Dott Blog - Events

Final Explorers Club of Dott 07

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:20:00+0100

The Explorers Club gathered for the final time, on Wednesday evening, in a very COLD Robert Stephenson Centre. Explorers piled into the open space to hear what's happening with legacy plans for each of the projects. Lucky attendees also got a free copy of the Dott 07 Manual.

The evening started with a tipple and a few rounds of speed meeting. Robert O'Dowd (executive producer, Dott 07) and John Thackara (creative director, Dott 07) led the evening with background detail on projects and introductions to guest speakers.

The first session started with Nick Devitt (senior producer of the Eco Design Challenge and assistant director of Dott 07) sharing the stage with David Dunning and John Jones from Acklam Grange School (winners of the Eco Design Challenge) Rocco Graziano from Hartlepool Council and Mike Rowe from St Hild's (finalists in the Eco Design Challenge). [More]

Sustainability, Schools and Schooling Debate - Speaker Transcript Part Four

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:07:00+0100

In the final session of the Sustainability, Schools and Schooling Debate we heard from Rebecca Gibbs from the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

Hello there. My name’s Rebecca Gibbs and I work at the Department for Children, Schools and Families some of the time. I’m on loan there from the Sustainable Development Commission. And just at the beginning in case I forget to say this at the end, I have to run away because I have to go back to London this evening but I’m not running away from your questions. It’s been really interesting hearing what people are saying about the programme and the problems with it. I can’t promise to influence anything in a major way but I can feedback some of those questions. I didn’t put my email address on this presentation I’m afraid but if you go on to the Sustainable Development Commission website, my name is there and my email address is there. My name’s Rebecca Gibbs. Do feed those issues, points and questions back and I’ll see that they get to the right people. So that’s who I am. [More]

Better Lives With Dementia - Group Discussion Transcript

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:15:00+0100

After presentations from Professor Jim Edwardson, Doctor Susanne Sorensen and thinkpublic, everyone gathered together to discuss dementia.

Below is a transcript of the discussion. You can also listen again to the group discussion. (22.3MB, 48.35mins)

John Thackara: So we discovered there was a physical impediment to our making a perfect circle of these chairs, that we would have had to unhook them all, which was beyond the powers of our limited organisation, so every day we’re making it a bit rounder, but it’s a rather strange kind of bent horseshoe at the moment. The basic concept is that we’re now going to talk to each other on a 100% equal basis.

I haven't had a chance to talk this through in any great detail with Alastair, but my suggestion is that for 15 minutes or so we would focus on the four stories that we haven't heard from – that is to say the next stage of developing services in response to the opportunities we heard.

Then if Alastair, if you could take charge for the last 15, 20 minutes in making sure we come to some kind of conclusion and answer the questions that you set us at the beginning of the afternoon. Would that be a good way to do it? Are you happy with that? [More]

Better Lives With Dementia - Speaker Transcript Part Two

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:45:00+0100

After introduction presentations by Professor Jim Edwardson and Doctor Susanne Sorensen, thinkpublic a public service and communication design agency, and senior producers of the Dott 07 project Alzheimer100 took to the stage.

Speakers Part Two:
Deborah Szebeko, thinkpublic. Listen again (4.28MB, 9.15mins)
Ian Drysdale, thinkpublic. Listen again (2.44MB, 5.20mins)
Ivo Gormley, thinkpublic. Listen again (2.78MB, 6.02mins) [More]

Final Dott 07 Explorers Club - 12 March 08

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:32:00+0100

Before we close the doors at Dott 07 for the last time, the final Dott 07 Explorers Club will take place on Wednesday 12 March 2008. The event will kick-off at 1730, at the Robert Stephenson Centre, with drinks, light bites and a few rounds of speed meeting to help break the ice with new and familiar faces. Together we will look back at Dott projects and discuss what did we learn? and, what happens next?

We'll have updates from the community design projects, including some big news from the Eco Design Challenge. There will be a special report and think-piece by Andrew Caleya Chetty, curator of Our Cyborg Future? The exhibition, based at the Discovery Museum, looked at the shrinking divide between us and the technology we use. [More]

Better Lives With Dementia - Speaker Transcript Part One

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:15:00+0100

Dott 07’s Alzheimer100 project charted the key stages of the journey through dementia in collaboration with people with dementia and their carers. What opportunities for service design innovation exist on that journey? Service ideas that emerged from co-design workshops range from time banking to assistive technology.

This debate, organised in conjunction with the Alzheimer's Society nationally, considered how to amplify the role of citizen co-design in service innovation for health and care.

Read the transcript or listen again below. [More]

Food Systems and Cities Debate - Speaker Transcript Part Two

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:14:00+0100

Part two of the speaker transcripts from the Food Systems and Cities Debate.

John Thackara, programme director Dott 07

When we (Dott) were in Delhi one of the most impactful kind of introductions to the subject of food and cities came from our next speaker, Chris Hardwick, who is an architect from Toronto. Toronto is one of those places that is taking the subject of food and food systems, and carbon and environmental impacts very seriously. This is where I have endlessly repeated the statistic that 30-40% of the carbon footprint of this city comes in one way or another from its food activities, transportation, energy growing, retailing, and so on, which is curiously completely absent when you look at what cities talk about what they are going to do to produce their carbon footprint. So I said ‘We need it to find out more about this curious kind of blind spot, or mislabelling of things. So, that, I think, is what Chris Hardwick is going to talk about this morning. Chris… [More]

Sustainability, Schools and Schooling Debate - Speaker Transcript Part Two

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:18:00+0100

Part two of the Sustainability, Schools and Schooling Debate looked at the Dott project OurNewSchool, based at Walker Technology College in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Speakers:
Julia Schaeper
Engine producers of OurNewSchool - Listen again to Julia(3.21MB, 7mins)
Steve Gater
Head of Walker Technology College - Listen again to Steve (2.67MB, 5.50mins)
Hannah Jones
National College of School Leadership - Listen again to Hannah (2.82MB, 6.09mins)

Read the transcripts or listen to the audio files. [More]

Sustainability, Schools and Schooling Debate - Speaker Transcript Part One

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:22:00+0100

One group above all others has a stake in the transition to sustainability: today's school students. Are we giving them enough leeway to shape the world they will live in? Following a visit to the Dott Festival, the debate began with a review of two Dott projects.

In ECO Design Challenge, Dott 07 invited year eight students across North East England to map their school’s ‘carbon and ecological footprint’. Having identified which aspects of their footprint are most wasteful, they then proposed the redesign of an aspect of their school’s life to reduce its impact on the environment.

A second Dott 07 project, OurNewSchool asked: how do we create schools that prepare our children for their futures? The OurNewSchool story was presented by the designers and staff members involved at the prototype school in Walker Technology College, Newcastle. [More]

Food Systems and Cities Debate - Speaker Transcript Part One

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:40:00+0100

Up to 30% of the ecological footprint of a city can be attributed to the systems which keep it fed and watered. But when the mayors of the world's 40 largest cities met recently to discuss sustainability strategies, food was not on the agenda. Why? This international debate, organised jointly by Dott 07 and Doors of Perception, aimed to connect together food systems and city-region development in policy, and to reframe food systems and social innovation as design opportunities. The debate opened with a review of Dott 07’s Urban Farming project, in Middlesbrough, which has involved more than a thousand citizens and dozens of organisations. [More]

Design Issues Ahead

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:57:00+0100

Neil McGuire, a designer and tutor in visual communications at Glasgow School of Art, and John Thackara, programme director of Dott 07, found ten minutes at Intersections 07 to discuss Dott 07, social change, sustainability and design education. Listen in on their conversation by clicking here.

Neil also produces the website wodcast.org - a podcast project about the future of design featuring interviews with prominent design professionals. You can listen again to his interviews with Vicky Richardson, The Vacuum Cleaner, Adrian Shaughnessy, Johnson Banks, The Future Laboratory and Peter Saville. [More]

Low Carb Lane Debate - Speaker Transcript

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:07:00+0100

More and more of us would like to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, especially at home. But how do we do it? Wind turbines? Fuel cells? Solar panels? Wood-chip? How can we do it affordably? Low Carb Lane tackled these challenges head-on, in a real street: Castle Terrace in Ashington. This debate reviews the project from household, local government and industry points of view, asking: how can we save energy, money and carbon – one house at a time?

Read the transcript or listen to the audio files of the guest speakers at the Low Carb Lane Debate below. [More]

Listen Again to DaSH Experts

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 10:56:00+0100

During the Dott 07 Festival we ran a series of Dott Debates; Design and Sexual Health, The Movement Dilemma, Better Lives with Dementia?, Food Systems and Cities, Low Carb Lane and Sustainability, Schools and Schooling. Guest speaker transcripts will be online shortly.

The Design and Sexual Health (DaSH) debate looked at lessons learned from Dott’s DaSH project. DaSH was a collaboration between Dott 07 and Gateshead Primary Care Trust (PCT), who worked together on design actions that would make sexual health screening and treatment services easier to access and use. The project aimed to develop a system where people would be seen by a local service within 48 hours of contact, and where the treatment path is clearly explained and suits the user’s needs. [More]

Carbon Hero Flies High

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:23:00+0100

Is Carbon Hero the future of our travel carbon use? As a son of a pilot and an air stewardess, Andreas Zachariah (Zac) has carbon in his blood. So it comes as no surprise that after a degree in Materials Engineering at Nottingham, followed by a decade as an investment banker, he has returned to his first love. While doing an MA in the Royal College of Art, Zac developed his new product: Carbon Hero along with co-inventor and coder Nick Burch. In the vernacular of his banking days; Zac has put his shirt on it and the two lads are busy testing their device, winning awards and looking for backing. Carbon Hero is a piece of software that works on GPS mobile phones and does all the hard work for us by automatically tracking our travel carbon expenditure as we go about our daily lives. [More]

Listen Again to Intersections 07

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:09:00+0100

InterSections 07 brought together 34 leading thinkers in design to consider how design is evolving and how this is affecting its relationships with other fields.

If you missed the conference in October don't fret, you can listen again or read the transcripts of the presentations via the Design Council website. Audio recordings and transcripts available are listed and linked below.

Check out the views of conference director Kevin McCullagh in the Intersections Blog, and there's also a photo gallery so you can see who's who.

Listen again to...
[More]