Autor: linivarsson

Our team took a walk from the Viscosistadt up on the Gerliswilstrasse to the Sonnenplatz. On the way, we stopped by some information signs to reading about Emmen. 

My impressions 

Previously I have only been running by the river in Emmen, which I found really nice, but the general impression of the municipality isn’t the best. It’s a lot of traffic, constructions, loud airplanes, old building electricity cables hanging over the roads and it gives me an industrial and a bit sad vibe. It feels like the town has lost a bit of its shine over the years. I got positively surprised by the Sonnenplatz, there they had a mall with a big Migros, people walking around, flowers, a pretty coffee place, and the yellow church. I also found it positive that the busses run on electricity, even though the cables are quite ugly.  

Approaching people 

At the Sonnenplatz my teammates approach an old woman, and because of the language barrier and corona, I kept some distance and watch the conversation. Later, they told me that she have been living there for over 60 years and that she had really seen Emmen change over the years. She was also aware of the energy project but didn’t know what exactly it was. She told us that she uses geothermal energy in their house. What surprised us was that she was really stressed despite her age. 

What I take with me 

I think it was interesting to walk through a town and just try to understand the people and the surroundings. That’s something you rarely do, and it got me thinking in other ways. I asked myself „why?“ a lot of times, and I also tried to understand the municipality from their eyes. Overall it was fun to see more of Emmen because I have a better understanding of the area and it makes the project more tangible to work with. 

/ Lin Ivarsson

 

What is actually design? 

Before starting my studies, I thought that design was only about colors, shapes, and the aesthetics of an object. Now, I know that design is also about social change – for the better. 

“Design, understood as the conceiving, planning, developing and delivering of plans, strategies, services or policies, always requiring us to initiate or make changes to some things” (Junginger, 2016). Junginger also writes that Design is one of the four core activities in an organization, and it’s inseparable from changing, organizing, and managing. Since many people think about design as just colors, and forms many people don’t even know that they are actually designing all the time. For example, many of the design activities performed in an organization are not called design. It’s also performed by people who don’t call themselves designers and who could not consider themselves to be designers either. This phenomenon is what Gorb and Dumas call “silent design” (Silent Design, 2011). 

Since people started to understand that this “silent design” they have performed, is actually design. The interest in the design field has increased, especially by public managers and policymakers. They have not only realized that design is an ability to generate and implement creative changes, but that design also includes techniques and methods suitable for developing useful, usable, and desirable products that people can easily access (Junginger, 2016).

What is social design? 

It’s hard to do design without it being social because in some way the things we design will interact with people, it will maybe foster conversation, bring people together, improve people’s health and lifestyle or make people’s life more convenient. That’s at least what design should do, since we design for a purpose, we need to think about what the purpose is really about. In the worst case, and with the wrong purpose of design, it can make people’s lives worse, and/or create distance between people. To design products for the market is well developed, but there has been little theorizing about product design for social needs (Margolin, 2002). We can for example ask ourselves if the phone and social media were created for the market or social needs?

However, social design can be both good and bad, therefore we really need to think holistically and in a system thinking way when we design. We need to think and understand what impact the design will have on people. Therefore, social design also comes with a big dose of human-centered design. Human-centered design is when we design with the purpose to provide useful, meaningful, and usable services to people. It also pays attention to relationships and communication between people. To be able to do this, we need to understand people and their needs. We could ask ourselves “does this product help us to achieve the kind of human experience and environment we want to create? (Junginger, 2016). Social design including human-centered design is, as you may understand, something we should always have in mind when designing, so why isn’t it more supported and known? One of the reasons why social design is not more supported mean Margolin and Margolin is because there is a lack of research to demonstrate what design can contribute to human welfare. As Future Design Managers we have a chance to change this. 

If I would explain social design in a few sentences, it would be: Social design is a design strategy that is about understanding social problems and supporting social change for the better. It’s also about encouraging and facilitating conversations, creating inclusiveness, bringing people together, and making people’s lives better. I still have a lot to learn about design and social design, but the more I learn about it, the more excited I’m to design for change and social good. 

By Lin Ivarsson

Sources:

1. Gorb, P., & Dumas, A. (2011). Silent design. Design Studies.
2. Junginger, S. (2016). Transforming Public Services by Design: Re-Orienting Policies, Organizations and Services around People (1st ed.). Routledge.
3. Margolin V. & Margonlin S. (2002) A “social Mode”l of Design: Issues of practice and research

Map of energy issues

Based on a 2-minute podcast in which each team member shared their thoughts on energy issues in the community or city where they live, we created a map of all the issues we identified in each podcast. Here are some of the key insights we gained from analyzing Åre (SWE), Lucerne (CH), and Horgen (CH):

Lucerne has plans to become a more sustainable city in terms of transport, energy consumption, and energy generation. Regarding mobility, Lucerne currently has only a few electric vehicles, the large majority of cars are powered by petrol and diesel. By 2040 all the cars driving in the city should be electric or powered by another renewable energy source. Furthermore, the overall car traffic should be reduced by 15%.

When it comes to homes, the vast majority of households are still heated with oil or gas systems. Currently, this results in per capita greenhouse gas emissions of around 5,1 tonnes per year. The city aims to reduce this number to 0 by 2040 meaning no more oil and gas heating systems.

For energy generation, the city wants to increase its solar energy generation. At the moment from solar panels makeup 2% of the yearly electricity generation, by 2050 it should be 25%.

Horgen is committed to the efficient use of energy, climate protection, renewable energies, as well as environmentally-friendly mobility and is even certified as an energy city with gold status.

The availability of buses in the countryside is very poor, however, since buses only arrive every hour. This results in more people purchasing a car to be more flexible.

During the research, it became also clear that the younger generation is very little involved by the community. This is a pity, as movements like „Fridays for Future“ prove that millennials and Generation Z are very interested in making a difference. This is an opportunity that is not being taken by the municipality.

In general, Åre is good at using renewable energy sources like wind, water, and sun. The biggest supply company for electricity is “Jämtkraft” and they are only offering their customers 100% renewable energy from wind, water, sun, and also by bio-energy.

The three main issues in Åre are 1. the increased price of electricity. Which is caused by different factors such as the weather and temperature, supply and demand, and also the increased oil and gas prices. Normally, the electricity price in Sweden is quite low, so when it increased by almost 400% in December, people got a chock and had a hard time paying the bills to heat up their houses.

2. The high amount of electricity which is consumed in Åre. It’s because of the big ski area which needs to run over 40 lifts, produce snow, light up the slopes and also make the conditions good with piste machines. Skiing requires a lot of energy, but Åre is doing a good job in using renewable energy sources to power the ski area and also using HVO 100 to power the machines.

3. The mobility in the countryside. Including the lack of charging stations for electric cars. As it looks today, people can’t really take their electric car to Åre because there are not enough power stations to charge. The people in the countryside are also dependent on their cars since the infrastructure is not sufficient enough to get from A to B in a convenient way. The increased prices on petrol as Diesel is also a chock for the people in Åre. Since they are dependent on their car it’s a challenge to afford all these price increases for electricity and petrol.

/ Lin Ivarsson, Lisa Kraan and Cyril Forster