Fifty design­ers from more than ten coun­tries get together for sleep­less 48 hours in Seoul.

The Brit­ish Coun­cil (Korea) teamed up with Seoul Met­ro­pol­itan Gov­ern­ment to co-host the 48-hour Inclus­ive Design Chal­lenge. It was one of the main events of the second Seoul Design Olympiad that ran from 11–14 Novem­ber 2009, which was launched in 2008 to cel­eb­rate Seoul’s des­ig­na­tion as World Design Cap­ital 2010. The Design Chal­lenge was man­aged by Julia Cas­sim from RCA. Seven UK mentor design­ers and 13 over­seas design­ers, recruited through our global BC net­work, were among the 46 design­ers who took part.

One of the main aims was to show local policy makers and design­ers how they can bene­fit from inclus­ive think­ing. Six dis­abled people and two senior cit­izens were invited as design part­ners to share their views and exper­i­ence with the design­ers. The design experts observed the designer part­ners, while hav­ing in-depth dis­cus­sions about their exper­i­ence. Many of those involved said they gained a lot from this approach.

Based on find­ings from study of their design part­ners, each of eight teams led by Brit­ish design­ers developed their design ideas for product, sys­tem, ser­vice and com­mu­nic­a­tion for the given theme, ‘leis­ure, pleas­ure and social inter­ac­tion for all’. “It was a big chal­lenge to draw agree­ment on our design pro­ject among team mem­bers who come from dif­fer­ent dis­cip­lines and back­grounds. At the same time, I’ve learnt a lot while work­ing with them and it was great fun”, accord­ing to one participant.

The chal­lenge reached a cli­max when the two win­ning teams for Best Idea Prize and Best Present­a­tion Prize were about to be announced. Each team pitched their ideas in an eight-minute present­a­tion in an air-dome filled by more than 200 people. The win­ning teams were chosen by a com­bin­a­tion of a panel con­sist­ing of respec­ted pro­fess­ors and the dir­ector gen­eral of Seoul Design Olympiad, as well as by pop­u­lar vote.

Best Idea Prize went to ‘Pitch Per­fect’ which presen­ted an innov­at­ive idea to make Karaoke, a typ­ical place for social­ising in Korea, more fun. It was about Karaoke screen which shows graphic of notes and illus­tra­tion of face expres­sion inter­act­ively while singing. Though it was inspired by its hearing-impaired design part­ner, it was not only for the dis­abled but for every­one. It cap­tured atten­tion both from audi­ence and the selec­tion panel by suc­cess­fully com­bin­ing ‘com­mu­nic­a­tion’ and ‘emo­tion’. One happy win­ner said: “It was a unique and valu­able exper­i­ence that will stay with me for a long time. It is sure to influ­ence my future work”.

For fur­ther enquir­ies, please con­tact Yoon­joe Park at Yoon­joe [dot] park [at] brit­ish­coun­cil [dot] or [dot] kr.