Kay Hofmeester The Netherlands Design Institute, Amsterdam kay@design-inst.nl

The Institute, which was founded in 1993, is a think-and-do tank whose mission is to increase the economic and social contribution of design. The Institute's projects bring together a variety of design specialists, users, and experts in many other disciplines. They come from universities, research institutes and companies around the world.

As an independent, non-profit foundation, the Institute receives core funding from the Dutch government and the city of Amsterdam. Further revenues come from companies investing in research; from other government ministries; and from the European Commission.

A full-time staff of twelve people, led by director John Thackara, works on a regular basis with about 20 independent associates. Each year the Design Institute organises about 60 research studies, workshops, seminars and conferences - plus a number of research projects in which new product or service ideas are tested in practice. 10,000 people visit the Institute's building; 500,000 people use its websites (http://www.design-inst.nl).

The Changing Role of Design

Design - like innovation - is one of those words which mean different things in different contexts; despite decades of discussion, nobody has yet come up with a commonly accepted definition. Although many people perceive design to be all about appearances, design is not just about the way things look. It is also about the way things are used; how they are communicated to the world; and the way they are organized and produced.

Many of the problems facing society are multi-dimensional: unemployment, an ageing population, the environment. But the institutions we expect to solve those problems - government, science, education, and he professions - are not multidimensional. Design therefore has an important new role to play in turning policy concepts into ideas or stories that can inspire people to act. The particular contribution of designers is to use their planning skills to turn a concept into a story, and their visualisation skills to make that story visible. The design scenario process is highly interactive, intense, and imaginative. The process also involves designers in collective work with other disciplines.

The core process of the Institute is the identification of new issues that confront design. Potential partners are located and, with them, the Institute identifies action points. Design scenarios are then created by multi-disciplinary groups which also conceptualise new products or services. Design scenarios sometimes lead to pilot projects. Whatever the outcome, the whole process is based on a publishing model in which ideas and results are disseminated through a variety of media and events.

The Institute's activities are organised according to a number of themes: Design and Industry, Age and Care, Environmental Sustainability, Cities and Regions, New Skills, and, importantly, Connectivity.

Continuous evaluation of developments in the new economy, and new interactions between Design and Industry, inform much of the Institute's work. The contribution of design to innovation is explored with dynamic small companies from different parts of Europe in a project called the European Design Industry Summit. Entrepreneurial flair and innovation are easier to describe than to teach; regular workshops investigate how successful companies use design to innovate. These are not abstract affairs - innovation is discussed among the managers of real companies. We also bring these managers into contact with young designers in our annual Young Designers and Industry event.

The design of services in relation to Age and Care is an important theme for the Institute and its partners. More than 50 percent of all European adults will soon be older than 50, and products and services are needed not just to meet their individual needs but, more importantly, to help older people look after each other. For older people technology is a means to better communications, which can be more important than high-tech physical aids to their welfare. Indeed better communications can reduce the call made on welfare services. Designing the infrastructure - and in particular, interfaces easily used by older people - is an important focus of the Institute's programme. (http://dan.interact.nl/)

Pervading all the Institute's work is the theme of Environmental Sustainability. A growing number of innovative companies have embraced the concept of 'green design' - not just in a defensive sense, against a downpour of green regulations, but pro-actively, as a competitive weapon in a highly eco-sensitive market. As a result, many designers are being asked to improve the eco-efficiency of products and services by a factor of four, ten or even 20 times. To help them in this, the Institute has made it a priority to develop a new Eco-design website (http://www.02.org): this supports information and knowledge exchange among designers engaged in the development of environmentally sustainable products and services.

The competition between an estimated 300 (in Europe) Cities and Regions is a new but intense phenomenon. Investment, jobs, and prosperity have become so mobile that old cities are competing against new ones, and new ones are competing against each other. These cities compete through continuous investment in hard and soft aspects of their urban infrastructures: showpiece 'antenna buildings'; transport and information systems; cultural buildings and infrastructures; small pieces of urban equipment. Each city wants to be different, smarter, first. The result is a rapid growth of innovation in urban design at all levels. The Institute keeps an eye on these broad trends, and undertakes pilot projects with a number of Dutch cities and provincial authorities.

As well as exploring new drivers of innovation and change, the Institute strives constantly to improve learning processes in which research, collective intelligence workshops, and communications, interact. The New Skills theme encompasses the constant evaluation of the Institute's own projects, and holds workshops on such themes as knowledge management. To share its knowledge internally and externally, and to publish results, the Institute uses face-to-face events, the Internet, the media, and its own publications. The Institute's website and databases are both a research programme and communication medium, and can also be used as a shared workspace for project teams who may be working from different places.

The consequences for design of the Internet, Connectivity, and new communication technologies, are a central focus of the Institute. When printing was invented in the 15th century, the church denounced it as 'the devil's new machine'. Designers today are confronted by a similar revolution. The reason is simple: by removing barriers between producers and consumers, these new technologies are changing the nature of business - and therefore, the future tasks of design.
Online design is rather like early film making before it found its own 'language'. We do not have a stable model yet of who should do what, and how. But things are starting to move. A new generation of small companies - spanning design, software, and production - is beginning to stretch the envelope of online and multimedia development. They design network architectures, integrate systems, set up databases, design templates and typographical styles, and train the client's personnel. And they do all this at breakneck speed!
The Institute participates in the adventure by organising workshops in which these pioneering multidisciplinary companies meet to exchange experiences. These encounters have proven to be so rich and stimulating that the Institute will shortly launch an interaction design publishing programme in which the latest ideas, projects, research, tools and business issues will be explained and discussed for an international audience. The Design Institute is also the Coordinator of two i3 projects: Presence and Maypole (http://www.presenceweb.org and http://www.maypole.org).

Doors of Perception

Each year, in the Institute's celebrated annual conference and flagship public event, Doors of Perception, these issues relating to the new technologies are explored. The conference attracts 800-1,000 people to Amsterdam from all over the world, and generates widespread coverage in mainstream newspapers and magazines.
Doors of Perception brings together scientists, artists, business people, designers, and policy makers. Each year speakers are confronted with a theme, and asked to react. Since 1993, four Doors have been opened upon four different themes: Doors 1 asked "what is this stuff? and what is it for?"; Doors 2 centred on the theme of 'home'; while Doors 3 explored the relationship between environmental sustainability and information technology. The event, in which two very different communities came together, became known as 'info-eco'; Doors 4 developed the 'info-eco' theme by focusing on 'speed'.
On 26 November 1998, the fifth Doors of Perception conference will open in Amsterdam's historic Beurs van Berlage building. The theme of the three-day event will be 'Play', spanning learning, play, and work in the context of the Internet and multimedia. What are the toys, media and places of future play - not just for children, but for us all? And, with all the talk about multimedia classrooms, how can we design play into tomorrow's learning?
For all those interested in agendas concerned with play, learning and work in the digital age - including perhaps especially those working in the projects newly-started this year under the European initiative Experimental School Environments (ESE) - this will be a unique opportunity to discuss and to influence agendas concerned with play, learning and work in the digital age. The details are online at http://www.doorsofperception.com

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