:00+0100

If small is the new big then Dott 07’s Move Me project is an oak tree in the forest of sustainable design. In a recent article in Blueprint magazine, Dott 07’s programme director John Thackara said ‘Dott is in the acorns business.’ If one of the main aims of Dott 07 is to plant seeds for change aimed at developing practical ways to improve the daily lives of one community in one place, then the Move Me project is well on the way to freeing two birds with one stone. By solving some of the transport problems facing the good people of Scremerston village in Northumberland, the service design company Live|Work is simultaneously devising a toolkit for rural transport stakeholders that can be scaled up and multiplied on a national level. Over the past 15 months, Live|Work has stripped bare the existing transport available to the residents of Scremerston in an attempt to improve accessibility to goods and services for all without putting more cars or buses on the road. Come again! More transport: less vehicles? Not possible, I hear you say and if that’s not difficult enough, you might as well ask, why bother containing the number of vehicles on the roads, when overhead, at intervals of 30 minutes or so, RAF fighter jets thunder past and burn more fossil fuel that a hundred trips from Newcastle to Scremerston and back? No. Live|Work have not signed up for the Krypton Factor challenge but these conundrums highlight the big:small dichotomy at the heart of the climate change debate. [More]