A unique gathering of global design experts meets in New Delhi on 2 and 3 March to consider solutions to the growing crisis concerning food and energy. The ninth edition of the celebrated Doors of Perception conference – known as "the Davos of design" – is on the theme ‘Juice’.

Inspired by the question, ‘Who designs your life?’, Dott 07 (Designs of the time 2007) is a year of community projects in Newcastle, UK that explore how design can make a positive difference to our daily experience. It focuses on grassroots community projects and those involving more than 70 schools, plus exhibitions and events in museums, galleries and rural sites.

Says Doors of Perception’s (see box) director John Thackara: “Global food systems are an extreme example of wasteful economic activities that have emerged with globalisation. The transport, processing, packaging and distribution of food consume ten times more energy than enters our bodies as nutrition. We have to fix this".  

Dr Aditya Dev Sood, CEO of Centre for Knowledge Societies or CKS www.cks.in and co-producer of Doors 9, explains the significance of the event: “Doors 9 reframes this key economic and social challenge as an opportunity for design innovation. This meeting is about action, not talk”.

In developed countries, the food consumption of a single family generates eight tonnes of CO2 emissions a year, John Thackara says. "Tackling climate change is in large part about re-shaping, and re-localising, these global flows". Networks and mobile technologies will play a key role, and India can be a teacher to the world, he says.

The Doors 9 conference is in four parts: the global big picture; food and urban design; food information systems; and 'juice – or rasa – as a symbol of food's cultural importance. Author Andre Viljoen shows how food systems are becoming central to advanced urban and regional development schemes. Robert O'Dowd and Nick Devitt (UK, Designs of the time, Dott 07) explain how bottom-up social innovation can bring top-down policy requirements to life.

“Juice is the essence of food, but the word rasa can also be used to mean credit, electricity, access, flavour and love," says Dr Sood. "Diverse approaches to food and energy will be explored in the conference as we imagine new social and technological systems".

The main sponsor of Doors 9 is the mobile phone company, Nokia. Hannu Nieminen, who shapes the company's user experience policy, explained: “Mobile telecommunications will play a critical role in re-shaping global flows of food and energy in the transition to sustainability”.

In addition to the conference and an evening social technologies bazaar, at India Habitat Centre, a street-level new media happening – Mediawala – is also planned during the days preceding Doors 9. Juha Huuskonen, the artistic director of Pixelache festival www.pixelache.ac and curator of the first Mediawala, says “Mediawala is a re-interpretation of the Juice theme by a motley group of multi-disciplinary media practitioners”.

Mediawala, a collaboration between CKS, Doors and Pixelache, features work from La Molleindustria (McVideogame), LeCielEstBleu (interactive environments inspired by nature) and Keity Anjoure (dance performance with trees).

Doors 9 is sponsored by Nokia (Finland); Designs of the time (UK, Dott 07); Royal Society of Arts (UK).