The Goethe Institut hired Annette Fauvel and I to design a landmark circular design program to span Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. With the location spanning an area roughly half the width of Europe, we thought, how might we make a mostly online program both experiential and valuable?
A four month, hybrid circular design course spanning 3 countries and 30 participants. A total of 16 projects were exhibited in Amman and Beirut. The program involved 24 pioneering speakers and more than 100 contact hours spread across talks, lectures, workshops and field trips.
May 7th to June 6th
In the first module of the curriculum, participants were encouraged to “unlearn” what they know and delve deep into different aspects and topics of material innovation.
Weekly challenges were given to exposure participants to hands on material innovation principles.
June 8th to July 14th
In the second module, participants applied all they learnt from Module 1 'Unlearn' to their own practice as designers and material innovators to find a suitable challenge to develop in Module 3.
This module covered aspects of problem discovery and entrepreneurship.
July 16th to August 27th
In the final module, participants developed their chosen project briefs while guided by mentors.
In this phase, they had to put together a solid business plan including calculating finances, prepare their exhibition plan and finalise the project to be ready for display.
