SOCIAL DESIGN RESEARCH LAB
6 Best Idea Awards for the future…
Fine Dying was a design showcase and the public’s first encounter with the works delivered from the ‘Design. Living and Dying’ study. It was launched during the Halloween party hosted by William Outcast at the HKDI on 31 October 2013. “After seven weeks of designing for death, the Halloween Party enabled students to think about death as something to be celebrated,” explained William on the opening night...[read more]
Co-design is a set of tools used by designers to engage non-designers by asking, listening, learning, communicating and creating solutions collaboratively. The methodology could be traced back to the practice of user-centred design and participatory design. The emphasis of shifting design power from the designer and client, via the designer, to the end-user makes it stands out from other user-centred design...[read more]
Co-design with older people, why?
OPEN HEALTH WEEKEND
to explore possible self-health management
Call for participation!
29 March 2014 (Sat)*, Open Health Weekend @ HKDI Experience Centre
Medical professionals, older people and design students, etc... together, we will design personal exercises, medicine packaging, blood pressure meter, booking system and more…
*Please wear comfortable clothing and shoes
Enroll now:
Email to hkdi-desislab@vtc.edu.hk
All are welcome!
26 March 2014 (Wed), Public Lecture by Dr Patricia Moore, at 7pm, @ HKDI, A001
Codesign pop-up store at MaD Forum 2015
The open design concept could be traced back to the open-source software movement, but are implemented for the development of physical products rather than software. The term first appeared at the end of the last century with the founding of the non-profit Open Design Foundation (ODF). Open design is defined as design whose makers allow its free distribution and documentation and permit modifications and derivations of it1. It is a form of co-creation... [read more]
OPEN DESIGN (開放設計)
The openness of the Social Architecture also aligned with the ideology promoted by the Lab’s 1st special guests in year 2014, Sevra Davis and Rebecca Ford from the RSA Student Design Awards team. The Awards scheme, run by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) in London, is the longest-running student design awards scheme in the world. Since 1924... [read more]
RSA STUDENT DESIGN AWARDS SCHEME AT HKDI
How can design actions open new platforms for people to co-create customised local solutions for sustainable development? Spring is the start for new beginnings. In the coming year, HKDI DESIS Lab will hold a couple of open design events in the series “Open Everything”. For our first OPEN event, we invited inventor and social entrepreneur Cesar Harada to conduct an Open/Social Architecture co-creation experience... [read more]
OPEN EVERYTHING#1: SOCIAL ARCHITECTURE
In Feb, researchers of the Lab were in Bergen, the second largest city in Norway, to explore ageing and design with over 70 students from three different schools: The Bergen School of Architecture (BAS), Bergen University College (HiB) – Department of Civil Engineering, “Physical planning and technical infrastructure” and Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KhiB), Department of Design, “furniture- and spatial design / interior architecture... [read more]
(老) AGEING IN THE NORDIC NATIONS
From the project Patterns of Living (see REAL Design #1), the Lab recorded the living patterns inside high rise public housing estates by floor plans. Those floor plans as a set of data open up many possibilities for people with different concerns. This issue, we have invited renowned local comic artist Lai Tat Tat Wing (黎達達榮) to work with the lab, and tried to use comic works to respond to those objective representation of living spaces... [read more]
(家) HOME DIALOGUE
The American is coming... Open Health for next issue...
“Although they may still be young, whereby thinking over this topic may be a bit of a challenge, it was nonetheless a great opportunity to encourage them to think about their lives, which we hope will be like a seed planted in their minds and would come in handy during their lifetime. With some students, their outlook on death and burial changed after exchanges...[read more]
3. 7-week experiment with 7 disciplines…
For our next ‘Design Possible Study’ of HOME, we have invited respected artist in Hong Kong, Mr. Au Yeung Nai Chim to work with HKDI DESIS Lab team and later with young students/residents to co-investigate the Tiu Keng Leng neighbourhood of the Hong Kong Design Institute through the sense of time and place....[read more]
TKL witnessed by artist Au Yeung Nai Chim
Promoting design in response to everyday life, the first Design Possible Study curated by HKDI DESIS Lab in collaboration with William Outcast (陳偉霖), design activist of death (設計.死) who’s born with skin cancer and organised the first living funeral in Hong Kong, “Design. Living & Dying” touches on the most taboo subject in our lives: dying, funeral and burial (生死殯葬). [read more]
DESIGN POSSIBLE STUDY 1: LIVING AND DYING (生與死):
PATTERNS OF LIVING: DESIGN POSSIBLE STUDY OF HOME (家)
Dr Lee has recently published a book, Patterns of Living: Hong Kong’s High-Rise Communities 《設計生活模式 香港高樓社區》with architecture historian Hilary French from the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, in collaboration with Interior Design Year 1 students of HKDI. The book is the result of a one-year study with the research question - “how do citizens in one of ‘the most liveable cities in the world’ actually live?” . [read more]
In July, the HKDI DESIS Lab also conducted a half-day workshop for the World Design Summer Camp (WDSC), organised by the Hong Kong Design Centre. As the students had been working on their own ideas to respond to the brief of social innovation for a week, we conducted the workshop to allow them to have a more focused understanding of their ideas, and more importantly to encourage them to test their ideas in a real community by interacting with real people. [read more]
World Design Summer Camp @ HKDI
DRS // CumulusOslo 2013: the 2nd International Conference for Design Education Researchers was hosted by the Faculty of Technology, Art and Design at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences under the joint auspices of the Design Research Society (DRS) and the Cumulus Organisation. [read more]
DESIGN EDUCATION (設計教育):
From Bauhaus to DESIS
In June 2013, the HKDI DESIS lab working team embarked on its first overseas trip to Sweden & Denmark for two international design conferences. The Cumulus Conference is a global meeting for art and design education and research. Conducted twice a year, this was the first time the conference was hosted in Sweden by the Linnaeus University. [read more]
LAUNCH OF DESIS AGEING AND INGENUITY CLUSTER (老)
First of all, William Outcast works with SAGE International Group Limited (仁智國際集團有限公司), a company specialised in deathcare and funeral service in Hong Kong with its charity arm (仁智尊嚴會), they brought in around 100 older people to work with young design students at HKDI. Among the 100, 20 of them were invited to be co-designers, involved in the creative process... [read more]
2. 100 older people X 300 students…
In Harry Potter, whenever Lord Voldemort mentioned “He-who-shall-not-be-named”, suggests that he is dying. Similarly In Chinese culture, it doesn’t really matter how old you are, people are tabooed of using the word “dead” to express themselves or others. However, they feel it is fine to joke about it. In fact, researches have suggested that the afterlife is an issue that concerns many older people... [read more]
FINE DYING:
BRINGING EVERYONE TOGETHER TO CO-DESIGN…
‘Design. Living & Dying’ is the major Design Possible Study in 2013 organised by HKDI DESIS Lab. It started as a collaboration with William Outcast (陳偉霖), an activist of death education who was born with skin cancer and organised the first living funeral in Hong Kong. HKDI DESIS Lab aims to explore new design implications for everyday lives by enabling everyone to be active in the design process... [read more]
1. Social Design X Death Education…
This month, two of the Lab’s main projects crossed-over, when Draw Your Home! Workshop participants met the members of DesignAge HK Club (DAHK)! Six sessions of workshops were held for the members of DAHK, allowing them to learn to use basic spatial design language. Firstly, they were invited to design as a team. Using carton furniture, the members worked together to simulate interior design practice... [read more]
POSSIBLE STUDY OF HOME X DESIGNAGE CLUB
‘Draw Your Home!’ went to the community in October. Working with the whole form of Form 3 students from Pooi To Middle School, the project was an attempt of sharing design knowledge on the community level.
HKDI’s own Interior Design students served as facilitators in the five-week program. The interior design students led the secondary school students through a slew of design work... [read more]
'DRAW YOU HOME' @ POOI TO MIDDLE SCHOOL
At the Asia Social Innovation Awards 2014, DESIS Lab was awarded Best Development Potential Award and Best Multimedia Award - the only contestant to have been awarded in more than one category - for the Open Diamond Project. The Open Diamond Project, led by the graduate trainee at the lab Katie Wong, aims to encourage more people to get into the driver’s seat to decide ahead of time matters relating to their passing on... [read more]
ASIA SOCIAL INNOVATION AWARD 2014
In September 2014, HKDI DESIS Lab kick-started its second Possible Study on Social Design Practice with a briefing session on 2nd September. The study marks the DESIS Lab’s first formal collaboration with DesignAge HK club (老嘢設計會), Hong Kong’s first design club set up in response to the ageing population phenomena. The briefing session, held in conjunction with industry partner Culture Homes, drew over 20 DesignAge HK Club members as well as a large student turnout.... [read more]
DESIGN OUR VILLAGE WITH ELDERS (DOVE) PROJECT
Zurich University of the Arts’ International Design Workshop: Codesign with Superdensity
In last week of March the Lab was invited by the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and their satellite, Connecting Space in North Point, Hong Kong to host and lead one team for their international workshop entitled “Intencity”... [read more]
At the end of February the Lab participated in MaD 2015 Forum Free Market. Our Graduate Trainees set up design stores to invite young people from all over Asia to codesign everyday life.
Louise Wong, a HKDI Higher Diploma graduate from Landscape Architecture Programme, created the design game ‘Home Street Home’... [read more]
Design Workshop at Include Conference 2015
@ RCA, London
Sept 2015
Earlier this month the Lab was invited by the Helen Hamlyn Centre at Royal College of Art, UK to run a workshop at the Include Conference 2015.The 90-min codesign workshop focused on design of our future healing experience, i.e. “Design YOUR Own Healing Experiences”... [read more]
CoDesign Workshop for
+ Change
@ Linnaeus University,
Sweden
Oct 2015
Design + is a new Bachelor Design programme at the Design School of Linnaeus University in Sweden. It intended for students who want to use design to make a difference in the world. The programme combines creative expression and knowledge of sustainability to prepare the student for a profession as a designer and an agent of change at the cutting edge of design. The student... [read more]
Book Launch:
Open Design in Action
Mar 2016
This March marks the three whole years of the lab at HKDI since 2013! Over these few years, the lab has run over 20 projects focused on design and openness. All these projects are recorded in the book Open Design in Action! Open Debates and Projects for Our Open Society, with the introduction by Dr Liesbeth Huybrechts and Niels Hendriks... [read more]
Golden Age Expo 2016
Jan 2016
In the end of Jan 2016, we brought the Human Spirograph experience to the Golden Age Expo 2016. The experience was part of the “Ageing Bodies Study”, our on-going engagement with Hong Kong’s senior citizens. The project aims to develop interesting ways to collect ergonomic data and engage senior citizens, collecting their bathroom behaviour and habits through interactive and creative means.... [read more]
First 100In1Day @ MaD Forum 2016
Jan 2016
What if hundreds of people united, each taking one small action to improve their city, all on the same day? This is the motivation behind the 100in1Day project, a citizen-driven action started in Colombia in 2012. Its aim is to encourage citizens from different cities around the world to have one-day community based interventions. Over the year... [read more]
Nov 2015
On 2 Nov, later afternoon, Dr Lee was invited to share HKDI DESIS Lab’s working with design students and Hong Kong citizens to redesign community at the Social Enterprise Summit (SES) 2015. The session was facilitated by Mr. Kengo Ip (健吾先生), a broadcaster and Japanese Studies Researcher. Together with Mr. Haruo Miyagi, the session was a discussion of how design could change the community.... [read more]
Redesigning Community:
Presentation at Social Enterprise Summit (SES)
Open Design in Action !
Open Design Weekend 2015
Nov 2015
After ODF2014, the HKDI DESIS Lab team continued to explore different aspects of OPEN DESIGN through a series of design actions. This is why we organised the 2nd Open Design Event, which consisted of two main features: the design action based Open Design Weekend and the concluding Open Design Forum... [read more]
Presentation at the Practical Social and Industrial Research (PSIR) Symposium 2015
Nov 2015
The lab’s abstract was accepted and invited to present at the Practical Social and Industrial Research (PSIR) Symposium 2015 on 27 Nov. We presented the rationale and research methodology of the “Ageing Bodies Studies”. The project aims to develop interesting ways to collect ergonomic data and engage senior citizens, collecting their bathroom behaviour and habits through interactive and creative means.... [read more]
Eeum: "Design Connects": Paper Presentation at the
International Design Congress
@ Gwangju, Korea
Oct 2015
The Lab submitted a paper entitled, “Fine Dying: Experimenting Practical Intellectual” for the Academic Conference of the 2015 International Design Congress at Gwangji, Korea. We shared our Fine Dying Study with Asian audiences for the first time and great discussion happened with different cultural perspectives... [read more]
Design for Open Enquiry: Fine Dying at K11 Gallery
Sept 2015
As an action research lab, we aim to create long-term social change. The Open Diamond Project is transforming peoples’ stories of living and dying into objects for legacy and the process is bringing generations together. At ‘The Secret Life of Design’ exhibition at K11 Art Gallery, we have showcased the “Death Jewellery Collection” as a new way of opening up possibilities for future dying matters. The “Death Jewellery Collection”... [read more]
Open Dementia Project
Sept 2015
The Open Dementia project is a project commissioned by Jockey Club Centre for Positive Ageing to redesign their public awareness programme about dementia. Instead of focusing on talks and games by instruction, we choice to anchor the experience on tangible objects. The inspiration is from the social model of disability, for which it stress that for very often it is not the disability itself but the material world... [read more]
Open Death on TV !
May 2015
The public television station RTHK’s programme ‘Questionnig the God of Death’ has covered the works of the lab on dseign and living and dying. The programme is one of the very first in Hong Kong to investigate people’s perspectives and action towards death. In this episode ‘Are you well-prepared ?’ the show tried... [read more]
HKDI Landscape Architecture Design programme and HKDI DESIS Lab invited Ecosistema Urbano to HKDI to conduct a two-day workshop with 60 HKDI students to discover and analyse public spaces in Hong Kong... [read more]
Networked Urbanism Workshop with Ecosistema Urbano
Another publication we have been working on is the transcript book of our 1st Open Design Forum 2014: Conversations from Open Design Forum 2014:
Co-creating our open societies through design... [read more]
Open Design Forum 2014 Transcript Book is out!
Ageing Book — International Cases on Ageing, Ingenuity and Design
After two years of hard work, our new book, Ageing, Ingenuity & Design is finally published. This first offering, in a series of anthologies examining examples of ageing, ingenuity and design throughout the world includes offerings from Belgium, Brazil, China, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States... [read more]
The Lab invited senior citizens to think about living and dying through design by conducting Fine Dying 2: Open Design Weekend (設計清明:慎終思遠) between the 21st until 23rd of March 2015 at HKDI campus. It continued our Fine Dying Study from July 2013 on Hong Kong citizens’ perspective to death through codesigning dying matters. Members of our DesignAge HK club and SAGE Dignity Club were invited to attend this design action with the theme of Ching Ming Festival... [read more]
Open Design Weekend – Designing Between Living and Dying
On 28-29th November 2014, HKDI DESIS Lab staged the first Open Design Forum (ODF). The forum’s first conception involved “meeting the pioneers” — in which the lab invited six key design thinkers from different social design groups to come to HKDI to share their insights on Hong Kong society. Together we imagined how we can make Hong Kong a more open society through design... [read more]
1st Open Design Forum
Invited by Prof Liu Guanzhong （柳冠中教授), Godfather of Chinese Industrial Design to present our Open Kitchen Project at the Collaborative Innovation Workshop, 4th December 2014 at the Guangdong Industrial Design City. The study was conducted by Greta Kwok, a Graduate Trainee at DESIS. She started in October 2014, and has been visiting Hong Kong Citizens’ homes and investigating how we prepare food in relation to kitchen objects and spatial design... [read more]
Open Kitchen to China
Social Design on TV!
“… to reawaken a sense of creativity that may have long lain dormant…”
This was how Karen Choy described our work. She is director of RTHK's programme, The Works, on the topic of ‘Social Design, a project between design students and the elderly.' We believe ingenuity is the essence to creativity and innovation. This is why we launched the DesignAge HK club with the aim to reawaken creativity amongst elderly citizens and synthesize social innovation with younger and older people alike.
Africa was host to two recent design exchanges – namely the bi-annual Cumulus International Conference and the Participatory Design Conference this autumn. In September, HKDI DESIS Lab Director, Dr Yanki Lee was at the Cumulus International Conference 2014 in Johannesburg, South Africa busy lobbying so HKDI may play host to the next Cumulus International Conference in 2016... [read more]
CUMULUS JOHANNESBURG & PARTICIPATORY DESIGN CONFERENCE (PDC) 2014
Design can play a part on many different levels in a Democracy. By simply applying design to increase civic participation in governing practices such as designing voting ballots or online civil platforms with better usability. The ‘Design for Democracy’ initiative by the American Institute of Graphic Arts is one such prime example.
Designer involvement in democratic actions, specifically participatory design has a long history in the democracy in workplace... [read more]
DESIGN AND DEMOCRACY
HKDI 1st OPEN DESIGN FORUM, 28-29 Nov
How might Hong Kong become more open as a society through our collective design efforts?
HKDI DESIS Lab is staging a platform for citizens and international social design pioneers to investigate how they can co-create an open society at the inaugural Open Design Forum, Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s home-grown Umbrella Movement is showing us new possibilities for civil relationships and responsibilities. At DESIS Lab, we believe that more open dialogues... [read more]
HKDI DESIS Lab for Social Design Research Lab would like to thank the “Retiree & Senior Fair” Asia 2014 held at HKCEC in July for providing the space to launch our DesignAge HK Club, an association opens to local citizens, especially elders. The English historian Peter Laslett1, stated that ageing is “a unique experience for each individual… [to] live in the presence of all your future selves.” His words were used to promote a life-course approach to addressing ageing issues... [read more]
LAUNCH OF DESIGNAGE HK CLUB (DAHK)
In August the Lab went to Beijing to share its methodology with collaborators at the BUPT (Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications). The 50+ participants from all walks of life convened at the workshop entitled “Designing Our Ageing Society: Summer CoDesign Workshop 2014”. Besides design students from BUPT and Beijing Institute of Fashion and Technology, researchers from Beijing Research Center of Urban System Engineering and their senior researchers from Haidian Area... [read more]
CODESIGN WORKSHOP IN BEIJING, CHINA
Dr Yanki Lee, director of our Lab, recently contributed to an interesting book, Participation is Risky: Approaches to joint creative processes, edited by Dr Liesbeth Huybrechts. It illustrates how interesting participative practices and results are typically characterized by the «risky» confrontation between the differences of disciplines and perspectives. Three thought-provoking chapters, namely, Risky Trade-offs, Hybridity and Generativity... [read more]
PARTICIPATION IS RISKY –
A NEW BOOK
If design is about utilising our divergent thinking and innate aesthetic ability, naturally children should be the masters of it. This is the belief that drives Stefania Druga to start Hackidemia (http://www.hackidemia.com). Stefania is a former Googler and a graduate from the Erasmus Mundus Programme in Master of Media Engineering for Education (France, Spain, Portugal)... [read more]
OPEN DESIGN LECTURE:
STEFANIA DRUGA
Bright was the early summer noon, when quickened steps followed each other after our beloved Patricia Moore. In end-March 2014, Dr Patricia Moore, our long-term mentor of HKDI DESIS Lab for Social Design Research, paid a tight-scheduled and fruitful visit to Hong Kong from Phoenix, Arizona of US. Recognized by ID Magazine as one of the “40 Most Socially Conscious Designers” in the world and the pioneer in design for the ageing population... [read more]
OPEN EVERYTHING#2:
WHAT THE HEALTH?
Welcome Katie Wong, Wong Kay Yee (HKDI Graduate HD in Jewellery Design and Technology, 2013) and Rowena Ho, Sin Ying (HKDI Graduate HD in Interior Design, 2013). They are the first batch of graduates joining the HKDI DESIS Lab Graduate Trainee Programme. The programme aims to provide HKDI graduates with a platform to prototype their social design ideas... [read more]
KICK-START OF HKDI DESIS LAB GRADUATE TRAINEE PROGRAME AND NEW TEAM MEMBERS
HKDI DESIS Lab is preparing for the launch of DesignAge HK Club (老嘢設計會) at the Retiree and Senior Fair I/O Senior Expo Asia. The club is attributed to the action research programme DesignAge led by Professor Roger Coleman in the 1990s at the Royal College of Art, London. The UK DesignAge was founded to inspire young designers to respond to the ageing of population, and thus to change the practice of business and design... [read more]
(老) RECRUITING OLDIES
FOR DESIGNAGE HK CLUB
The first move of DesignAge HK Club is the collaboration with a local active older painter, Ms. Cheng, or widely known as ‘Flower Granny’. ‘Flowers helped me raise my kids!’ said Flower Granny. She spent most of her life in selling flowers, so after her retirement, it was very hard for her to accept the fact that she would no longer be growing or selling flowers. But luckily, now she has discovered a new relationship with flowers, that is, drawing them... [read more]
FLOWER GRANNY (花婆婆)
X DESIS LAB
1st OPEN DESIGN FORUM, 28-29 Nov
Venue
Lecture Theatre A001HKDI and IVE (Lee Wai Lee)
3 King Ling Road, Tseung Kwan O,
New Territories, Hong Kong
Tiu Keng Leng MTR Station, Exit A2
Contact Us
T: +852 3928 2481
Open Design Studio:
Design Thinking Training
Jan 2017
In summer 2015, HKDI DESIS Lab was commissioned by the Jockey Club Centre of Positive Ageing (JCCPA) to design and prototype a set of “empathy tools” for Hong Kong citizens... [read more]
Feb 2017
How to age well in Hong Kong’ was the question posed by our collaborator, the Christian Family Service Centre (CFSC 基督教家庭服務中心). They wanted to engage the young-old population, those between 50 to 60 year of age, to join a new service... [read more]
Open Dementia and Magic: Empathising Dementia by Disrupting the Everyday
Jan 2017
A complimentary raw space area (about 36m2) was offered to HKDI DESIS Lab to showcase ageing innovative ideas to visitors at the Golden Age Expo 2017 which was held from 21 to 22 January 2017 at the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre... [read more]
Ageing Innovation Ideas Store @ GoldenAge Expo 2017
Nov 2016
After attending a few Cumulus conferences and organising two Open Design Forums (ODF 2014/2015), the HKDI DESIS Lab team ... [read more]
Cumulus Hong Kong: Extending Open Design Debate
Ageing. Bodies. Homes/City: Sizes > Capabilities > Movement
Creative City with Zurich University of Arts
Jan 2017
From Summer 2015, the HKDI DESIS Lab began a collaboration with VTC Engineering Discipline on the “Ageing Bodies Study”. It was funded by the Strategic Research Area Working Group... [read more]
Sep 2016
As one of HKDI’s international partners, the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) is developing the International Design Workshop at the Connecting Space Hong Kong. This team, led by Professor Michael Krohn... [read more]
