In the recent years, with the impact of climate change, we are facing a growing challenge worldwide, with pollutions, energy shortage, extreme weathers and disasters, all of which result in loss of human life and widespread environmental and economic damage. The global envi-ronmental crisis has revealed how fragile our current ecosystems are, and now we are at a criti-cal point in time to bring new perspectives and practices to shape a more restorative and regen-erative future for our planet.
Circular economy principles applied at the design stage help ensure that the environmental im-pact of our design decisions is considered when we design new products, services, and systems. Global dialogue approaches to enabling a connected collaborative ecosystem of practice is cru-cial to support designers to face the world’s shared development challenges. Young people and students of design are vital on this journey. Since last year, in partnership with IM Motors, the British Council have been working in collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK and Young Green Tech in China on the Making Matters China Design Challenge, seek-ing to unlock the creative talent of future generations of designers through a student focused initiative.
The Fall in Love with the Future through Circular Design showcase in both Shanghai and Manchester is a celebration of the Challenge winning projects. In this exhibition, we feature the students’ winning projects from the multi-disciplines of industrial design and manufacturing, lifestyle, consumption, service, and community. The winning student proposals exemplify the spectrum of circular design principles and demonstrate how young creatives can challenge themselves in their individual contexts to answer important questions in the design process.
The exhibition in Shanghai also shows a variety of examples by practitioners from the UK and China, which explore and apply new design approaches that are supporting regenerative design and the circular economy. While the exhibition in Manchester asks interactive audience ques-tions to support the university audience to explore design thinking, regenerative design and the circular economy.
We are on this exciting journey together, learning from each other and gaining inspiration from pioneers in other organisations and geographies. By engaging in an exchange of dialogue around circular design, we can grasp the catalyst of creativity, collaboration, and regenerative thinking, to bring about real change that will shape the lives of future generations.
Manchester Exhibition
Date: 5 Dec – 24 Feb
Venue：The Foyer Gallery, Arts and Humanities Building, Cavendish St. Manchester M156BG