This is a CTP of initiative: DESIS - ID+ DESIS Lab, Aveiro (Portugal)
“Action for Age” was one of the first projects developed at the University of Aveiro that related design, social innovation and sustainability.
Through this project, the field started to be developed at the university. New interactions and contacts with external actors were established and the institute (+ID) started to be recognized in the city of Aveiro and in Portugal as well as abroad, as an educational institution involved in advancing the relationship between design and social innovation.
The project took place in 2011 and was called “Action for Age”. It was developed “to raise awareness amongst young Portuguese designers about the social transformations brought by population ageing and to explore the contribution of the Design discipline in this framework”.
The project was established as part of a didactic activity (in a design course) developed by 3rd year Design students. Students were asked: “to identify a place in the city and to propose ideas to stimulate intergenerational relationships”. They were also asked to “develop flexible solutions - a service, a network, an object, a shop, an initiative - that could promote the social integration of the elderly with other individuals in the community”. Students were required to relate with many local actors in the Municipality, including local communities: “There was an important moment when the Royal Society of Arts in the UK and Experimenta Design (a Portuguese association) launched a challenge to all design schools in Portugal. I readily accepted this challenge”.
Five solutions proposed by the students received financial support and were developed and implemented by them, with support provided by teachers and other mentors.
The involvement with local actors in the city of Aveiro and with international actors who organized the awards strengthened the recognition of the design school in the University of Aveiro as an actor that was able to develop solutions for the social questions and challenges faced in the city of Aveiro: (1) “the project gained some visibility, it was reported by the media, the students were awarded, they travelled to London, the project was very well developed”; (2) “this was the moment in which the initiative (to develop design for social innovation in the university) started to grow”.
The “Action for Age” project was developed by students from one of the courses offered at the University of Aveiro as part of a national ideas based competition. It was an initiative promoted by the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) -UK and was co-produced in Portugal in partnership with Experimenta Design, Caloust Gulbenkian Foundation and Santa Casa de Misericórdia.
The competition was launched in October 2010 and 22 Portuguese high schools and universities participated. From 71 applications submitted by 227 students, 12 were selected to receive financial support (up to 2500 euros) to develop and implement the ideas. In February 2011, out of the seven projects developed in the University of Aveiro, five were submitted to the jury and three were approved.
The project’s outputs were presented in an exhibition at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and were integrated into the EXD'11 programme, an international biennale dedicated to design, architecture and creativity, which included the production of a documentary about the initiative (data provided by the interviewee through the sharing of documents and links regarding the projects).
One condition that enabled the project to happen was the availability of colleagues: “we asked colleagues from another disciplines to invite their students to participate in the project, and they accepted. This was important because we were not able to develop the project in our course (Social Ergonomics of Design)” .
2010 – Launch of the Action for Age competition. It was a national ideas based competition in which 22 Portuguese high schools and universities from across the country participated. This competition motivated the development of the project with design students in the university of Aveiro. The process ran from October 2010 – November 2011.
2011 – Exhibition of the “Action for Age” projects. There was national and international recognition of the ID+ activities in Design for Social Innovation when the institute participated in the “Action for Age” exhibition at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The projects developed by the students at the University of Aveiro were also included in the EXD'11 Biennale program, an international event dedicated to design. A documentary about the process was produced and exhibited at the events.
The second phase of the “Action For Age” project for which the ideas were developed and implemented was considered by the teachers to be an important experience for the students involved. This was because it offered the possibility to prototype their ideas and it exposed the students to the inherent difficulties in implementing an effective project within a specific reality and with real actors. The projects were successfully developed and implemented as prototypes by the students, with support from their teachers and mentors.
There was a lack of possibilities, interest or support for students to continue the projects when the course was finished. Therefore, the projects remained in the prototyping phase. There were no obstacles to the involvement of other colleagues in a joint effort to offer the course in which the “Action for Age” project was developed. However, the course was a new approach to design: “there was no contestation to the development of the project in the beginning. For some colleagues who were involved in the discipline it was ‘a shot in the dark’. We were exploring something new. During the process, some doubts emerged about the designer's role in this kind of project”.
After the experience, some professors considered that Design for social innovation was an issue to be discussed and taught only at graduate level. They argued that undergraduate students should be enrolled in “classic” design courses with a focus on learning the basic tools of the discipline. Other professors did not agree and argued, and still argue today, that social innovation should also be regularly included in courses for undergraduate students: “This resistance was not overcome, but we have not given up”.
We had no idea that this project would become a CTP: “Action for Age was an opportunity that we gained because we were very interested in working in this area (design for social innovation). We started it as an ‘experiment’.
When we saw the results we understood that it had been a CTP. We recognized that it was going in the right direction by observing the involvement and interest of other local actors and students in the project”.
The project advanced the development of design for social innovation in the Research Institute for Design, Media and Culture [ID+], by helping to create a portfolio of projects in the field. It was also a way to be up to date with developments in the field of design for social innovation at a local level, both in the city of Aveiro and internationally: the period from 2008-2011 saw the foundation of the DESIS labs and an expansion of the DESIS Network. The projects were developed based on the same principles followed by the other design schools that were affiliated (or in process of being affiliated) with the DESIS Network and were being advised by its founder. They were developed and integrated with activities undertaken by teachers and students at the University of Aveiro, which in this case formed part of a course that was developed in partnership with other professors in the university.
The project “Action for Age” was vital in order to take the necessary steps to understand the design perspective in the projects related to aging (possibly different from the standpoint of a social worker, a physician, a mayor, a gerontologist...). In this process, design “was perceived as a fertile ground for new experiences, whose implementation could and should be complemented with other actors”. These “new experiences will generate an understanding of the potential scope for `design thinking` as a means to foster social innovation”.
“Action for age” projects that were developed based on the “intergenerational relations”, theme were an example of how design theory and practices needed to follow the changes that were happening in society. They needed to “move away from a focus on product development that was serving a declining economy in order to be able to perform tasks in the efforts to promote sustainable development”. However, despite the specific area of intervention, it was possible to observe that “the tools used by designers to develop their projects were the same, including their drawing skills”.
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