‘What does energy look like?’ drawn by Zhengni Li, participant in Drawing Energy (Flora Bowden & Dan Lockton) How can we invert ‘design for behaviour change’ and apply it from below, enabling people to understand, act within, and change the behaviour of the systems of […]
Guest post at Ethnography Matters
Over at the excellent Ethnography Matters we have an invited guest post about SusLab, explaining the RCA’s work on the project so far through from an ethnographic perspective. From the conclusion: …we hope to demonstrate, in the context of the wider political, academic and commercial debate over energy and behaviour change, what it means to […]
Designing with people in sustainability and behaviour change research: DRS 2014 Workshop, 15 June 2014
On 15 June, at the 2014 Design Research Society conference in Umeå, Sweden, we will be running a workshop on Designing with people in sustainability and behaviour change research along with SusLab project colleagues from Chalmers University of Technology and the Wuppertal Institute. This full-day workshop should be of interest to designers and researchers working at intersections […]
Work in progress: Ambient audible energy data
The three instruments you hear here represent the electricity use of three items of office infrastructure – the kettle, a laser printer, and a gang socket for a row of desks – in the Helen Hamlyn Centre office over 12 hours from midnight on a […]
Introducing Powerchord (Blackbird edition)
Powerchord 1, housed in a Poundland lunchbox. In the video, you see a laptop (~40W) being plugged in, with, from 10 seconds, the Powerchord kicking in with relatively gentle blackbird song. (The initial very quiet birdsong at 4-8 seconds is actual blackbirds singing in the […]
Tools for ideation and problem solving: Part 1
Back in the darkest days of my PhD, I started blogging extracts from the thesis as it was being written, particularly the literature review. It helped keep me motivated when I was at a very low point, and seemed to be of interest to […]
Introducing The Story Machine: Part 1
Friction in integrating digital storytelling into community activities For some community groups, the use of technology and digital media is built into the work they do—for example, the Wards Corner Community Coalition‘s very successful use of Stickyworld and social media to tell their story, integrated into the organisation of a whole range of community events. […]
Introducing The Story Machine: Part 2
Co-creation of the Story Machine In Part 1, we discussed some of the challenges and ‘process friction’ in integrating digital storytelling into community activities, and introduced our initial work with The Mill, a community centre in Walthamstow, east London, which provides space and resources for local creative citizens to organise groups, events and activities. The […]
Drawing Energy and Powerchord at the London Design Festival 2014
The latest Powerchord prototype in use.. The London Design Festival is a huge event taking place across London from today (13th) for the next couple of weeks, and we’re proud to say that two of our SusLab mini-projects, Drawing Energy and Powerchord, are featured, as part of two exhibitions. V&A Digital Design Weekend: 20 […]
As we may understand: A constructionist approach to ‘behaviour change’ and the Internet of Things
In a world of increasingly complex systems, we could enable social and environmental behaviour change by using IoT-type technologies for practical co-creation and constructionist public engagement. [This article is cross-posted to Medium, where there are some very useful notes attached by readers] We’re heading into […]
Creative Citizens’ Variety Pack: Inspiring digital ideas from community projects
Launched at the Creative Citizens conference in September 2014, the Creative Citizens’ Variety Pack is a collection of practical case studies: 12 diverse, inspirational community projects, all making use of digital tools in creative ways for social benefit, with suggestions and advice from the people involved. Along with projects from the three strands of the […]