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World Design Day 2017: Start Young Recap

03.05.2017 News

Casa Wabi (Mexico)

On 27 April World Design Day 2017 Start Young happened around the world in the form of workshops designed for kids. Read the recap:

Early design awareness was the goal of the workshop created by ico-D and Marc Kandalaft of We are rap. for World Design Day: Start Young 2017. The workshops happened 27 April in five countries in five languages; in English — at Open Design Cape Town (South Africa); in Italian — at La Triennale di Milano (Italy); in French — at Académie Sainte-Anne - primaire (Canada); in Spanish — at Casa Wabi (Mexico); and in Korean at Seoul Design Foundation (South Korea). Kids learned some design fundamentals and then got hands-on with the designing process (to make a chair they could actually sit on)!

Photo credit: Casa Wabi (Mexico)

Photo credit: ico-D. Académie Sainte-Anne - primaire (Canada)

Photo credit: Open Design Cape Town (South Africa)

Photo credit: La Triennale di Milano (Italy)

The half-day activity was a primer on design with some hand-on exercises to initiate the participants into a basic form of design methodology. Each of the partner organisations conducted the ico-D/We are rap. workshop in five countries with local kids. Each workshop was a collaborative co-creation, working from the WDD2017: Start Young model to adapt the needs and creativity unique to each region, culture, and group of kids.

Marc Kandalft of We are rap. instructing kids for the Start Young workshop at Académie Sainte-Anne - primaire (Canada)

WDD2017: Start Young participants were asked to: Observe > Analyze > Solve > Test and model. The desired outcome of the workshop was to inspire and empower children to adopt innovative ways of thinking and to enhance their creative confidence. (Photo credit: Open Design Cape Town)

The hands-on workshops pushed the children participating to explore their creative potential freely and trust their capacity to solve problems and test their solutions. (Photo credit: La Triennale di Milano)

Start Young at Seoul Design Foundation (South Korea)! (Photo credit: Seoul Design Foundation)

Start Young at La Triennale di Milano (Italy)! (Photo credit: La Triennale di Milano)

Start Young at Casa Wabi (Mexico)! (Photo credit: Casa Wabi)

Participants from Open Design Cape Town (South Africa)! (Photo credit: Open Design Cape Town)

The Start Young concept:

What if design was taught to children the same way math is: everyday, and on equal footing with science, history and languages? Design is especially transformative for kids — the next generation and leaders of tomorrow.

Kids are a blank slate. They are at an age when their view of the world and its possibilities are limitless. As the first generation of ‘pure’ digital natives, today’s kids already feel personally responsible for their own futures: they want to be able to choose and create work that makes a difference in the world. And they will do it in their own, unique way. But how do we prepare young kids to navigate this turbulent world, so they can become sensitive, intellectual, imaginative and practical leaders for tomorrow?

Having a designing mindset means being tuned into the invisible things that matter to people and their relationships to each other and the world. ico-D, the International Council of Design, sees the great potential for design to improve the world around us. We know that design changes—for the better—how we live and thrive in everyday environments like schools, parks, workplaces and hospitals. The profession of design and its ethics requires designers to consider context, culture, diversity and specificity before even starting to design, and this has become an essential way of thinking and being in the complex world we live in today.

Read the full WDD17 press release here