Me and my housemate Jamie went down to visit the Design Museum at Shad Thames, the other weekend, to see the Brit Insurance Design Awards. Not been to the Design Museum in ages and thought I should check it out.
I really liked YCN's Library concept -
'The Young Creative Network installed a lending library into their new headquarters at 72 Rivington Street to spark interaction with the local community. Members sign up in person before receiving their membership card in the post. They are then free to borrow any title from the collection, which is also delivered online. Details of which publications are on loan to other members can also be viewed. Regular guest reading lists are presented in person in the space and also online, keeping the collection fresh – and the members inspired. Guest reading lists have so far been contributed by Sir Paul Smith, Sir John Hegarty and Simon Waterfall.'
I liked this idea because, like many design consultancies, YCN probably have quite an extensive collection of art and design books, they are likely to be sent them free by the publishers and previously they would only be available for their employees to read. However, now they are sharing their resources, making more use of them, giving other people the chance to read these books and also creating interaction with the commuinty that surrounds their place of work. Also, it's a bit like Book Crossing because, unlike your average libabry, this concept was created with the intention to facilitate interaction and also has a digital extension.
This lead me on to think about how maybe other businesses should be doing more to become more involved and integrated with their local communities. Have more of a positive impact on the people that live arround the area they work, rather than acting compleatly independently from them. Medium and large companies have a lot of assets which are very rarely used at 100% efficency. Prehaps companies resources could be shared and utilised by local people for community projects or even used to support smaller or new businesses.
I'm not normally a big fan of car design but I really enjoyed seeing the BMW Gina concept car in real life, having previously only seen it on the internet. Despite there being many signs saying 'DO NOT TOUCH' I couldn't help myself and prodded it quickly when no one was looking! It's made of fabric - such an amazing car! See video.
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