okay thank you for being here and let's

get the business and oops

that's the first slide okay what design

can do I want to take you to a journey

to what that designing out crime thing

means and the kind of projects that we

do there but first I actually want to

step back a little bit so my second

degree is in philosophy so I have to

step back from the world all the time

and look at okay what design can do but

why would people actually be interested

in what design can do and what is

actually crucial in the broad fields of

design that we have to be transported to

other fields and be very useful there

and then when you look at the world and

you click the button you see that lots

of governments in institutions

organizations companies struggle with

new kinds of problems problems that are

much more open much more complex dynamic

and networked than they used to be and

they're open which means that they've

got lots of elements they're complex

which means that these elements are all

connected and there's connections

between the connections so you can't

isolate a little part of a problem you

have to take it as a whole it's dynamic

you can't actually shut yourself up in a

room and say okay if the world could

just stop now I can think about it and

then I can think of an intervention and

I'll be ready with the answer in three

years it doesn't work like that and

they're very networked which also means

that not only are the problems in

society connected to each other because

we are so very connected to each other

now but also possibly the solutions will

also be connected so you can't solve

these things in isolation and a lot of

the things that you see in the press a

lot of things that you see happening in

the world has to do with these new kinds

of problems and people find that very

hard and people have been looking at

design as a possible answer because

designers have been dealing with open

complex dynamic and networked situations

all the time so they build up a lot of

professional knowledge that's

potentially useful on a much larger

scale companies governments have

realized that and I think a lot of us

have done projects that actually address

these kind of things in the last year's

and then about eight years ago a friend

of mine Bruce Nussbaum wrote this paper

in Business Week calling that design

thinking and launching that into the

business community and it's become an

immensely important subject for them

which I mean I've been doing research

into how designers think for about 15

years now so I thought that's really

good news

and it's also recognition for us as a

sector about the things that we can

bring to a broader arena that we usually

have but I've done my tour of the

business schools and found out that what

they think is Design Thinking has to do

with you sit in a room with lots of

people you call that multidisciplinary

and you use lots of post-its and you've

got lots of ideas somehow and so let's

say the designer is the basically

randomly generating creative idiot and

it doesn't go much deeper than that

and let's just think okay we've got this

great opportunity now that sort of the

word is out the design can do something

but what is it actually the design can

do and it's much more than the kind of

things that are being picked up so

widely now and it's I think that's where

we as a design sector have to say okay

hold on this is what we actually think

we can bring and those are the kind of

discussions that I'd like to spark here

on this day so it's still a big question

mark what design can do and it's still a

big question mark okay what do we

actually see is the value that we can

bring beyond the design sector and I'd

say let's learn from the experts if you

see what's being picked up around the

world under this flag of design thinking

lots of the stuff is the kind of things

that we sort of tell our first-year

students and you think that's not the

best that we have actually and if you

want to learn from a sector if you

really want to sort of see what the

sector is thinking a much deepest level

you have to talk to the experts so I've

been studying expert design behavior for

a very long time which is absolute fun

because it makes you fly around the

world talk to people that are really

good at their job and asking them how

they do these kind of things and trying

to find patterns really trying to okay

what are they actually doing

and one of the things that you find

which is surprising to others but

probably not this audience is that they

concentrate on the problem quite a bit

and generating solutions is not hard

it's not seen as something that is very

special

but finding new approaches to problems

is absolutely crucial that's what they

spend a lot of time on that's what

they've developed their own ways of

thinking for so while design is

superficially always associated with

Oda's einar's create great solutions and

they can draw and it's all very nice

maybe there's a lot of design knowledge

on a high level on a strategic level

that has to do with how you approach

problems and this is a quote from

Einstein it says that a problem can

never be solved in the context to which

it arose which is it's a very clever

thing to say and it's also a very stupid

thing to say because if you could

actually solve something in the context

in which it arose you would probably

never call it a problem you just do it

basically but it is true that a lot of

the problems that we have in society and

love the problems that organizations are

up against we are sort of stuck we don't

know how to progress from that and you

need to create new frames you need to

create new approaches to these so very

stark problems and I've been looking at

these patterns of behind behavior of

these expert designers trying to learn

from them as much as I can and doing

experimental projects here in Holland

and sort of around Europe mostly and

thinking okay I can sort of see a

general pattern that's it sort of looks

like this

and I won't go into any detail but okay

first you have to have an archaeology of

the problem you have to have an

understanding where does the problem

come from actually then you need to get

a sense of okay what is the central

paradox what makes this really hard to

solve and actually to my surprise when I

study these designers they spend quite a

bit of time really sort of getting to

the crux of okay this is the paradox

this is what makes it hard and then they

just let that go

Nigar okay so that's not a way towards a

solution

and then what they start to do they

start to zoom out go to broader Reno

stakeholders they actually go to the

whole world more or less they do an

analysis which in philosophy you would

call a phenomenological analysis and

come up with teams so from this whole

wider problem arena that they've created

they start to find patterns in that and

say okay these different parties more or

less all one the same thing they express

themselves differently but there's a

theme behind there that I can use and

from these themes they start creating

frames as new approaches to problems and

they start trying them out okay if I

have this frame would that be fruitful

and would that really work towards more

solutions or is it a kind of a dead end

and okay let's not go there so they

start creating these futures thinking

ahead and thinking back and trying out

different directions in a very very

deliberate and exploratory way so

there's no brainstorming in these kind

of things there is actually it's a very

deliberate exploratory process I've

always been sort of impressed by sort of

these top designers they're all

analytically very strong people they're

also creative yep they're not creative

idiots that can't think they're actually

creative idiots that can think because

you need that to actually sort of have

this motion in the process of proposing

things and looking at them critically

they then look at what kind of

transformation is needed in all the

organizations that are possibly engaged

with these solutions is this possible or

is this too big a leap or is there one

organization in there that's critical

and then they look at how can i connect

this actually what I've learned from

this particular project to the broader

arena to to them to other things in the

world and there's much more to it than

this but this is kind of a general

pattern that I've been finding and if

you want to experience part of that

pattern we're doing a breakout session

at 11:30 that gets you through a couple

of these stages in the core of the

process and in sort of think okay I know

this better I can sort of understand why

people do that it also resonates with my

own design practice I sort of the good

projects actually sort of work more

less in this way but then I don't want

to come up with just say a theoretical

idea I need to experiment I really want

to sort of try this out and I spent

quite a bit of time trying to set up

experiments that are big enough and I

can say okay I really trust this now

that this is a pattern that is useful

and it is actually worth telling other

people about and it doesn't just work

for me it also works for other people

and looking for an arena to experiment

in I sort of ended up in Australia and I

ended up doing things about safety in

public spaces and that's called

designing out crime director of a centre

there which is sponsored by the Ministry

of Justice and the police and other

people and I think it's an interesting

arena for us as designers and it was an

interesting arena for me because crime

is actually a symptom of things that are

wrong in society and it's also very much

connected to fear and it's sort of

interesting because if you sort of look

at a symptom and you get the freedom to

all go back all the way to the causes

you start doing really cool projects in

neighborhoods to help people and the

kind of projects that you would have a

very hard time getting money for but

there's always money for fear because we

have troubles in society and I'm working

with uncle yeh from the favela Institute

and one of the things that he says in

one of his books is okay more than 50%

of the news that we get in whatever

medium is actually connected to safety

somehow it's a huge issue in society and

we don't seem to be able to deal with it

very well because confronted with

unsafety or coming from a feeling of

fear there's two things that you can do

you can actually hide you can sort of

shut yourself up in your home by

sandbags and do all kind of

countermeasures that sort of works or

you can be completely open and you can

make sure that everybody is your friend

and then you're socially safe completely

now the hiding is a lot of what we do

actually

and it's not very productive because you

get into problems of say loneliness

you're actually disconnecting yourself

from the world and spatially you're

actually abandoning public spaces

completely because well we've got gated

communities and we don't want to use

public space at all except for a drive

through it very fast so that's not a

very realistic option openness is also

not very realistic because we live in

very complex societies very complex

cities and you can't be everybody's

friend it's just plain impossible so

there is a real problem there and what

you see is that the discussions that we

have in society actually oscillate

between these two extremes and there

seems to be very little in the middle

and the left side leads to

countermeasures so putting up signs that

people should sort of basically warning

signs and putting up fences and the

right side leads to an incredible amount

of realm ends projects to connect people

but you can never be connected enough in

a sense what I've been looking at wait

wait a minute

in these kind of paradoxes design may be

a third way of actually approaching them

and let's investigate that we did the

project in this area in Sydney it's

called Kings Cross and Kings Cross is

the area where young people like to go

out and it means that on a Friday night

or a Saturday night there's about 30,000

youngsters there basically in one street

and a little side street and as clubs

there bars etc every city has an area

like this and there's a bit of drugs

they're sort of late at night there's a

lot of drunkenness there always is a bit

of violence it's not a good sight and

the City of City has been trying to sort

of do all kinds of things to help this

this area so they've sort of done all

the useful things of okay they've

cleaned it up they sort of put different

kinds of park benches there they're all

the things that acidic and they've

literally sort of hung flowerpots in the

and in the lanterns and so they've done

all the usual things

and the police they've actually built a

police station in the middle of the area

which spoils the atmosphere quite a bit

and there's a lot of police around it

but still it all sort of everything that

happens remains at that same level and

then they called us in saying well we

actually can't move on from where we are

now we can't hire even more police we

can't sort of force clubs to hire even

more security personnel so what do we do

and so we just went in there with

designers and students and everybody and

hang out and interviewed people and talk

to people and we came up with this okay

so the old frame is this is a criminal

problem and what we would a useful new

frame be well one of the things that we

try it out and you turned out to be

useful was saying okay 30,000 youngsters

trying to have a good time

I mean they're not criminals the

youngsters trying to have a good time

and just they're not very successful at

it

30,000 John's just trying to have a good

time that's comparable to a music

festival

what would you organise if you organized

the music festival well for instance you

would make sure that people could get

there and that people could get away and

now the peak of young people coming into

this area is one o'clock at night and

the last train leaves at 1:20 ah

so people are basically stuck there you

can take a taxi but taxis are expensive

and the taxi queue can be a couple of

hours long and if you're too drunk the

taxi doesn't take you anyway ok there's

a problem they're also quite physically

if you would organize music festival

you'd make sure that you would have more

than three public toilets one of which

is at the police station so people don't

tend to go there you'd make sure that

people know where to go you'd make sure

that you've got this big sort of stages

with the big attractions but you also

have a general atmosphere that is sort

of where continuous little things are

happening so you look at the whole

infrastructure for people to have a good

time and think okay what can we actually

bring to Kings Cross as an area to

change these kind of things and so from

that one frame of basically a metaphor

of music

first of all about 30 different

directions opened up and solutions just

presented themselves generating

solutions is not the problem then it's

just getting to that frame so yes we've

got Kings Cross guides now who are

actually of the same age as the as the

people that are partying they're very

approachable non drinking mostly and

because there's lots of tourists and

people actually don't know where to go

so people mull around in the street

getting each other's way and that

creates friction

another thing is temporary signage on

the street saying okay this is actually

the way to the there is a train station

that remains open all night and it's

about a 20 minute walk 30 minutes crawl

I think but it's downhill so temporary

sign is there okay helping people just

to sort of navigate that area and we've

opening up language with all kinds of

sort of a little bit of more of a loungy

thing using projections to really change

the atmosphere in the lane ways at night

sets your dog all crammed into the Duan

Street basically getting frustrated and

basically really getting bored because

you can't get out so this is how we

project on a bench and we do all these

kind of things and it's just live ins up

the area and it makes it much more safer

pleasant place to be so we're using

something that used to be defined as a

crime problem to open it up and actually

to improve public spaces because that's

what we should be about that's what we

should be doing and as designers we work

by seduction we sort of we can't change

people's behavior but we can actually

sort of help people change their own

behavior by providing them with things

that they really want this is a

different project very briefly one of

the first clients that came up to me was

actually the railways rail Corp in New

South Wales and they said well we've got

this problem that the problem is we

caused it ourselves because after 9/11

we took away all the little bins from

the station because people could put

bomb bombs in there and but there's more

and more little shops around that sell

things in greasy papers and it gets

really messy

so we need to do something we need to

get these bins back and they've done

their homework that sort of looked at

all the bins in the world more or less

they come up with folders and folders of

bins and say can you help us choose and

then you say well and by the way it

should be really safe you go yeah that's

a way to really sort of block a

situation completely saying try to find

a bin where you can't put a ball meaning

especially in Australia where there's

lots of mines mining everybody has

dynamite in their back garden more or

less that's not so easy so I think well

that's not the way to approach this

problem but what is actually the problem

well the problem is the false alarms

actually because you close down the

whole railway system for three hours to

make sure that there's actually nothing

wrong and that's a way for terrorism

acts me to have a real influence on our

lives not through the things that go off

but through all the scary things that we

do to sort of avoid that kind of risk

so we said ok let's redefine this

problem form let's try to sort of create

a thing where you can't put the bomb in

because you always can put a cannon you

can put bomb in but let's find a way of

creating a bin that doesn't that sort of

can be cleared very quickly so this was

the original design it's sort of a

health can half-transparent thing and

you can't look in normally but there's a

little remote control you can put on a

light so you can look through the

rubbish if you think that there's

something dodgy in there and if you

think there's something really dodgy you

can slide in an x-ray place in the back

of this bin and they already have a

little robot that can do that kind of

stuff and you go from say about three

hours to clear station to be sure that

it's safe to about ten minutes and so

these things are installed now and

they're working and reselling them all

around the world and working for so in

the last three and a half years we've

done about 74 projects all working with

this Frame Creation method all sort of

trying to find new solutions through

these old problems and working for

basically the major infrastructure

partners around the country we've done a

wonderful project for the Sydney Opera

House but I can't show it yet because

we're still presenting it to them

and it's been a fascinating journey and

all these projects work most of these

projects have been implemented starting

out sort of so we've got websites and

stuff where you can see many more

projects I mean I could tell 74 stories

literally but I'm not allowed to we're

also doing projects in Holland now we're

working with the city of anchor1 because

I know oven has a marathon and which is

great it's a great thing to have but it

turns out to be quite problematic

because the marathon it gets to be a bit

of a traffic nightmare

lots of streets are closed off and the

population doesn't like it that much for

that reason so the the sort of the good

people of anchor will tend to flee the

city on that day which is not exactly

the festive atmosphere that you want to

have so they say well we have this

traffic problem and we've been trying to

solve it mean we sort of we have we sort

of very smart and sort of how to sort of

marathon route how it goes we do

publicity campaigns with you awareness

campaigns we've got a website and we

sort of we rationalize the way we close

off streets a little bit and this is how

far we can get and now we're actually

make mega stuck because people are still

very unhappy and what can you do and we

started looking at the marathon and

saying okay the problem is actually that

this marathon happens to be in Eindhoven

which is a comparatively small city to

have a marathon in but it's not it

doesn't connect into the city at all it

could sort of be anywhere and that's a

pity because you do actually attract a

lot of possibly interesting people to

ank home these are sort of based on the

on the the data that we got from the

marathon where do people come from

that's running the marathon

I think hey wait a minute that's a nice

spread over the whole of Holland and

Belgium and if they'd done some

publicity in German probably from

Germany that's interesting and who are

these people well actually they tend to

be very highly educated a little bit on

the technical side of the spectrum

I think well hey I know

when is an industrial time that always

needs to attract people to work there

that's an interesting possibility and

with the things that we have now you can

go on Google Street View and actually

see where these people live you can see

what kind of houses they have and you

can see well these areas in Eindhoven

would possibly be interesting for these

people to know because they don't just

come alone they come with their families

for a whole day hmm it gets to be a

different kind of value proposition but

what we've actually done is we've

extended the problem immensely going

through the process this is the widest

we can make it and from that you can

sort of start to filter out okay these

values make sense and how can we connect

them together so what do we have in the

city actually what would a marathon off

Eindhoven look like what is specific for

Eindhoven that you could express to

people that run in a marathon and what

kind of associations companies possible

stakeholders do we have and again it's

much wider problem then solve this

little traffic thing for us please and

then you end up with saying okay we can

actually sort of this is more or less

how the marathon goes now and it goes

through different areas that could be

themed in different ways you'd have

stakeholders that are interested in

attracting people and what you don't

have is all of the marathon audience

sort of stuck in the middle in the

little red bit which is where they now

are clogging up traffic and everything

but you spread them out spread them

around the whole route of the marathon

which means that that route becomes much

more transparent for other traffic

so yes we are solving a traffic problem

but we're also looking at in a much

broader way and making it a more

interesting thing to have in your city

this is just one of the frames this is

just one of the possibilities there's

many more of them but it just goes to

show sort of ok what do we do very well

as designers and we do make very many

things very well it is but for me the

core of what Design Thinking should be

or the core of what design can actually

do for other people in the world people

and other organizations all has to do

with creating these new

and approaches to problems and I think

that's what we're really good at and I

think we should articulate that better

articulate that more I study designers

and came up with this one sort of

process of this is how it could be

there's probably other ones too and

let's just get together and discuss and

see how we can if we say that we were

important if we say that we important

for other sort of organizations in the

world how do we articulate that

importance and make a strong case about

that which is what I wanted to say thank

you so should we start fighting yeah

maybe the fight is a little bit about

the difference between learning by doing

in learning by research can you tell us

a little bit how you approach that the

research allows me sort of learning by

doing is sort of what I do as a designer

you experiment to try out different

things learning barriers allows you to

use other people's heads to get to a

different kind of knowledge that you

yourself probably wouldn't get to so

very quickly and but still I'm really

committed to trying things out I'm not

happy with just writing a theoretical

book about this is how the world could

work without taking the responsibility

to try it out so it's really happy in

Australia to get the opportunity to

actually do all of these projects and

now it's sort of okay I'm confident

enough that this actually works if you

do the nine step process it's about a

two hour workshop in its shortest form

and you can do with with relative ly

sort of novices designers or non

designers and things come out this

actually does work so there is a core

that is valuable in here somehow and it

just needs to articulate it now I

actually want to move away a little bit

from the area of safety in public spaces

because I think it can be sort of used

for care can be fermented used for many

different areas but this has been the

platform on which I could do these

experiments and it's been very useful

there is also something you bring up

bringing non-designers to the table and

as petitioners in the doing process

right there is tension with that

do you deal with the attention you have

to get people on the table that actually

feel the problem in a sense I mean if

they're not committed it doesn't work

but if you have a fairly solid process

of okay let's think about this now let's

think about that now let's connect these

two things hey there's creativity

happening in this connection you can set

it up for people to be creative without

determining exactly what they're going

to be thinking and designers sort of

just do that naturally this is how

designers work but if you just analyze

it a little bit and sort of push it

apart a little bit you can actually see

and you can create that kind of tension

for people that are not used to think as

designers so using the tension also

between design is a non designer in the

process yeah definitely I know that

Lucas wanted to ask you about your PhD

yeah I know Kay said that you studied a

very long time and you have a PhD in

design there's not that not many people

who do that what and then you emigrated

to Australia and I'm combining these two

facts in in one question how is the

design culture in Australia and how did

a PhD changed you or look at design the

PhD allowed me to sort of build deeper

into these kind of issues of how do

designers think how does this actually

work because as a practicing designer

you keep thinking about how you're

thinking - and it just gave me the

opportunity and a little bit of money to

actually sort of delve into that moving

to Australia is kind of an interesting

one there was the two big reasons one

big reason was that okay I've actually

developed these ideas in Holland through

the experiments that we've done here

with young designers and others and

other people and this is about change

this is about creating newness in the

world and that's a very cultural thing

and I do want to write a book that is

not doesn't only this does not only work

in Holland so I need to try it out in a

different kind of context and it's

Australia as boring as I think it's

interesting in a sort of Australia's

basically in Asia I've got sort of in

the Faculty where I work now at the

University of got more than 50%

Southeast Asian students

it's a very dynamic place and the

interesting thing is I tried to set up

these kind of experiments on this scale

that I needed in Holland and I couldn't

Holland it has a very strong critical

culture which leads to a very high

quality of things that happen but

sometimes if you keep getting criticized

from an old perspective it's very hard

to actually do the experiments to start

something new and I basically sort of

worked myself into a bit of a corner in

Holland okay I can't get this done I

can't do the experiments and I really

need them so what you do now is you go

on the web and you stick up your hand

and you say I want to do these

experiments who's interested and it was

a couple of universities from Australia

that immediately jumped and said yeah we

can do that here and that's actually

worked it's much more of an open

experimental culture and that's an

interesting

I mean you've moved away from Holland

too and you become very Dutch when you

do that because you actually have to

realise what you can bring to a

different culture and what the

connections are and what the value is

that you create through being in that

different environment and so for me

Australia's worked for this very

experimental phase but I still come back

to Holland quite a bit to be criticised

because if I only have to work on

self-criticism it's sort of Peters out

after a while so yeah great so that's a

cue for you to criticise him when you

see him out of this stage so thank you

very much a thank you thank you

[Applause]