Student designers in Singapore

Singapore has a group, Participate in Design, that encourages all kinds of people to become creative problem-solvers. This includes schoolchildren, whom they didn’t make just ‘recipients’ of new efforts to change behavior and improve situations. They empowered them to be designers, to come up with new solutions for a civic challenge.

From their kids-as-designers project, The Urban Explorer:

An accident involving an 11-year-old cyclist and a lorry sparked off a series of conversations with residents, government agencies and designers on how to make our streets safer and more liveable. We decided to developed a toolkit for children to learn about mobility and how neighbourhoods are planned. The challenge was to break down seemingly boring and complex matters into something fun and accessible.

In developing this toolkit, interviews were held with transport and urban planning experts, and workshops conducted with parents and children. The final board game offers children an easy entry point to learn about designing a neighbourhood, and also advocates the importance of building a liveable and walkable city.

The children were taught how to brainstorm, synthesize information, and solve problems in collaborative ways. A great model for other ‘wicked problems’ in society — bringing in children and empowering them with design skills to help create new solutions.