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Students from multiple design disciplines from Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) of the UK completed a 5-day intensive workshop (15-19 July) at the MMU campus to propose creative solutions for their “Ideal City” in the Global Design Camp facilitated by industry expert and designer Jonathan Ball. The workshop brings together students from across the globe to form a global design studio and supports them to develop “glocal” design skills they will need for future economies.

Prior to the summer camp, students from HKDI and MMU collaborated using virtual communication tools and started their research on five “challenge” areas, namely Health, Places, Food, Work and Networks. Upon arriving at MMU, international design teams were formed and they started to design and test their ideas and collaborated in various ways using presentations, sketches, notes, their crafts and technology to develop their concepts towards building the “Ideal City”, receiving feedback from industry experts to help them shape their solutions. Creative proposals included the “City on Wheels”, which was designed to bring services to communities in the Ideal City and for them to host events; “YUMM Passport”, aimed at children, through which they could earn rewards upon acquiring different key skills, such as food waste skills, cooking skills, food growing skills, planet knowledge etc.; “Time for Change” was a watch designed for the homeless that would provide individuals with access to shelter while enabling them to earn points by upskilling in key areas and put these points towards food, new clothes and other necessities; and the “Lean Green Jelly Machine”, which supported communities to design the spaces and places they want by reusing waste and turning this into mouldable building blocks.

The next stage of the programme is to create a digital design studio. Students developed their initial concepts into gallery-ready exhibits while collaborating online rather than face-to-face. Their refined solutions will be on display at Design Manchester in November and Business of Design Week in Hong Kong.