CLOSER TO YOU: a workshop to introduce design thinking for better interactions between citizens and local governments
To celebrate the conclusion of the British Council project Creative Cities and to introduce design thinking in city planning, British Council Latvia in partnership with Riga City Council City Development Department, the boutique consultancy Rode&Weiland and the London-based practice live|work organises the workshop Closer to you on 25 March 2011 in Riga at Hotel “Konventa Seta”.
Closer to you will provide its participants the opportunity to learn about the concept of service design, its application in the city environment, success cases in the UK and other places, as well as to become ‘service designer for a day’ and to try out innovative design methods and tools to solve real-life problems in the City of Riga. Service design discipline applies Design Thinking to solving problems and creating better solutions in our service-based economy, leading to cost efficiencies and savings, improved quality of services, and better customer experiences.
The guest lecturers will be Daniel Letts and Marianne Rolfsenwho represent the services design company live|work, “a unique multi-disciplinary team of designers, technologists, social anthropologists, marketeers, management consultants, operations professionals and entrepreneurs who bring an experienced, pragmatic, rigorous and passionate approach to the development of new breakthrough service propositions for clients”.
Closer to you will bring together academics, active citizens, architects, entrepreneurs, local government officials, and urban planners. The morning session Service design masterclass will be open to the public and the afternoon session Service design workshop will bring together different stakeholders involved in the city planning.
Creative Cities is an international project designed and managed by the British Council. It shares experience across Europe on the ways creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation can help to improve people’s lives - making cities better places to live, work and play.
The project “Creative Cities” ran in Latvia from 2009, and included a number of activities such as Future Cities Games, focused on generating ideas for improving the quality of life in cities.
Please contact Ilze Saleniece for further information about the Creative Cities project in Latvia.
Future City Game is an activity of British Council’s project Creative Cities. Future City Game is a team based game that is played during a two-day event by the city inhabitants coming from different backgrounds and representing different disciplines and outlook
s. The aim of the game is to generate the best idea on how to improve the quality of life in cities — either in a specific area within a city, the city as a whole, or in response to the common challenges facing cities around the world.
Local stakeholders such as municipal authorities, community groups, cultural, educational and urban regeneration agencies choose the theme, location and participants for each game to ensure that it is tailored to the local context. Teams playing the game identify the common challenges facing the city — environmental, social, economic and cultural.
Game players use the specially developed Future City game-kit based on a unique and innovative methodology developed by the British Council, CLES (Centre of Local Economic Strategies), URBIS — an exhibition centre on city life and by other partner-organizations.
