All Inclusive Sarajevo

From May 25 - May 29, 2009 I will be part of an inclusive design project in Sarajevo, developing desirable designer goods together with disabled expert makers working for different organizations in Sarajevo.

The idea for the project came from designers of the Sarajevo-based Kulturanti association, which hosts the workshops together with the Helen Hamlyn Centre (HHC) at the Royal College of Art in London. The project was awarded a grant under the Creative Collaborations project fund of the British Council.

Local partners and workshop participants are the following companies and organisations: Librag, Association of Deaf and Hard of Hearing of Canton Sarajevo, Pismolik, the Center for Self-Reliance and the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Sarajevo, as well as the Association of Blind of Canton Sarajevo, Association of Paraplegics and Persons with Infantile Paralysis of Canton Sarajevo and Kulturni Front from Belgrade.

I will post again after the workshops, in the meantime you can find regular updates here.

If you know of similar projects that we can refer to as case studies, please post them as comments. Thank you! GG

Green Bucharest

I'm not very impressed with a new programme run by the Bucharest City Hall. It's called The Green Capital and, as far as I could tell, it involved placing "monsters" made out of household waste all around the city.

I do like the logo though - a map of Bucharest over a tree trunk.


AS

Shift.ms

Shift.ms is a newly launched social support network, with an online presence, for people affected by Multiple Sclerosis. It was designed with the full involvement of 'Ms'ers' and most of the information, news etc. is user generated, making it a bit of a great example of co-design. With my growing interest in how alternative and 'designed' communities grow and are sustained it will be interesting to watch how Shift.ms develops and in what direction.

KS