“Design” – a solution for aging?

23 June, 2014
(Press release sent by Cultural Connections on behalf of HKDI DESIS Lab for Social Design Research)

“Design” – a solution for aging?

Let our oldies decide(s) our future life

Hong Kong’s first Design Club for Older People implements “Social Design”

“Ageing population” has become one of the most important issues in Hong Kong and global societies. However, discussions are largely focused on how to expand social security and senior citizen’s welfare, which is possibly due to the public stereotype  of “older people” – “feeble health”, “the need to be taken care” or even the “burden” of the younger generation. Rarely are they associated with “ingenuity” and “asset for our society”. Actually, the problem of ageing should be able to resolve by the sense of creativity. And everyone can even create and design his or her own life in old age.

Last year, the DESIS Lab for Social Design Research of Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) has launched a study called ‘Design. Living & Dying’ (生死殯儀). Collaboratively designed by more than 100 old people and over 300 students of School of Design, HKDI, the undertaking explores and addresses the end of physical existence. This year, DESIS has gone further to establish the “DesignAge (HK) Club”, an association opens to local citizens esp. senior. Through various kinds of programmes, the club promotes “participatory design” and encourages local older people to design their daily life by themselves, as a means for building a life that suits oneself. This includes commodities, food and drinks and living environment.

“We all age, but that doesn’t necessarily come with the lack of ingenuity or originality!” said Dr Yanki Lee, Director of HKDI DESIS Lab and initiator of the club. By simply creating an appropriate environment that allows Hong Kong older people to participate in the procedure of design, we are able to stimulate and revitalize their imaginative and observatory capacities about ordinary life, as well as to release their potential ingenuity.

“Oldies” generally refers to details and things in old people’s daily life. The term itself may carry negative connotations in some of our minds, which is why we hope to give old people the right to re-define it, by way of design creativity, planning and constructing a living environment that fits them. Moreover, we hope to provoke public retrospection on the conventional ideas of older people and their life”, stated Albert Tsang, Design Researcher of HKDI DESIS Lab.

HKDI DESIS Lab is committed to promoting the concept of “participatory social design” and the theme of “Design How to Live”, in addition to motivating public’s application of contemporary design knowledge to bring forth improvements in our society and life. Furthermore, taking an active step and folksy approach, DESIS will lead HKDI students to make a debut presence at ‘Retiree & Senior Fair” (退休人士及長者博覽) held in HKCEC in July. Different design programmes will be hosted in their own exhibition zone, including “Bagging you! Design your bag” and “Foot-step: Design your Meal”, allowing participants to design bags and dinning methods of their own preferences and experience the pleasure of designing. One may also try to design your “Memorial diamonds” – diamonds produced from cremated remains and gaining popularity in overseas countries in recent years- in the ”Open Diamonds Project: Design our dying Diamond” corner. The lately formed club, which welcomes all ages, will open for joining during the exhibition. Those who register on-site will receive lucky tote bags as gifts, each of which contains a delicately drawn membership card and a “Design How to Live” Handbook. The materials provide inspiration for the members to observe and explore everything in their surrounding environment, for instances, housings, clothes and transport vehicles.

Exhibition booth of Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) – DESIS Lab for Social Design Research at Retiree & Senior Fair 2014:

Date： 1 – 3 July 2014 (Tue- Thur)
Time：10:00  – 19:00
Venue： Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Wan Chai
Location of booth：D48
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Notes to Editor:

Press tour

Date： 3 July 2014 (Thur)
Time：16:00 – 17:00
Content:
– Guided tour by Director of HKDI DESIS Lab for Social Design Research, Dr Yanki Li
– Visit design activities for older people and public including “Bagging you! Design your bag” , “Foot-step: Design your Meal” and “Open Diamonds Project: Design our dying Diamond”,
– Interview with Dr Yanki Li and participants of activities.

(Please contact our PR for arrangement)

Photos in high resolution for download: http://goo.gl/tnOCSG

 

 

About Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) – DESIS Lab for Social Design Research

Established in the summer of 2013, Hong Kong Design Institute – DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) Lab for Social Design Research is a research team that promotes “social design”. The team is committed to the practice of “participatory design” and “Design How to Live”, an open-for-all design concept, alongside with the utilization of up-to-date design knowledge to achieve advancement in our society and life.

About DesignAge (HK) Club

The club is attributed to the action research programme DesignAge led by Professor Roger Coleman in the 1990s at the Royal College of Art. 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. One of the major developments of the programme is its collaboration with the University of the Third Age (U3A), an advocate to encourage retired and semi-retired people to gather and learn with each other. The collaboration facilitated DesignAge to engage with a large population of active senior citizens.
DesignAge HK Club would like to engage with people, no matter in what age, to think and learn about design for ageing population in a similar way.

Social Design?

Social Design bridges gaps in design research and social practice.

“[D]ifferent kinds of professionals are trying out design-based approaches and methods on projects: early prototyping for project teams and the publics they serve, paying more attention to people’s experiences of engaging with services in situ, and explicitly getting diverse people involved in doing designing …Social design is gaining importance as some services are now expected to be delivered by communities themselves…” Lucy Kimbell [1], former head of social design at the Young Foundation

How do designers become social?  Dr Yanki Lee, Director of HKDI DESIS Lab and Dr Denny Ho , a renowned local sociologist, co-authored a research paper [2] to raise this question. They suggested three components should be highlighted when training novice design practitioners in order to turn them into a social-change agency:

1. Defining public through design
2. Democratising design practice
3. Changing roles of designers

For the HKDI DESIS Lab, we will carry out these components through a series of possible design studies  enabling designers to ‘spark’ a public into being, formulate a special relationship with the potential users of their object of design.

The team of  HKDI – DESIS Lab for Social Design Research

Director

Dr Yanki Lee

A social designer, design researcher and activist, Dr Lee advocates creative participation initiatives for social inclusion and innovation. Director of EXHIBIT at Golden Lane Estate, a social design agency in London, Dr Lee received her MA in Architecture from the Royal College of Art (RCA) and a PhD in design participation from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She was the Research Fellow at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design of RCA since year 2000 before returning to her hometown to set up the HKDI DESIS Lab in summer 2013. UK-China fellow of excellence in 2012 and Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art for excellent works in design research. 

Researcher

Albert Tsang

Albert “Siu Yin” Tsang is the researcher and “design anthropologist” of the HKDI DESIS Lab. With his MPhil in Design and BA in Humanities, Albert’s areas of interest range from popular culture, urban consumerism to the cultural diversities of design. He’s also teaching in a creative institute in Hong Kong and tutoring part-time in his alma mater, School of Design of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. A drama lover, Albert has appeared in numerous drama productions by Hong Kong cultural group Zuni Icosahedron.