John Thackara
Programme Director, Dott07
Dott 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 (Designs of the time) is a collaboration between the Design Council and, in 2007, the regional development agency One North East. For Dott 07, the first in a 10-year programme of biennial events due to take place in different regions across the UK, we explored what life would be like in a sustainable region and how design could make a positive difference to our lives.
A year of community projects, events and exhibitions in North East England involved local people, businesses and public service providers in a variety of design projects as active participants. The results show that the local community can, and wants to, redesign its everyday life to be easier, cheaper, friendlier and more sustainable.
Dott 07 identified aspects of daily life where things could be improved. Each Dott 07 project or activity was assigned to one of five core themes; Health and Wellbeing, Food and Nutrition, School and Community, Energy and Environment or Mobility and Access.
Dott 07 was inspired by the question ‘Who Designs Your Life?’. It helped residents, businesses and public services in the North East use the tools and techniques of design so that they could answer, 'We do'.
Putting people back in charge of their environment raised questions which Dott 07 hoped to answer with practical community projects. How to ask the right questions. How to identify what needs fixing, or changing. How to obtain appropriate design proposals. How to put together, and work in, multi-disciplinary teams. How to get projects paid for. How to judge their success.
The community projects were:
- 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 for the whole town to enjoy..
- Low Carb Lane, where one street in Northumberland looked at a range of ways to make their homes more energy efficient, cut their carbon emissions and reduce 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 aimed to improve 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 brought 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 had the support of designers and other experts. Students, staff and people from the wider school community explored how to change the ways things work and collaborated 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 tackled 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 work culminated in a Festival in Newcastle at the end of October. There was a series of debates, talks by some of the partner organisations that helped make Dott 07, and exhibitions to explain what design did for projects in Dott's five core areas.
The most successful projects were rewarded with a Creative Community Award, and all those who attended the festival left with a copy of the Dott 07 Manual.
In more depthOrder a compendium of events, the Dott 07 Manual, from the
Dott 07 website.
The Dott legacy will continue in the North East as the ideas from community projects like Urban Farming, Alzheimers 100 and Low Carb Lane continue to develop and make a difference to people's lives.
Meanwhile here at the Design Council we will be gathering all of the lessons learned from the Dott projects and writing case studies which will be available online in early 2008.
Already, Dott is having an impact on parliament. On 13 December the Parliamentary Group for Design will hear about the design-led innovation in public services that Dott generated in the North East.
After that, 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 in the North East in 2007. It will encourage people to think about design innovation as something that contributes to the cultural, economic and social success of the country.
