2017-project of the week: Future City - show us your vision

This is an invitation from INDEX: Design to Improve Life® and The European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017 to one thousand elementary school students in Central Denmark Region. Once a year, for the duration of three years, students will receive a challenge regarding sustainability, diversity and democracy. After three years, the students will present their vision of the future city in a joint exhibition.

What is your vision of the future city? This question is one that 1,000 fifth graders will now be able to answer through the project ‘Aarhus 2017 Design to Improve Life: The Challenge.’ Once a year, for three consecutive years, 40 elementary school classes (between 5. -7. grade) will work in parallel with similar challenges found in their own schools. A new challenge will be identified each year and the first challenge will be presented in a Kick Off Conference on June 4. 2015.

"In the project we focus on sustainability, diversity and democracy, and the topic is contained within one of the great global challenges such as climate. The topic cannot yet be revealed, but overall it will be about taking society’s challenges seriously and asking the students to rethink the problem and to propose a possible solution," says Lotte Stenlev, Head of Education from the organization INDEX: Design to Improve Life®.

At the end of project process in 2015, and again in 2016, 100 finalists will be selected (the equivalent of 15-20 groups). The finalists will be assembled into a battlefield where they will fight for the amount of 30,000 DKK. The project ends in 2017, when all the students who participated in the project will meet and will build a display model of the city they wish to live in. The model town is based on the proposed solutions they have developed over the span of three years. The exhibition will be publicly available.

During the course of the project, the students will work with structured methods and through each project phase, they will meet designers, architects and artists who will inspire and challenge them along the way.

"During the three rounds of this project, students are guided through a process where their work combines innovation and culture. The methods are based on sustainable innovation and design thinking. My experience is that these particular methods are very liberating for a student’s imagination and creativity. In fact, students are very often much more innovative and creative than they believe to be," says Lotte Stenlev.

The conclusion of these projects will culminate in a decision made by a selected local jury based on a defined set of parameters.

"We attach great importance to the process and believe the students' projects are a good answer to the challenge. Our parameters are: Does the solution provide a good design in terms of aesthetics, usability and functionality? Is it a solution that improves life and quality of life for the target group? And last, but not least, have the students done a thorough analysis of the context to the surroundings for which the solution is provided for," says Lotte Stenlev.

And precisely the facet of analysing the context is one of the areas that the students, after this experience, will gain much knowledge from.

"There is potential for great motivation to participate in a project like this. When students begin, they will discover that they have the knowledge needed to solve the task. It is not just about inventing a nice gimmick. It is about putting themselves into other people's situation and creating an overall solution. And here, pupils will discover that they cannot create good solutions if they have not done their analysis of the context well enough," says Lotte Stenlev.

She points out that her collaboration with local businesses and local counsellors is important for students when they have to make their analysis of geographic, environmental or cultural context in which their project will function.

There is already great interest in Aarhus 2017 Design to Improve Life: The Challenge and Lotte Stenlev expects to have all municipalities in place by the end of February 2015. Therefore, she urges all interested municipalities to sign up now. Schools are also welcome to apply directly.

"I am excited to get started, and I am delighted that the project has a large sustainable potential: we take a social problem, and allow students to use their creativity and creative power to transform the problem, and we send the solution back to the community, which will benefit in the long-run," says Lotte Stenlev.

For more information or sign-up, contact: 
Lotte Stenlev, INDEX: Design to Improve Life® ls@designtoimprovelife.dk or Simone S. Jacobsen ssj@designtoimprovelife.dk