Last Friday I attended a dialogue at Kennisland between their research project ‘The Wicked Series‘ in collaboration with Hivos and ‘Social Design for Wicked Problems‘ (SDFWP) initiated by Het Nieuwe Instituut, Twijnstra Gudde en Tabo Goudswaard. The Wicked Series organized by Kennisland and Hivos spanned three evenings in which 40 participants were invited to unravel -in collaboration with relevant (experience) experts- the (un)logic of a series of wicked social issues. SDFWP involves a research project in which design teams work on three different topics, one for ING/NN, a (Dutch) bank/ insurance company, one for the Municipality of Amsterdam and another one introduced by the designers themselves. SDFWP I observed from a distance since it kicked of with an ‘expert meeting’ at the conference WhatDesignCanDo 2013 in Amsterdam. In the Wicked series I attended as a participant in 2013.
What these projects share is their intention to deal with/unravel the complexity of (global) social issues. What fundamentally sets them apart is the way they both deal with context, a key-factor in ‘wicked’ issues. (more…)
Read