28/09/11

Can Design Save the World?

Danish Design Centre - Challenge Society exhibition

Kinneir Dufort's hospital bedside cabinet, designed for Bristol Maid, as part of the "Design Bugs Out" initiative set up by the UK government's Department of Health and the Design Council, is prominently featured in a major exhibition at The Danish Design Centre in Copenhagen.

The basis of the ’CHALLENGE SOCIETY’ exhibition is that the world is transforming, creating complex societal challenges. The future sees fewer hands to care for the increasing number of elderly. The school systems fail, hospitals are down with billions in deficit and the welfare model in general is under pressure. Just to mention some of the future challenges. The situation needs immediate action and new, creative solutions.

The exhibition, CHALLENGE SOCIETY, shows how design meets such challenges. This is not a question of inventing new accessories for the world, but of inventing new ways to design the world. We need to design systems and services to match the complex demands of the future public and private sectors, both individuals and companies.

Using film, texts and photos the exhibition showcases the many examples of how design strategies as the simple solution to complex challenges help give new life to our ailing welfare state, while also creating improved solutions for the users and adding economic value to the industry. Two specific cases from the exhibition show how Danish prisons and nursing homes have chosen to team up with designers in order to solve their main problems.

CHALLENGE SOCIETY explores possibilities and aspects of how to design a new future.

Challenge Society Bristol Maid Bedside Cabinet Kinneir Dufort