Table Of Contentwouldn’ t
it be
great if...
Author: John Thackara
Managing Editor, Dott: Claire Capaldi
Editor, Wardour: Alex Perchard
Art Director, Wardour: Barney Pickard
Additional material: Emer McCourt
Published in 2007 by Dott 07, Design Council, 34 Bow Street, London WC2E 7DL
For orders and enquiries, email
Contents / 3
...we could live sustainably
– by design?
5. B etter lives with 28. P icture House: how 60. O urNewSchool: Other projects
less stuff? to experience history the building’s design 88. D esign Event 07:
in new ways is only the start there’s still a role for
Vital Signs the designers of things
30. W elcomes: what makes
8. S ustainability: how
you feel welcome – Health 92. P echa Kucha:
far is it from here,
or unwelcome? 64. C an design make chit-chatty creativity
to there?
a difference to
34. M apping the
our health?
9. Our Planet Tonight: Necklace: introducing Who’s who
‘weather forecast’ for a new kind of park 66. A lzheimer100: better 96. M eet the people
climate change lives with dementia, behind the projects
38. N ew Work: on the
by design?
move and on our own
12. T hinglink: your 100. R eferences
70. D aSH: how to make
phone tells you the
Energy sexual health services
eco-history of what
42. C arbon-based more accessible
you buy
capitalism: can
74. O ur Cyborg Future:
we design its
14. T own Crying: story- me, or machine?
replacement?
telling as design input
44. L ow Carb Lane:
Food
16. L andscape/Portrait: could we pay less
76. F ood: the ultimate
do postcodes defne for warmer homes?
design challenge
who you are?
48. N orth East Energy
77. U rban farming:
Futures: what
an easy approach
Movement alternative energy
to sustainable food
18. T ransport: can it ever might look like
be sustainable? 84. U rban Space Station:
Schools & a rooftop greenhouse
20. M ove Me: no car…
Schooling that breathes
no problem!
52. S chool students: could 86. T yne Salmon Trail:
24. T ourism: must it they take the lead?
improving access
always kill the toured?
54. E co Design Challenge:
how big is your
school’s eco footprint?
Dott 07 / Introduction
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Better lives with less stuff?
Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007), The focus of the initiative was region’s transition to one planet living.
a year of community projects, events on grassroots community projects, The Dott 07 Festival was divided
and exhibitions based in North East but there were also projects involving into the following zones, which are
England, explored what life in a more than 70 schools, plus exhibitions refected in this manual:
sustainable region could be like – and events in museums, galleries and
and how design can help us get there. rural sites. All events explored how •MOVEMENT
A national initiative of the Design design can improve our lives in •ENERGY
Council with the regional development meaningful ways. •SCHOOLS
agency One NorthEast, Dott 07 is Throughout the Dott year, •HEALTH
the frst in a 10-year programme enthusiastic citizens met with •FOOD
of biennial events developed by the designers, policy makers and subject
Design Council that will take place experts at monthly Explorers’ Clubs. An additional section at the start
across the UK. The projects were small The year culminated in a free 12-day of the manual, titled Vital Signs,
but important real-life examples of Dott 07 Festival in Baltic Square introduces a series of Dott 07 projects
sustainable living, which will evolve on the banks of the River Tyne. It that explored how we measure
and multiply in the years ahead. brought together the results of the sustainability. Finally, pages 88 to 95
Several projects were delivered projects and enabled all those involved give details of other project work that
in partnership with Culture10, based to share their experiences and plan has been running alongside Dott 07
at NewcastleGateshead Initiative. what to do next. Outstanding throughout the past year.
Culture10 manages North East achievements were celebrated with
England’s world-class festival and Creative Community Awards. Opposite: at Dott’s monthly Explorer’s Club,
events programme. Above all, the festival was an a wide mix of people from the region met in
The projects aim to improve opportunity for many more people speed meetings, heard from one planet living
experts and did rapid-fre design exercises.
fve aspects of daily life: movement, to fnd out how to participate in similar The ideas that emerged were fed instantly
energy, school, health and food. projects – and thereby accelerate the back into Dott projects on the ground
Dott 07 / Introduction
A new industrial revolution flled ‘self-service’ economy is reduced
social contact between people in their
When North East-born George
everyday lives.
Stephenson designed his steam
Consumer society no longer makes
locomotive Rocket in 1829, he
us happy, if it ever did.
helped set in motion an industrial
revolution that transformed everyday
life for millions of people around
What’s this got
the world. Since then, designers
to do with design?
and industry have flled the world
with an amazing array of products Eighty per cent of the environmental
and buildings, transport and impact of today’s products, services
communication networks. and infrastructures is determined at
Dott 07 Programme Director John Thackara
Many of these innovations had the design stage. Design decisions
leads an Explorer Club event
unexpected consequences – not all of shape the processes behind the
them good ones. The parlous condition products we use, the materials and
of the planet – our only home – is a energy required to make them, the more no longer holds true. The same
good example. The industrial revolution ways we operate them and what paradox applies to public services.
gave us miraculous products, but we happens to them when we no Our expectations have grown and
produced them in wasteful and longer need them. our spending has increased – but we
polluting ways – and still do. The UK economy has doubled are frustrated that not all our demands
The benefts of new technology once in size since the 1970s; British are being met.
seemed obvious: better, faster, smarter design and creativity have played
(and usually cheaper) products. But an important role in that success. But
pointless gadgets and over-complicated our satisfaction with life has not kept
devices no longer excite us. And one pace with economic growth. The idea
of the consequences of a technology- that to be better off we must consume
“North East England has already proven its commitment to using design
to create a more dynamic regional economy. Leading the way with a series
of bold and innovative initiatives in business, technology and education, the
region’s plans for long-term investment and thriving cultural programmes
make it the ideal choice to host the very frst national design promotion
– the very frst Dott in 2007”.
David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council
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How you can build on Why the North East? What happens
what Dott has started after Dott 07?
The dream of Dott 07 is that
Dott 07 explored ways in which the whole North East region will The Dott biennial will move from
we can carry out familiar, daily-life become a kind of design school in region to region all over the UK
activities in new ways. It is a step which a wide variety of people – over the next eight years.
towards a ‘less stuff, more people’ not just professionals – meet, share Dott 07 in North East England has
world in which new services will ideas, discuss and learn from each been a one-year-only event, but the
help us share the load of everyday other’s experiences. idea has been to get things moving
activities: washing clothes, looking Dott 07 was not about telling on several different fronts.
after children, communal kitchens people in the North East how to live. At the end of each project in this
and gardens, communal workshops On the contrary: its purpose was to manual, a ‘What next?’ section tells you
for maintenance activities, tool and enable local people – interacting with what plans are afoot for the project
equipment sharing, networks and inspiring and visionary guests from in question. We also suggest books,
clubs for healthcare and prevention. around the world – to develop their websites and organisations that you
Many of these services will involve own visions and scenarios. can go to for more information.
using products to carry them out but, In that sense, Dott 07 was in the
as a rule, products play a supporting acorn business. Its most valuable
role as a means to an end, and new legacy will be the people who remain
principles (above all, sustainability in the region, the projects they started
and one planet living) inform the ways and the skills they have acquired to
they are designed, made, used and carry them out.
looked after. The North East will once again
be the birthplace of an industrial
revolution – only this time it will be
sustainable, include a lot of public
sector innovation, and draw on the
traditions of social solidarity that
make the region so special.
Vital Signs / Introduction
Vital Signs:
when would
our region be
sustainable?
How will we know when our region is sustainable’ is a cop-out. We need individuals to the bigger picture
‘sustainable’? And how do we get from to know how much things need to of why and how climate change
here, to there? The answers to these change, and by when. is happening.
questions vary wildly. Vague promises Four Dott 07 projects, grouped Two other Dott 07 projects,
to use “as few natural resources together as Vital Signs, approached Landscape/Portrait and Town
as possible”, “reduce waste to a this challenging question in different Crying, gave a face and voice
minimum” or deliver the “greenest ways. Our Planet Tonight, and to citizens who would otherwise
Olympics planned so far” don’t mean Thinglink, helped people to connect be invisible statistics in planning
very much. As a target, ‘increasingly the small actions they might take as and designing.
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Our Planet Tonight: how do we
measure ‘sustainable’? How far
is it from here, to there?
Our Planet Tonight is an information design project to create a weather forecast
equivalent for climate change. It was developed for the Dott 07 Festival in the
style of a Radio One Roadshow. Professional and amateur TV presenters would
take turns telling the story in three-minute segments, supported by an ecological
and well-being ‘dashboard’.
Are we measuring
A selection of indicators used to assess
what matters?
climate change across the UK1
The biggest problem we confronted • A ir temperature in central England • Supply of gas to households
in Vital Signs was the sheer number
• Seasonality of precipitation • Scottish skiing industry
of overlapping and sometimes
• Precipitation gradient across the UK • Number of outdoor fres
contradictory indicators to choose
• Predominance of westerly weather • Incidence of Lyme disease in humans
from. Hundreds of organisations
• D ry and wet soil conditions in • Seasonal pattern of human mortality
churn out a food of reports, graphs,
southern England • D ate of leaf emergence of trees in spring
studies and punditry.
• F requency of low and high river fows • Health of beech trees in Britain
Some organisations focus on air
in North West and South East Britain • Date of insect appearance and activity
quality and surface water quality.
• G roundwater storage in the chalk • Arrival date of the swallow
Others consider travel, energy use
in South East Britain • Egg-laying dates of birds
or how much we waste. And, for
• Sea level rise • Small bird population changes
some scientists, potato yields or
• The risk of tidal fooding in London • Marine plankton
the egg-laying dates of birds are
highly signifcant. • D omestic property insurance claims • Upstream migration of salmon
for damaging weather events • A ppearance of ice on Lake Windermere
Vital Signs / Our Planet Tonight
Demand vs. Biocapacity
1.5
1
0.5
0
Demand World Biocapacity
A C
A: the Earth’s surface temperature in the year 2100, as predicted in C: the capacity of the Earth‘s natural systems to absorb greenhouse
this powerful visualisation from the Hadley Centre gases – its ‘carrying capacity’ – is fxed. Man-made emissions, on
the other hand, rise with our demand for goods and services
CO2 emissions by sector
(million metric tons of carbon)
800
600
400
200
0
1960 1980 2000
Buildings Transportation Industry
B D
B: levels of C02 on Earth remained steady for 400,000 years – until D: although industry gets a lot of the blame for greenhouse gas
the industrial age and carbon-based capitalism took off emissions, transportation – and especially buildings – do even
more damage
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Ecological Footprint
(number of planet Earths)
GRAPHICS: A – © Crown copyright 2007, the Met Offce; B – Climate Change 2007: The physical Science Basis, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
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1970
1973
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1982
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1997
2000
2003
