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Great Recovery launches!
This ambitious project, launched by the Design and Society arm of the Action and Research Centre at the RSA kicked off in full earnest last week. It began on Monday with the doors of the newly furbished Benjamin Franklin room being thrown open to a great bustling mix of designers, chemists, business leaders and manufacturers, policy makers, campaigners and entrepreneurs. Together they took part in our frenetic speed networking session that moved everyone around a number of tables hosted by experts and practitioners who are all in some way involved in closed loop/circular system thinking.
So many conversations were taking place that it was sometimes hard to hear the bell. Thankfully the film crew captured the atmosphere, if you weren’t able to come watch it here.
The Technology Strategy Board launched their competition at the launch event with £1.25m of prize money to be awarded to design-led business ideas in closed loop innovation. This competition is a stepping stone to further investment opportunities next year so keep in touch.
The Great Recovery was next seen at 100% Design, the UK’s biggest design trade event and part of this year’s incredible 10th London Design Festival. Our extraordinary installation was curated by Daniel Charny (V&A Power of Making) and created by Thomas.Matthews. The Great Recovery stand really stood out. Our walls were not pristine nor our products on white plinths.
Working with social enterprise Bright Sparks, Islington Council’s Repair and Reuse Shop, we re-created their repair workshop in the heart of 100% Design. We were found surrounded by shelves piled high with once loved and now broken electrical equipment in varying states of repair. The Bright Sparks team were on-hand fixing and advising for the duration of the event. Many people brought their broken kettles, hairdryers and toasters to see if they were fixable. Some were lucky enough to buy a restored replacement (all money went back into Bright Sparks).
Our stand caused a great flurry of tweets throughout the week (@great_recovery and #circulareconomy). We had over 2000 conversations with many people stopping to digest all the information on our exhibits. Most were keen to talk to us about the project’s aims and where they fitted into our Circular Network diagram.
On Saturday we took over the Eco Design & Build Seminar Hub at 100% Design to host a day of inspiring speakers: Mark Shayler from Tickety Boo and Sophie Thomas, one of the project directors discussed the economic imperatives for closed loop thinking. Mark Champkins, inventor in residence at the Science Museum and Glen Adamson from the V&A talked about the roles of craft, design and beauty and Daniel Charny, with James Carrigan from Sugru talked about the power of fixing. They launched their new ‘Fixperts‘ initiative.
All the talks were filmed and will be on our site soon.
This all had a reason. Our current linear model of ‘take-make-dispose’ is throwing up major economic and environmental challenges. We need to shift towards more circular systems and good design thinking is pivotal to this transition.
The first workshops have been announced and you can find out more here
