Greengaged

As many of you will be aware, famed designer Philippe Starck launched 'Design for Life' last month, his very own reality show not too dissimilar in format to The Apprentice. Aired on BBC2 as the Greengaged week was underway at the Design Council, the third episode of the series attempted to explore how design could solve ecological issues. In response to finding herself infront of the show, Greengaged co-founder and sustainable design guru Sophie Thomas raises her criticism. You can read the full feature here and also listen to an audio recording of the feature too.

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On October 12th 2009, London's Ecological Literacy Initiative EcoLabs are running their inaugural "Teach-In" - a student conference aiming to help the design industry embrace ecological literacy & systemic change. Several hundred of students are scheduled to attend the event at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, whilst the entire event will also be streamed online to dozens of participating design institutions around the world! Speakers include John Thackara (Doors of Perception), Andrew Simms (New Economics Foundation), Richard Hawkins (PIRC), Ben Gill (BioRegional), Jonathan Crinion (Crinion Associates), Emma Dewberry (Open University) and Stephanie Hankey (Tactical Technology Collective. Questions from remote audiences will be taken, via Twitter @2012Imperative.

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During day four Crafting Mass Production at greengaged last week (full coverage coming soon), Anna Gerber told the story of our day spent with newly founded design agency Workshop, at their letterpress studio in East London. I'm pleased to be able to share a short video of the day, kindly edited by Varvara Zaytseva.

Featuring in the film (in order) are Anna Fidalgo (Crispin Finn), Lawrence Zeegen (Kingston University), Sanky Sankarayya (All of Us /  D&AD), Adam Cheltsov (Sara De Bondt Studio), Greengaged competition winners Matt Mear and Holly Webber, and Workshop Founders Alexander Cooper and Rose Gridneff.

Photographs of the letterpress workshop can be viewed on our greengaged flickr channel and full coverage here .

photo by: Travis Drever

Our second guest writer for Greengaged.com this week is Dan Lockton, researcher in Brunel University's Cleaner Electronics Research Group investigating design for sustainable behaviour, in theory and practice. Dan attended Greengaged last year and having spent the day with us again on Monday, for Ed Gillespie's Design for Life session, has written a wonderfully intellectual review of the day as it happened. Read Dan's full feature story here, and to follow coverage on both his theoretical and practical work, visit his blog 'Design With Intent'.

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photo by: Travis Drever

On Monday 21st September, under the theme of "Design for Life: Barriers to Behaviour Change", our first guest curator Ed Gillespie ran the inaugural day of Greengaged 2009. Joined by an esteemed array of guest speakers incl. Roman Krznaric, Professor John Wood, Martin Hoelne, Alastair Fuad Luke, Jamie Burdett, Richard Hammond, Kerry Seager, Fiona Bennie, Duncan Law, Greta Corke, Toby Hammond, Victor Buchli and Ben Reynolds, the day set out to informally debate, discuss and explore the reasons why and how change happens and what prevents it. With some innovative communication technology from the Talkaoke media team (which Gillespie aptly defines as 'question time on acid'), the day was fast paced, engaging and provided exhaustive food for thought for all those in attendance. 

• "Don't design alone" Alastair Fuad-Luke
• "We need a creative democracy" Professor John Wood
• "Designers should inspire to be generalists" Roman Krznaric
• "Use technology to hook up as teams" Martin Hoelne
• "Specialism is for insects" Roman Krznaric
• "Start to agitate" Sophie Thomas
• "Designers, try designing something for 2030" Fiona Bennie
• "Have fun with what you do" Sheena Matheiken
• "We are all in this together, we need to get out there, inspire and agitate" Ed Gillespie

Read Ed's great feature Exploring Behaviour Change Barriers all about his day, see the photographs, and hold your breath for the Talkaoke video footage, coming as soon as the 6 hours are edited!

read the article...

As Greengaged 2009 gets underway at the Design Council, I'm pleased to share our first Greengaged video. Featuring the voices of co-founders Sophie Thomas, Sarah Johnson and Anne Chick, and the Design Council's Chief Executive David Kester, this short film offers a brief insight into the aims and 2008 success of Greengaged.

There are still a few places left for events this current week, so do check the incredible line-up, via our events page, and register for the last few places! 

A few months ago, Greengaged curator Anna Gerber and the team at Three Trees Don't Make a Forest were invited to visit London's “local” paper mill: Tullis Russell in Fife, Scotland. Joined by Sion Whellens of Calverts and Luke Nicholson of More Associates, Anna explains how 'the trip made a real impact on us all and got us thinking a lot about how industrial processes are instrumental to and in everything we design. Inspired by the trip, and as part of the Crafting Mass Production event for this year’s Greengaged at the Design Council, Gerber gathered a team of designers to spend the day at Workshop’s new letterpress studio in East London last week.

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On Tuesday 22nd September, John Grant will be curating the second day of the greengaged programme: Co-opportunity: A Day for World Builders. This session will pop the lid on the inspiring world of service and systems design, so if you're a newbie to this fascinating area, or an old hand full of ideas come along to see why this is one of the biggest growth areas in design, and learn how you can contribute to it.

John has assembled a brilliant team of speakers, as well as programming some truly engaging workshops to redesign one of the most topical of problematic systems. Learn how to use design to define new solutions in system design. Read more about the day and book your place on this 'Day for World Builders' here.