Project Overview

We teamed up with the RSA (the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) and two of our partners, Dulux and Unilever, to create a competition brief for Design Directions, the RSA’s annual design awards in which students are challenged to address intractable social problems through innovative new design.

A perfect platform to encourage and enable the design of sustainable solutions.

For A Changing World we asked students to design product-service systems in response to two possible scenarios set in 2025. They were asked to submit proposals for two markets: Personal Care, and Surface Covering.

At Forum for the Future we use futures thinking and scenarios to stretch organisations and help them to innovate sustainably. There are a few givens in all the scenarios we create, issues like climate change, oil price fluctuations, food and water scarcity, population rise and so on. What we don’t know is how society will react and adapt to all these changes, what decisions governments will make and what life will really be like in a few decades time, so we create plausible scenarios that allow for these uncertainties.

Future scenarios provide a fantastic tool for designers and enable them to design sustainable products, services and systems. They inspire and stretch the imagination. They provide a rich context of people behaving in new and different ways – from social interactions to getting from A to B. Futures thinking helps designers visualise different lifestyles and design innovative solutions that enable and enhance low carbon living.

Laura Morris from Northumbria University, won the competition with both her ideas. She conceived ‘Locally Pure’ for the Personal Care market, a new Unilever brand consisting of a solid shampoo packaged in an abrasive foaming mitt and targeted at rural towns and villages. A Unilever representative shows ocal communities how to make the shampoo and where to sign up online for a starter kit, recipes, further base ingredients and optional equipment. ‘Locally Pure’ is made communally, and can be given a local twist with ingredients like honey and herbs. The shampoo is sold locally and traded between rural towns.

For the Surface Covering category Laura designed ‘Palette’, a device which enables the user to change the colour or design of their walls quickly and easily and eliminates the need for environmentally unsound liquid paint. People select colours and patterns on the Dulux website and pay for them to be made into ‘Colour Chips’ – small glass panels containing a coloured insert. When a Colour Chip is placed into the ceramic Palette, the wall instantly changes colour to match the chip; radio frequency identification tags identify colours within the chip and the device sends a signal wirelessly to electronic E-ink wall hangings. Further chips can be added to mix and layer the colours and patterns. Chips arrive in minimal reusable packaging. Buyers can return surplus chips for recycling and receive a discount on future purchases.

Joe Harrison, from The Arts Institute at Bournemouth, came second with a surface covering concept for 2025. It combines nature and technology to create a digital plant which “grows” in homes and develops uniquely in relation to the occupier’s energy consumption. The plant changes shape and colour depending on the efficiency of the appliances around the home. ‘Digital Growth’ uses nanotech and wireless technology to gather data from different appliances and converts it into a visual format on a section of electronic wallpaper, integrated into each home. Water and electricity usage and the efficiency of particular appliances affect how the plant will look. Brown and drooping leaves indicate low efficiency, and people can find out what is causing this using touch screen technology in areas of the digital plant.

The judging panel also highly commended the ‘Keiri Mat’ concept designed by Janet Kelly, from the Glasgow School of Art. It provides an innovative personal bathing space in a future world where communal baths are very common, giving users the opportunity to relax and meditate in preparation for the day ahead. The mat can be closed and stored in a dock where it charges up. Opening the mat heats it up and the user can sit or stand on the warm space to wash their body. The act of washing is done with a cloth, a ceramic scoop and two litres of warm water, collected from the grey water tap in a covered ceramic basin.. Excess water is collected in the base of the mat from where it can be poured into the recycling drain for purification and reuse. The mat is designed to be made from treated bamboo or from locally renewable timber available to purchase online.

Announcing the winners, the RSA’s Head of Design Emily Campbell said: “The RSA is proud to give these awards to Harrison and Morris as part of our long history of encouraging young designers to take on big issues. These are breakthrough designs that combine practicality with creative leaps, and make you look forward to the future in spite of – or even because of – its frugality.”

Jonathon Porritt, founder director of Forum for the Future, who was one of the judges, said: "Design and innovation have a vital role to play in creating a low-carbon future. We need designers who can imagine how our world will change and create sustainable products and services which bring environmental and social benefits, so it was great to see the bold ideas the students produced in response to our challenge."

At the Forum we’re delighted with the innovative responses we received and encouraged to see future scenarios working so well as a tool for designers.

Further information: Fiona Bennie