Table of Contents

Resilience Thinking: DIY

A design brief to practice resilient thinking in design

‘By doing this, I learnt more in three days than in three years.’ –Helene Combal Weiss, MA Textile Futures, Central Saint Martins College at the Resilients workshop led by Bartaku and Carole Collet in collaboration with MA TF.

Before you start:

EXERCISE 1: Decode

  1. Define “resilience” in ten keywords.
  2. Create a hierarchy of these keywords.
  3. Find five sentences (in printed media, on the internet…) where the word is used in different contexts.
  4. Review points 1 to 3. Based on your findings create your own definition and context for resilience. Write it down.

Take a break, think of your personal resilience. If you're having a coffee break, try to serve fair trade and organic produce (even if not certified as such).

EXERCISE 2: Define

Fill in the following tables to develop your understanding of resilience in practice, by finding examples related to each quadrant. This will help you to turn the abstract concept of resilience into concrete and usable examples.

1 Define what cultural resilience could be:

resilient
(example of a culture that is personal and resilient) (example of a culture that is societal and resilient)
personal societal
(example of a culture that is personal and non resilient) (example of a culture that is societal and non resilient)
non-resilient

2 Define what a resilient technology could be:

resilient
(example of a technology that is personal and resilient) (example of a technology that is societal and resilient)
personal societal
(example of a technology that is personal and non resilient) (example of a technology that is societal and non resilient)
non-resilient

3/ Define what resilience could mean in terms of personal health:

table

4 Define what resilient energy distribution could entail

table

5 Define what a resilient material could be:

table

6 Define ………………………

NOTE: You can make your own tables for as many examples as you wish to explore.

table

Take a break, think of your personal resilience. If you're having a coffee break, try to serve fair trade and/or organic produce (even if not certified as such).

EXERCISE 4: Imagine

1. Choose one of the following projects and develop speculative design scenarios inspired by the information you gathered above. Research, design and contextualise your chosen theme:

2. Produce a short design manifesto that embodies your principles of resilience and uses your design scenario and an example of the manifesto in action.

Take a break.

EXERCISE 5: Critique

  1. Reflect on what you have learnt and how this can inform your future creative briefs and design projects.
  2. Share and document what you have learnt.

Enjoy