What is Design Zoo?
Design Zoo was curated by Studieby Kolding and Kolding Kommune, hosted in the lovely garden at the Mit bibliotek i Kolding ( the main library in the city). Armed with some budget and a lot of imagination four teams were competing to make the best design. The team that receives the most votes wins a gift card for Tobber’s Coffee and Madbar – delicious places to eat in Kolding. The participants had eight days to create their designs that can be a game, a piece of furniture, an installation, etc.
What is the purpose?
The theme of the event was to create new unions among the students, to establish new relationships.
What materials can they use?
The four teams were able primarily to use recycled materials which they can find at Kolding Municipality’s recycling places for secondhand materials called RE: DIRECT
What techniques can they use?
The design should follow the Design to Disassembly principles – to create the products in a way the different material types, different parts can be separated again when the product is no longer needed ( close to the end of its lifecycle). That way the different parts can be reused and turned into new products and the life of the original product will be prolonged. This method makes the designers taking into consideration what materials they are going to use for their creation at an early phase of the design process. The principle follows the Circular Economy focusing on the design and production of the products by using recyclable and durable components.
What is RE: DIRECT?
RE: DIRECT is a trial program at Renovation department in the Municipality of Kolding which aims to ensure more direct recycling. With a RE: DIRECT resource pass, institutions and smaller companies can access waste materials such as books, porcelain, plastic, metal and wood.
The four teams
Plastic Station
Anastasia Giannousi, a newly graduate, ITPD student at SDU, used recycled polypropylene plastic, melted it into granules and moulded different colourful lamps.
Conversation Starter Station
A conversation starter chair which flips backwards, and needs to be balanced by the weight of the two people sitting. It is designed by Djgreen Screen, a student in Design for Play at the Design School in Kolding.
Interactive Light Installation
Interactive installation with modules – you pass by a sensor and activate a flash of lights. Great for urban spaces. Made by Design Communication students from the Design School in Kolding. I hope to see these guys at the coming Light Festival in the city,
Boardgame
A 3D Map of Kolding created by industrial designers at Kolding Design School. Their project is to map the city and to display important, recognisable buildings, locations with recycled materials. The team designed also a catchy lollipop wall where you can vote for your favourite place to eat/dring in Kolding by getting a free candy. Then we can see which restaurant or coffee the people prefer to visit more often (simple universal rating system with reused materials). All the people who visited the event loved it!
Voting time
It was also inspiring to see how the voting system was designed. There were four baskets with the names of the teams and you can pick a toy from a pile (toys from a secondhand place) and vote for your favourite projects.
And the winner is…
The time spent was definitely worthy! The atmosphere was so good – a jazz band performing on a stage and free tasty coffee! Couldn’t ask for more 🙂 I had also the chance to meet my friend Mie and had a lovely quality time during the event. Be prepared for our new collaboration – we are among the five projects selected to create installations during the Kontur-studiebyfestival. Want to know more?
Written by SVETLANA PETROVA