http://www.seedfoundation.org.uk SEED Foundation Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:13:30 +0000 http://www.seedfoundation.org.uk en http://seedfoundation.org.uk/Project-SCiBE http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/Project-SCiBE Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:13:30 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727263 Scarcity and Creativity in the Built Environment (SCiBE) Coming soon http://seedfoundation.org.uk/Project-Food-Loop http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/Project-Food-Loop Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:11:39 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727257 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/food loop new.jpg" border="0" width="670" height="460" width_o="708" height_o="487" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/food loop new_o.jpg" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/food.jpg.png" border="0" width="670" height="444" width_o="1568" height_o="1040" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/food.jpg_o.png" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/foodloopworkshop.jpg.png" border="0" width="670" height="483" width_o="1500" height_o="1083" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/foodloopworkshop.jpg_o.png" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/maiden_lane.jpg" border="0" width="670" height="446" width_o="804" height_o="536" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/maiden_lane_o.jpg" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/maiden_lane2.jpg" border="0" width="670" height="503" width_o="720" height_o="541" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727257/maiden_lane2_o.jpg" align="left" /> In landfill biodegradable waste causes methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. In fact, landfill sites are responsible for an estimated 3% of UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Although about 50% of some inner city boroughs are comprised of flats, many councils still struggle to carry out waste separation in anything but single dwellings. FoodLoop is a design-led social enterprise that offers local authorities a blueprint system for localised composting of biodegradable waste on housing estates. A specially designed community composting machine, the Rocket Composter, is installed on each estate and managed by local residents. As well as dealing with waste collection and management, they will also learn gardening and landscaping skills, using the compost to cultivate fruit and vegetable plants on communal areas of the estate. Co-design processes will be used to find ways of getting maximum buy-in from staff and residents in the whole process. Workshops with staff and residents will help create waste separation and collection systems best suited to their needs, and will generate ideas for the design of new green spaces on the estate to improve their sense of community. The purpose of FoodLoop is three-fold: To create compost from waste, successfully diverting food waste from inner-city flats from landfill by giving residents direct experience of the issues and offering them a functional system for managing it; To green the estates, transforming the unused and often wasted spaces of inner city council housing into rich and flourishing social and agricultural spaces; To nurture self respect and well-being, by offering meaningful training and employment for residents in their immediate community. http://seedfoundation.org.uk/Project-Plug-it http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/Project-Plug-it Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:10:57 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727256 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/plumbers and van mod.jpg" border="0" width="670" height="446" width_o="2048" height_o="1365" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/plumbers and van mod_o.jpg" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/blog1.png" border="0" width="670" height="526" width_o="893" height_o="702" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/blog1_o.png" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/coasters-all.jpg" border="0" width="670" height="307" width_o="1800" height_o="826" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/coasters-all_o.jpg" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/teabags2.jpg" border="0" width="670" height="469" width_o="1028" height_o="721" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/teabags2_o.jpg" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/IMG_2142.JPG" border="0" width="670" height="500" width_o="2048" height_o="1529" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727256/IMG_2142_o.JPG" align="left" /> Climate change, population growth and demographic shift mean that there is increasing stress on both the water environment and public water supplies in the UK. At the same time we have higher water consumption levels than most of our European neighbours and this consumption is predicted to grow. Increased consumption will have impacts for water resources but also for climate change as heating water in the home accounts for around 5% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. Public understanding of water issues is low and tackling this requires a range of measures. This project will develop tools that will enable trusted intermediaries (plumbers, retail store assistants, etc.) to assist people to make water efficient choices as they are purchasing or sourcing new kitchen and bathroom fittings and white goods, which is a ‘moment of change’ at which water efficient behaviour can be introduced or reinforced. Our feeling is that while these professionals are currently well-equipped to advise their customers on aesthetics and price, they are not armed with the tools to provide information on the water efficiency of the same products, nor to explain effectively how small adjustments in individual behaviour with regards to water use can have a wider environmental benefit. Water infrastructure is such that it is exceptionally difficult for a consumer to perceive either the amount of water really being used, or the impact of that use along the entire system. To tackle the issue from all angles requires not just new fixtures and fittings, but more knowledgeable consumers, changes of habits, professionals educated in sustainability and an industry that considers water efficiency measures among its core business. Through working closely with a sample group of retail store assistants and plumbers, the Plug-it project aims to use co-design – an innovative action-based research, design and engagement process – to generate a set of tools to enable them and their peers to better communicate these issues to their customers, and offer attractive ways to encourage pro-environmental purchasing choices and behaviour in the home and at work. The project will put designers together with several key stakeholders in the water network – professionals, consumers and water companies – to design a training kit that will better equip public-facing ‘water professionals’ to advise their customers about the products and services that would enable more responsible consumption of water. It will also evaluate the potential for a peer-to-peer network within the water industry to disseminate these skills and knowledge of sustainability among professionals, adding value to plumbers and the services they provide. The co-design process will ensure that the tools add value for the intermediaries as well as for the consumer. The project will look at the ‘what’s in it for me’ perspective of the professional. For example, the tools should empower a plumber to give better advice moving him/her from just fitting products to providing a design solution for the client, such as providing a pumped mixer shower with an aerated water saving head rather than the ‘power shower’ the customer requested. The cost fitting may be higher but the running costs will be a lot lower and there will be environmental benefits, so the plumber will generate more work, and be viewed as a knowledgeable professional and an environmental champion. http://seedfoundation.org.uk/Who-we-are http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/Who-we-are Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:09:57 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727252 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727252/IMG_1841.JPG" border="0" width="670" height="446" width_o="2048" height_o="1365" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727252/IMG_1841_o.JPG" align="left" /> Clare Brass comes from a design background. Alongside her product design consultancy in Milan she also established several design-led initiatives and organisations dealing with social or environmental issues and behaviour change. Leader of Sustainability at Design Council until 2007, Clare is currently part-time senior tutor at Design London, with students from IDE (Royal College of Art) and Imperial College Business and Engineering, addressing issues of sustainability and social enterprise. Contact Clare Brass Kate McGeevor is a researcher and project manager who specialises on issues relating to the environment, sustainability and local food. For six years, Kate worked at the boundary of research and policy as a senior researcher at the Policy Studies Institute. She is now coordinator of Forty Hall Farm, a 140 acre organic farm in Enfield, north London. She’s also a Trustee and Secretary of the Pioneer Health Foundation. Contact Kate McGeevor Flora Bowden graduated in Fine Art. She worked in the field of sustainable architecture in London before taking up the position of Environmental Design Coordinator at the Parliamentary Design Group (Policy Connect). She collaborated with Clare Brass on a Design Council research paper about the future role of design in the sustainable development agenda.Their findings led to the establishment of SEED Foundation. Contact Flora Bowden Dejan Mitrovic graduated from the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London with an MA+MSc in Innovation Design Engineering. Dejan’s background covers product, graphic and other types of design, which he developed while studying and working in Belgrade, Moscow, Venice, Paris and London. His design specialities include: biomimicry, future technologies, educational toy/game design for children, design enterprise and sustainability. Contact Dejan Mitrovic http://seedfoundation.org.uk/What-we-read http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/What-we-read Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:09:14 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727250 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727250/books.jpg" border="0" width="670" height="446" width_o="2048" height_o="1365" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727250/books_o.jpg" align="left" /> Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet - Tim Jackson Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal – Tristram Stuart Co-Opportunity - John Grant Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism – Muhammad Yunus Hot, Flat and Crowded - Thomas Friedman In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World - John Thackara Collapse – Jared Diamond Capitalism: As If the World Matter – Jonathon Porritt Deschooling Society – Ivan Illich The Hidden Connections – Fritjof Capra Biomimicry – Janine M. Benyus Design for the Real World – Victor Papanek The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture – Victor Papanek The Shock Doctrine – Naomi Klein The Revenge of Gaia – James Lovelock Heat - George Monbiot Worldchanging – Alex Steffens The Power of Unreasonable People – John Elkington, Pamela Hartigan Animate Earth – Stephan Harding Be the Change – Trenna Cormack Bioneers – Ken Ausubel Are you reading something relevant? Please send us your reading suggestions with a short description and why you think it is good. http://seedfoundation.org.uk/What-we-think http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/What-we-think Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:08:36 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727243 Design is about people, and solving problems. It has long been a tool for business to help increase financial gain and market share, and develop products and brands that people identify with and want to be a part of. But why should the power of design and the benefits it brings be limited to the private sector? SEED Foundation believes that design can be equally powerful when applied to social enterprise. And that designers can find a whole new exciting application for their abilities by becoming social entrepreneurs. Products, services and systems that are well-designed are easier to use, more visible, more desirable and more sustainable. We are in a moment when a lot needs to change, and as it happens, design is a very good way helping people find new and inspiring ways of doing things. SEED Foundation wants to boost the success of social and environmental enterprises through design. We want to turn designers from perpetrators of social and environmental problems, into key contributors to solving them. We believe sustainability should be as much about creating communities and jobs to enhance life as it is about environmental stewardship. We are currently developing the first of a series of demonstration projects to trial our design methods in a new context. These are based on three core principles: 1. Interconnectivity We live in a complex world of multi-layered, inter-related networks. Advanced design thinking increasingly recognises the need to address the relationships between these networks rather than deal with them in isolation. It examines the connections between things, the infrastructure that supports them and the people who use both. 2. Infrastructure So far, sustainability in product design has tended to focus on ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’. But it is not just about the objects themselves. It is also about what surrounds them. The way products are designed is important, but if you don’t consider the infrastructure that they need and how people use them, this is just not enough. How does a product reach you? How do you use it? and what will become of it when you no longer want it? Simply making material adjustments does nothing to alter the human behaviour that is really at the heart of the issue. This is the new space in which designers must learn to operate. 3. Business, public sector and people The Sustainable Development Commission (R.I.P) once describes a 'gridlock' on sustainability issues between three key sectors in society: business, public services and ordinary people. Each wants to change but doesn’t want to do so alone and needs to see the others playing their part. By applying a user-centred approach and focusing on the needs and desires of real people, designers can build bridges between these sectors and create ways for them to collaborate more effectively and enjoyably. This approach also encourages the people concerned to be actively involved in the design process. Sustainable development is, after all, an overwhelmingly social concern. For organisations of any sort whose primary objective is to engage communities, there can be few more effective methods of tackling the problem head-on. http://seedfoundation.org.uk/What-we-do http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/What-we-do Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:08:35 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727244 Food Loop: developing a closed-loop food waste and food growing system on an inner city estate. Plug-it: working with professionals in the water industry to promote sustainable water consumption. Scarcity and creativity in the built environment (SCiBE): exploring the relationship between scarcity and creativity in the context of the built environment. Feast on the Bridge Are you developing a design-led social enterprise? We are interested in seeing examples of your work with a view to publishing them here. Please send us a paragraph describing what you are doing, together with any visual material that might help to describe it. If we think it fits, we will ask you for a pdf that can be downloaded from our site. http://seedfoundation.org.uk/Our-approach http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/Our-approach Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:07:43 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727239 <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727239/IMG_1475.JPG" border="0" width="670" height="410" width_o="2048" height_o="1253" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/4/131316/1727239/IMG_1475_o.JPG" align="left" /> We are currently working on our second major project – PLUG-IT and using co-design, action research and other design methodologies to tackle an important environmental problem – water scarcity. PLUG-IT is a multidisciplinary project. We’re using innovative design and research methods to show how designers and people in the water business can collaborate and reduce water consumption. We’re also drawing on what we know from psychology, sociology, marketing and other bits and bobs to make sure our methods are effective. Throughout the project we will be ‘learning while doing’. This means constantly evaluating the “water reduction tools” we develop and looking for ways to improve tools. We are working closely with Southampton plumbers and retailers, such as Bath Store and Plumb Centre, as well as with representatives from Southern Water, Waterwise and CIPHE. We have recently completed testing our methodology through our first test social enterprise - Food Loop project, which was piloted on Maiden Lane Estate in the London Borough of Camden. We were using collaboarative techniques to get buy-in and support from local residents. We want to know if you have done or are trying to do similar work so that we can build and evolve this methodology for everyone to use. If you are happy to share your knowledge with the wider community, please post your experiences, methods and tools here and we will publish them. http://seedfoundation.org.uk/About-SEED-Foundation-1 http://seedfoundation.org.uk/following/seedfoundation.org.uk/About-SEED-Foundation-1 Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:07:16 +0000 SEED Foundation 1727234 “There are only two sources of wealth in the world today: what comes from the Earth itself, and what flows from the human mind. We can only sustain the former by making better use of the latter – and the SEED Foundation, in its own small but significant way, is at the heart of that process. The Foundation is already planted; now it just needs to flourish!” Jonathon Porritt SEED Foundation is a social enterprise that explores and promotes new design approaches to meet the challenges of sustainability. We believe this encompasses the responsible design of objects and services, but that designers need to go one step further, learning to work with other professions, considering infrastructure, and collaborating with communities. The new role of design must explore how the combined design of innovative products, services and partnerships can impact on lifestyles and behaviour How can designers do this? We think that current economic scenarios offer business opportunities for designers who are prepared to adopt new entrepreneurial skills and new ways of working. We are building our first enterprise Food Loop as a demonstrator of our ideas, to see if it is possible for a designer to take on this new role, break out of the traditional client/designer relationship and earn a living by solving social and environmental problems.