Design for transition - what's on your menu? | The cookery
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Project overview
‘Design for Transition – What’s on your Menu?’, or simply ‘The Cookery’, is an interactive exhibition that depicts the state of transition of design practices and society, taking people through different stages of reflection. Emphasis has been placed on one area of design research: futuring. The visitors take steps to enable the collective shaping of futures, illustrated through the metaphor of cooking.
- Full name: Design For Transition: What's On Your Menu?
- Duration: May 2023 - August 2023
- Funding: University of Twente
- Budget: € 15000
- Status: Project Pending Development
When the DreamTeam was working on developing an image of the University for Dutch Design Week (DDW), an opportunity arised to make an independent project for DDW 2023. The DreamTeam, staff, and researchers had a meeting to brainstorm what they could do. DreamTeam Project Coordinator Alexandru Amariei wrote a story based on what was discussed with researchers Julieta Matos Castaño and Cristina Zaga, and project manager Kris Pals. Mascha van der Voort had an advising rol, and suggested to take transitions and design into account when thinking about the UT's presence at DDW. Alex brainstormed with Cristina, Kris, Julieta, and then created a concept around it.
The goals for this project were:
- Use futurism
- Showcase sensemaking
- Collaborate with other stakeholders
- Help people to understand how to be involved and how to work together in solving societal challenges
From process to realisation Concept development and preparation was a huge part, considering most of the team was gone for the summer holidays and the deadline was 6 weeks after the start of the new semester. Subteams were made that worked together to get the exhibitions done and collaborated close to the DDW production team of DesignLab. The subteams were: design, interaction, and making.
The biggest struggle the team faced was to balance the level of quality with the constraints of time and budget. They did achieve it in the end.
The exhibition that was displayed at DDW with around 800 people using it during this period, and thousands of people seeing it. Gemeente Eindhoven, the King of The Netherlands' comissioner, and The King of The Netherlands' second hand even saw the exhibition. Very cool, right? You can still see the Cookery today at DesignLab.
Listen to the podcast to hear how the project team came to their ideas, and what challenges they faced while working towards Dutch Design Week.
Collaboration partners
Meaningful impact
Dutch Design Week includes an broad audience. Through the experience of The Cookery, we engage this wide audience in an accessible way, so they can easily interact with eachother. Different perspectives are given the opportunity to come together and engage in conversation. And who doesn't love cooking? Be honest.
Looking ahead: What you can do
The Cookery is an important project, because it gives people a different perspective. They are shown that they can take different values, disciplines, and work together in a trandisciplinary way to solve societal issues. Each combination that is made in the Cookery results in a different outcome. If you apply this to real life scenarios, you realize that working with different people and different ideas can all result in something valuable. Just be willing to have the conversation.
Contact
Would you like to know more, join, collaborate, or receive more inspiration? Please contact Project Coordinator Alexandru Lucian Amariei.
Alexandru Lucian Amariei DreamTeam Project Coordinator
