2. The term Active Design was recently born in New
York City, fusing “active health” considerations into
the process of urban design.
The essence of Active Design itself is simple:
encourage positive human activeness and
interaction through design of public spaces.
It’s a concept that now has a name, but in fact the
thinking behind it has existed for quite sometime.
Our investigations into examples of active design
thinking in our local environments uncovered such
outstanding projects, we couldn’t help but share the
lessons and learning amongst ourselves.
THE CONCEPT
That led us to thinking…. What if we just took that
idea from Bangkok into San Fran? Or from NY into
Texas?? Could we improve on the concept through
transplant and adaptation? How will climate,
topography or culture influence us? The fervor of
possibilities and challenges became infectious.
And so, the seed for an Active Design Exchange
was planted.
3. THE CRITERIA
First, we felt it important to distill the relatively abstract
concept of Active Design (AD) into more tangible,
measurable criteria. Without doubt, the core of AD is to
encourage health, movement and good nutrition: getting
people active and adopting healthier habits. Then we
realized there is a whole lot more to creating truly
successful Active Design.
Here are the Eight Criteria we’ve established as
benchmarks for assessing Active Design projects in
operation.
1.
Promotes Health
& Nutrition
2.
Avoids /
Absorbs Pollution
3.
Recycles Existing
Infrastructure /
Resources
4.
Equality of Access
across society
5.
Aesthetically enhances
environment
6.
Economically
Sustainable
7.
Promotes Education
8.
Injects Fun!
4. Examining our own backyards took on a whole new
meaning as we began to appreciate local initiatives
that demonstrated Active Design foresight. We’ve
been disciplined though, and only taken on the very
best to showcase a spectrum of different projects
from around the world that rate highly against our
criteria.
Projects are rated on a scale 1 to 5 for each
criterion (5 being excellent, 1 being lowest). We’ve
weighted Health & Nutrition 3 times more than all
others, giving a possible total score out of 50.
Here’s the spoiler.
THE PROJECTS
<World map, project locations>
6. This got us thinking.
Could there be a way to truly share Active Design success
stories from around the world, to be implemented in other
cities? Why not? And while we are at it – should we aim not only
to share, but to improve?
So we designed a very simple platform to showcase a sample
set of Active Design projects from around the world, ranked
according to our criteria. Now, we could go on and on and on…
reigning in our enthusiasm though, we’d love to learn from
others what examples they may have to share too. That’s really
what Active Design Exchange is all about – sharing real life AD
successes with the public, planting seeds of AD thinking and
gifting a framework for translation and improvement of
projects into new environments.
THE MODEL
The online portal: www.activedesignexchange.com We
like to think of it as the open-source wiki of AD ideas. Take
what you will away from it – ideation, inspiration, blueprint,
whatever – play with it, stretch it, pull it apart, challenge it,
re-imagine it, implement it, just do it… then come back to us
with your results.
Incidentally, we also believe Nike would be the ideal sponsor
to get on board to support seeding this project:
development of a low-cost web platform and on-going
overheads to maintain a small but effective review panel for
projects. Nike’s value system and investment in public
infrastructure and education is perfectly aligned with the
ambitions underpinning Active Design itself. Other potential
partners include: Centre for Active Design - ADE
complements their charter and extends their reach.
Bloomberg Philanthropies - their focus on environment,
public health and education is a perfect fit – as Michael
Bloomberg himself instrumental in establishing Active Design
as a discipline (not to mention, his media platform would
nicely come in handy).
7. THE SCALABILITY
Ah, that Wiki model analogy.
Our time and resources are surely limited, but by
tapping into the imagination and inspiration of our
global audience we need not meet those limitations.
That’s what the web is for.
So we thought we’d take
www.activedesignexchange.org online and
encourage crowd-sourced content development to
populate our database of world’s best AD projects
out there. (Yes, the epitome of managing an online
team – the global public!).
Of course, we’ll factor in a limited head-count for an
editorial panel to review, curate, edit and rank
submissions to criteria. But largely we’re inviting
*your* input. Come to think of it, you’d probably
love being involved in assessing the projects too, so
why not. This is as much your portal as it is ours.
We’re just providing you the stage to showcase.
8. THE RELEVANCE
Why bother sharing? Good question. And one that is often
overlooked today, in a world of over-exposure.
Simply put, with a well-considered value system, business
model, marketing message and brand identity that is
appropriately designed, we’ll put our best foot forward and let
the world decide the answer to that question: whether its
worthwhile sharing these projects or not. We think it is,
because we’re inspired to share the success stories we’ve
found: understanding what is behind them, sometimes smiling
at the simplicity, the ingenuity and frankly… just having fun with
them (can’t you tell?).
On a more practical note though, there is value in sharing these
projects for the potential solutions they represent for other
cities. Notably, some of the most outstanding AD projects don’t
necessarily take a lot of resources to create. Often they even
save or re-invigorate resources. Bring on the hybrids!
Moreover, by concertedly making ADE available to full public
participation, we’re throwing open the opportunities for AD
beyond those exclusively involved in designing urban
environments. Lets face it - some projects start small, and
aren’t always created by those with job titles or professional
design qualifications. We believe in seeding AD thought across
society. We also see the potential to bring the First World and
Developing World closer as a way of learning from each other -
not always in the direction you may expect - but perhaps that’s
getting a little too warm and fuzzy to early in the piece!
In short, our web audience will determine the relevance of the
Active Design Exchange. We can imagine some of the
outcomes, applications and impacts, but we’re open to
surprises too.
Bring on the hybrids!
9. THE FUTURE
We know…. we’re out on a limb here, but its hard to stop when
you are having fun.
So letting our imagination go wild… (with one foot still rooted
in potential foreseeable future), we’d love to spawn:
• A TV show featuring global AD Best under
development, or City–to–City AD competitions
• ADE Award for best AD-on-a-shoestring project
• A voice of advocacy for improved AD city
infrastructure…. facilitating a sort of global city –to-city
dialogue for best practice AD
• In-person AD “exchanges” – with urban planners or
perhaps cross-disciplines, learning and exchanging ideas
with each other across the globe
• Collaborations with schools for children’s involvement in
actively designing their own experience. Have you seen
the way kids function without boundaries?
And a whole lot more… we’re only just getting started.
We’d love to have you with us while we navigate the ride. We’re
learning as much from you as you are from us.
10. (OK, so… what’s with all the colored circles?)
If you are wondering about our off-beat design sensibility….
11. In the spirit of Active Design,
we’ve designed this brochure to become a fold-out,
life-size Twister Board to encourage re-use of
resources and promote the child-like fun and curiosity
we believe Active Design truly embodies.
You’ll need to get inventive for the spinner though –
that’s your contribution to actively design
your own experience!
(You didn’t think we’d want you to just passively read this,
did you?)
