WDCD: ‘Water Tank’ wins membership

A 36hr Design Jam at What Design Can Do

What Design Can Do (WDCD) launched the Climate Action Challenge by hosting a 36hr Design Jam for students and young professionals during their conference in Amsterdam. And man was it jam-packed – a bonanza of brainstorming, ideation, prototyping and pitching! WDCD brought the fantastic research team from STBY and five of our Makerversity Amsterdam members on board to bring it to life. Responding to the STBY research and briefs the participants worked as teams to develop ideas. While our members Alessandro & Bob, Joris, Monique and Samy mentored the teams through their development. Especially questioning them at each stage and bringing their own expertise. Together they helped the teams with concepting, idea development, customer research, materials and rapid prototyping.

The Goal

The goal of the jam was to come up with prototypes for projects that could be submitted to the Climate Action Challenge. Hence over four workshops spread across the two days, a total of 16 experts coached participants: how to approach the problem of climate change adaptation; how to brainstorm effectively; why you should prototype; and how to pitch and present to an audience. The result was an array of curious and genius solutions for our changing climate. From eating plankton to using children to generate energy!

The Hard Work

 

The Pitches

At the finale we had eight teams pitching their prototypes to a hard hitting panel of judges. Probably the most nerve-wracking panel – the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Pentagram, Makerversity, Paige Rodgers from Autodesk Foundation, Liz McKeon from IKEA Foundation, Jeroen van Erp – founding partner at design firm Fabrique and professor at TU Delft.

Some of the ideas presented included: rooftop gardening with a marketplace for surplus vegetables on every street; houses with a detachable ‘core survival unit’ that floats off in a flood; a trampoline that captures kinetic energy as children jump on it; an elevated platform in Dutch cities to remind residents that they live below sea level (and to provide refuge in the event of a deluge of seawater).

The Winners

The winning team, Water Tank, came up with a rainwater storage tank for areas prone to drought. Although there are already many existing water tanks, the judges liked the fact that the design was open-source and could be built with local materials and no high-tech skills, which would be key to helping it spread.

The team — Aryan Javaherian and Pim van Baarsen — won a year’s membership to our Makerversity co-working space and workshop to prototype before they submit to the Challenge.

They — and you — only have until 24 September 2017 to enter, so get cracking!

The Climate Action Challenge

The Climate Action Challenge is a new global design competition. It calls on the creative community to submit bold, innovative solutions to help people adapt to and combat climate change. WDCD, IKEA Foundation and Autodesk Foundation is inviting designers, creative thinkers and imaginative trouble-shooters from all countries and disciplines, to take part. Their call for participation closes on 24 September 2017. So – you still have time to enter! Help save the earth through design!