community

DESIS NY at Core 77

Submitted by andrea.mendoza on Fri, 12/23/2011 - 3:41pm

Tags

NY, community, Amplify
Design Magazine and resource Core 77, has reported what they call "the beginnings of a (critical) typology of 'social design' ".

ActivMob

Submitted by joonsbaek on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 12:19am

Countries

United Kingdom

Tags

physical exercise, health, community

Themes

cultural activities, neighborhoods, health-care
Link: 
Activmob
Stakeholders / Promoters: 
Kent County Council, The Design Council
Background/ Context: 
The project started with a pilot involving Kent County Council, the Design Council and social housing residents in Maidstone. Through consultation and workshops, residents reported barriers that stopped them getting active in traditional settings. They said that new services should be integrated into their everyday lives. Activmob is the response. The initiative is designed to support people with shared interests. It helps link people up and gets them to help each other in being active.
Case Description: 

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Activmob is a scheme for everyone, which is being established by Kent County Council and The Design Council and contributes to KCC’s targets to engaging the public in more physical activity. The scheme helps people to exercise within their everyday lives. Anyone can get together a group of friends, family or colleagues and start and ‘activmob’ providing the activity improves wellbeing. You may want to start a running mob, a walking mob, a get-off-the-bus-two-stops-early-mob, a lunch time yoga club or a pram pushing mob; activmobs don’t have to do things that would traditionally be called ’sport’.

Benefits (Social, and environmental benefits): 

• Social benefits: As it was the need of residents in Kent, all the activities of mobs were designed to promote socialization of the residents. For example, by walking together for an hour, people not only get fitter but also get closer.

• Economical benefits: It is free to register and join a mob although some mobs require small fee to organize activities. Most of activities of the mobs are very economic - e.g. running, walking, jogging, playing soccer and singing. Another economical benefit is a side effect. It doesn’t seem to be just the mobbers who are benefiting from this new activity – the organisation is too through increased productivity.