Design Commons is a deconstructed conference founded by the CEO of Interactive Africa, Ravi Naidoo in collaboration with World Design Weeks founder Kari Korkman. The event was established in 2017 and acts as a travelling discussion platform on the future of cities. Unlike the conventional conference format, Design Commons places stakeholders in urban planning and public space at the same table as notable designers to foster a sense of common ground and find solutions to some of the world's pressing issues.

Background

The first Design Commons event took place in Clarion Congress Centre,

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

as part of the World Design Weeks summit from 14 to 15 September 2017. Speakers include architect

David Adjaye Sir David Frank Adjaye (born 22 September 1966) is a Ghanaian-British architect who has designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History, National Museum of African American History and ...

, Dutch architect

Winy Maas Wilhelmus "Winy" Maas (born 1959 in Schijndel) is a Dutch architect, landscape architect, professor and urbanist. In 1993 together with Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries he set up MVRDV. Education He completed his studies at the RHSTL Bos ...

, Finnish technology entrepreneur Marko Ahtisaari, Dutch landscape architect Cees van der Veeken and

Studio Swine Studio SWINE is a British-Japanese art collective and design studio founded in 2011 by Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves. SWINE is an acronym for "Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Explorers". They are known for artistic works in design that com ...

, a collaboration between Japanese architect

Azusa Murakami AZUSA refers to a ground-based radar tracking system installed at Cape Canaveral, Florida and the NASA Kennedy Space Center. AZUSA was named after the southern California town Azusa, California where the system was devised in the early 1950s. Ra ...

and British artist Alexander Groves. The event is open to the public and is partially released as a video series on the

Design Indaba Design Indaba is a trademark and brand founded and run by Interactive Africa in 1995 with a focus on design and under the slogan "A better world through creativity". Consisting of an online publication and a series of events and creative projects, ...

website.

References

{{Reflist Conferences in Finland Urban planning