What it is: Slow Food Foundation support projects which involve producers and local communities growing biodiversity and traditional food. Some of the projects are: 

The Ark of Taste identifies and catalogues quality food products at risk of extinction. Today products on board number more than 5,000 from over 120 countries. 

The Slow Presidia: The Presidia sustain quality production at risk of extinction, protect unique regions and ecosystems, recover traditional processing methods, safeguard native breeds and local plant varieties

Where it is: around 100 years

Why is relevant: The Foundation’s projects are tools to promote a model of agriculture that is based on local biodiversity and respect for the land and the local culture, is in harmony with the environment and aims to provide food sovereignty and access to good, clean and fair food for all communities.

URL: https://www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/

ING_libretto_arca

I’m still working on the majority, but that is the current version.

poster_draft

Tricycle package

As discussed, here is my poster: plakat_Hyperfood. The back ist just a concept, I have to rearrange everything, but just for the fist hand …

WHAT: The Hyperfood is an approach to redesign the traditional distribution system for local and seasonal food by implementing it into existing infrastructure and using environmentally friendly technologies. Local farms are connected through an underground tube system that transports capsules with pneumatic power to pick up points that keep food cold with a minimum use of energy due to the fact that they are placed underground. To be easily accessible and so that several people can benefit from the system pick up points are placed in the most condensed and easy reachable parts of the city.

WHY: Todays food distribution system does not work on his highest efficiency level due to many touchpoints between producer and consumer as packaging, logistics, transportation and similar. Additionally, the volume of traffic increases especially in densely populated parts of the cities and traffic jams occur due to freight transportation. Consequently, emissions are increasing. As cities have to deal with less infrastructure in the future and the significance of technologies and digitalization is still rising, a new way of transportation is necessary.

HOW: My future approach of transportation tries to tackle these obstacles by implementing an underground transportation system into CGN’s existing infrastructure as unused tunnels from the roman empire or KVB and used metro tunnels. Since the capsules in which the food is transported have a capacity of 6kg and thus a diameter of about 30cm, the transport system is place-saving and can be placed in tunnels, even in those that are still in use. The capsules are transported from the farms to the pick-up points with the use of air pressure that pushes the capsules trough the underground tube system. Hubs between the tubes and the microchip, which is implemented in each capsule and that stores the target location of the capsule enable the capsule to reach the desired destination.  The whole food ordering process is managed through a digital platform where farmers can insert their daily offers and consumers can place their appropriate orders, track their order, see recipes corresponding to the farmers offers, book a farm visit, rate farms and the food and pay digital.

What it is: Foodsharing is an internet platform that gives private individuals, traders and producers the opportunity to offer or collect surplus food free of charge. This is done in FairTeilern which has set up rooms in publicly accessible places in various parts of the city, such as here in the Bürgerzentrum Ehrenfeld e.V. The aim is to share surplus food with others instead of throwing it away and making it available free of charge to anyone interested.

The core idea is people sharing food. There should be no money involved, because sharing also has an ethical dimension. In this way we give food an idealistic value again, because it is more than just a commodity.

Where it is: Cologne, Germany

Why it is relevant: The FairTeiler can act as an example for how food sharing and resource conservation can work in cities. It is also a good start for everyone to use their remaining food wisely instead of throwing it away. It is both money and resource saving and at the same time environmentally friendly

URL: https://foodsharing.koeln/?page_id=123

POSTER_SPEISEWALD1

Die Tafel

What it is: Die Tafel–The charitable boards create a balance: they collect surplus, qualitatively perfect food and distribute it to socially and economically disadvantaged people. With their fast and unbureaucratic help, the Tafeln alleviate the consequences of poverty in a rich society – and stand for solidarity and humanity.

Where it is: Germany-organisation

Why it is relevant: The table also works with surplus food that is still of high quality and edible. However, in this case, support is given to the needy who often cannot afford the weekly shopping for their family.

URL: https://www.tafel.de/

 

Hey guys

Check out the new poster here. The pdf also has an A5 factsheet where we put the keywords, stakeholders etc. which will go below the poster. Now I am going to take the content of the poster you will post today, and put it into the new template. And then give the poster back to you if you want to change anything. We have decided to give the user story appropriate space, but it should make ideal use of these dimensions: 

380mm by 540mm or 38cm by 54cm

That’s the amount of space you get on your poster for your user story. Please have your final one ready by Wednesday evening 29/01 So I can put them in the new poster on Thursday. (As you notice, quite some attention now is going to your question and text How/What/Why, so it might be worth spending some extra time on that!)

On Monday 03/02 prof. HK and I want to meet you in R240 at 10:00, with the exact built-up exhibition pieces you are using. Every student can get the key for room 058, so organize yourself and get your exh. systems at 09:00. We can then shuffle the pieces around and make good use of the space (and clean it up when necessary).

Let’s get readyyyyy! I have asked for the foodlab on Thursday for a final dinner together, after a hopefully successful presentation 😉

The Good Food

What it is: The Good Food sells products of all kinds that would otherwise have been destroyed as waste. The owner (Nicole)  goes into fields after they have been harvested and collects the vegetables left behind. Some of them are deemed too big, some too small, some just too ugly to sell. In her shop, the organic food then becomes accessible to everyone using a “pay what you think” system. Buyers can also find non-perishable products from big manufacturers which have passed their sell-by dates.

Where it is: Köln-Ehrenfeld

Why it is relevant: We planned a cooperation with The Good Food concerning the transportation of the vegetables from the farmer to the shops. The shared costs of renting a van, pay for petrol or buying a new vehicle would lower the costs on both sides, make the process easier, faster and products cheaper for the consumer.

URL: https://www.the-good-food.de/

 

NeuLand

What it is: NeuLand is an urban community garden that is using an uncultivated area by planting diverse vegetables, fruits and other plants in transportable boxes. They grow in transportable boxes, because the soil is contaminated and therefore unusable for gardening and also their time is limited, as there are probably some plans coming up in the next years for construction concepts from Stadt Köln.  

Where it is: Bayenthal, Köln

Why it is relevant: The area they use fits perfectly for putting our concept of Echt Essbar into place. As the area they use is the city’s property and they don’t mind sharing a small part of the space, it gives Echt Essbar a relaxed and natural environment to settle in. Also Neuland profits from a cooperation, since they might get more attention for their own projects.

URL: http://www.neuland-koeln.de/

 

Food is increasingly getting on the agenda of design and designers. And there is need for new approaches!

In this international project, we will research and analyse structures and processes related to food production, distribution and consumption in (future) cities (Cologne/Taipei).

We will develop possibilities of future approaches, especially in the context of increasing digitization (AI, IoT, blockchain, traceability, bait to plate, farm to fork) – and question them critically.

  • How can we design a different relation to food, its ingredients and values, its production and culture, its habits and processes?
  • How can we create new relations and values to ingredients of food?
  • How can we connect (us to) different stakeholders, especially to build relations between farmer/producer and consumer.

A part of the project team – max. 6 students – will be able to work in Taipei for a week in November, supported by students from SCID Taipei and the project group in Cologne. Details will be clarified in the first project meeting.

In Cologne, we work together with local experts and stakeholders.

At the end of the semester, both the analysis and drafts / prototypes will be presented.

In the project we refer to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular to SDG 11 and 12. Due to the topic, it might be possible to submit the results to the Cumulus Green Award (and I will encourage and support you to do so).

We will approach the project by questions we want to explore. In the beginning, we will have the opportunity to find a huge variety of questions and then discuss them – amongst us and with others . in order to find out the most relevant ones. Relevant in terms of the need to approach them and relevant to approach them from the perspective of design.

Pre-meeting: if you have questions or want to make sure that you are really in the project – or want to influence the character of the project even before it started please try to join our pre-meeting on Thursday September 26 at 12.30

First official meeting: This is mandatory for all that want to join – it will be on Tuesday October 22 at 10.00. In this meeting I want to see what your specific interest in this project is – so please subscribe to this space, contribute with some relevant questions and maybe cases as well…

Regular meetings: The regular meetings are always on Tuesday at 10.00. As I mentioned due to some travel activities we won’t meet every Tuesday, but there will be weeks where we meet twice or longer during the Tuesday meeting. There is a GoogleDoc with all our meetings (always updated). If you are not available we can arrange to connect via zoom – but always let me know before. 

Taiwan trip: the workshop in Taiwan is scheduled for November 18-23. The core group not traveling to Taipei will proceed meeting here and we will remotely collaborate via our KISDspace and zoom (see above).

We can learn a lot from existing cases and studies. Here we are collecting relevant cases how digitalisation  influences and affects food farming, production, distribution and consumption. How farmers/producers are connected to consumers, the rural to the urban.

Cases are structured around 3 core questions: What it is, Where it is and Why it is relevant. In addition, cases have tags / keywords to made them more accessible and findable. It would be great to use the comment function about the use of cases to create additional information

Here we will collect interesting experts: individuals, organisations or initiatives who are doing something we consider valuable in the context of the project. They can be (preferrably) from the area Cologne or Taipei with the purpose to meet them for an interview, invite them for a talk or a workshop, or to go for a visit or a field trip.

This is the page where we share our digital communication – in this case video messages between Cologne and Taipei to figure out what’s the best way to keep in touch. And for live connections please use https://zoom.us/j/5505005500

Hi everyone, we have arrived safe and sound here in Taiwan. After a good night of rest, we are now out exploring and investigating interesting different sites.

Besides that you can continue working on your topics, I would like to ask everyone to upload the files of their flashcards, both the InDesign as well as the pdf in this drive folder. 
And also, in a similar way, could everyone upload their research onto spaces? Instead of the cards itself, make a post where you use the same contents as you developed for the cards. Use the title as the post-title, use your description to share the content of the post and add in some images and links! Don’t forget to use some tags when posting so we can easily retrieve your research.

DEADLINE: SUNDAY MORNING (17/11) for both uploading the cards into the drive, as well as making your research posts. I will then format them together and print them out as materials to be shared during the workshop. Thanks! 

Now it is up to you to connect with a member in Taipei and share with them specific questions you are having to progress with your personal projects. Besides receiving updates through spaces, there are already two specific moments we will connect to you “Live” via Zoom. More info later about how we will exactly do that. For now, just schedule these two dates in:

TUESDAY (19/11): 10 AM – 30 MIN Zoom Meeting The groups will update the Cologne side on their progression.

FRIDAY (22/11): 08:30 AM – 60 MIN Zoom Meeting This will be the final presentation of all of the groups. 

Have a good Friday and get back to you soon.

After our intense collaboration work today I was suggesting 6 domains and assignments for the Taipei workshop week. I spent this morning to make them easier accessible for the students joining the workshop – as they don´t know about our process and and context. So I hope this reads more easy now, that everybody can imagine possible directions and outcomes for the end of the week – and I am sure you will all find the questions you had (and the stuff you were interested in)…and now we also have a consistency and it is clearer that the outcome will be scenarios based on specific places in the city (or around), on specific (food) products, on a specific us of data and information (technology), and on specific people or communities.

We will do it! And see you on Sunday and stay connected via spaces!


Team 1 Future Consumption
Designing scenarios for a new eating out experience  (food stall / pop-up / restaurant / farm to plate …) in a specific location with a specific type of food.

Context: In the future, the concepts of restaurants will proceed to change. How can we re-think our understanding and concept of “restaurant”? Where – in the neighborhood – would such a place be? What would be the experience, depending on a very specific type of food they are offering? What type of specific (food) products would be available? How will it connect (to) consumer/citizen and farmer? Which information is relevant for the food, for the cultivation process, which communities might emerge? What do people (need to) know about the food they eat?  Are restaurants embedded in (specific) communities?
Team: Maxime,

Team 2 Future Distribution / Retail
Designing scenarios for a specific market / retail (food / agriculture market / pop-up store) experience in a specific location and a specific type of food.

Context: Designing a new market / retail experience to meet emerging customer´s needs.
Where will those places be? What are best places and why? Who will be the customers?  What will be “sold”? How will this match new shopping behaviors you see emerging? Which information is available about the products and how will people use this information, get in touch with it? What is the new experience? How can we address very specific cultural acceptances?
Team: Matea, Florian

Team 3 Future Distribution / Sharing
Designing scenarios for a new food sharing experience in urban space creating communities of practice using hybrid platforms (including three specific places).

Context: How can we learn from cases like food banks all over the world and avoid that food to good to be wasted will reach new people / customers? How can we design this setting to make it accessible? Where and how in Public space can this happen? How will it be organized that people accept it, like it and maybe even build communities around it?
Team: Jeldrik

Team 4 Future Farming / Agro-Communities
Designing scenarios for new types of Agro-Communities in / around Taipei

Context: Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as a success model in Taipei and what are opportunities, activities and challenges when implementing new technologies emerge? How to connect citizen and farmer, what is the benefit for them? How can the process of farming be monitored? Which data are / might be available? How are digital media used to strengthen communities? How to build and strengthen communities, which communities emerge? How and what to share and work together?
Team: Clara

Team 6 Future Farming / Relationships
Designing scenarios for interaction with / accessing information about food and ingredients to establish new (food) values and (key stakeholder) relationships.

Context:  What kind of data would be valuable from the different perspectives (consumers, farmers / producers) and how can sharing this data influence their relationship and bring new values to food? According to the different types of data, how can future technologies be applied to carry this information, which interface could this imply and what could this mean for food “packaging”?
Team: Anna Luz,

Team 6 Future Food: New Products
Designing scenarios at a specific place to present and experience relevant information as a “food exhibition” by appropriate means and (hybrid) media 

Context: What are  typical Taiwanese agricultural products (define three!), how can we analyse it and use available data to both inform customers and come to new use of all possible byproducts? How can value be created, how can customers get a new attitude to a product through this knowledge? This includes every possible step in tracing back the growth and processing of the product. Designing the information layers of a food product and emerging opportunities based on this knowledge
Team: Sarah, Helena

Tomorrow we need to fix the six groups for Taipei. As discussed on Friday it would be beneficial for all of us if a) the KISDies in the 6 Taipei groups are both bringing in their experience & interest and push their topic forward in Taipei – with the help of the other students in the intense week and if b) there might be the opportunity to team up with the other 7 students staying here in Cologne. This would be a great match, I don´t know if it will work for all – but I suggest!

As finding the topics seems to be a catch 22 we came up on Friday with the following overview:


Group 1 and 2 Consume: Designing a new restaurant experience in Taipei
In the future, the concepts of restaurants will proceed to change. You will work on this topic here in Taipei, being open to re-think your understanding and concept of “restaurant”. You will think of new types of restaurants. Where would such a restaurant be? What would be the experience, depending on a very specific type of food they are offering? What type of specific products would be available? How will it connect to citizen and farmer? Which information is relevant for the food, for the cultivation process, which communities might emerge? What do people (need to) know about the food they eat?  Are restaurants embedded in (specific) communities?
1. Street stall / pop-up Sarah
2. Restaurant / farm to plate Maxime

Group 3 and 4 Distribute: Designing a new market / retail experience to meet emerging customer´s needs 
Where will it be? What are best places and why? What will be “sold”? How will this match new shopping behaviors you see emerging? How do they deal with waste? What will be sold? Which information is available about the products and how will people use this information, get in touch with it? What is the new experience?
3. Food market experience / pop-up store Mattea
4. Food bank Jeldrik

Group 5 and 6 Produce: Designing a concept for new farming activities for emerging urban farming activities 
How to connect citizen and farmer, what is the benefit for them? How can food be monitored? Which data are / might be available? How to build and strengthen communities, which communities emerge? How and what to share and work together?
5. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) outside of Taipei Clara ( / Sarah?)
6. Connecting consumers to farmer through data Anna Luz
and / or optionally: Urban Farming in a specific location in Taipei


So the challenge for tomorrow will be to adapt your project title (according to the questions you had / I revised) according to the above mentioned 6 subtopics. If there will be a shift from your side – perfect, but let´s see that we are covering the most crucial things and that we stay in the three domains.Hope that works for you…but I am sure.

 

In the last post, I mentioned that tomorrow’s meeting will be in the afternoon. To correct that, 14:00 is the time when prof. Heidkamp is joining us. Nonetheless, we are meeting anyway at 10:00 to already discuss how we will organise ourselves for the workshop and connect the questions that will be researched by the front in Cologne and the front in Taiwan. This way, we can get the most out of the full Taiwan-excursion. Enjoy Carnaval, I’m sure you’ll be there tomorrow bright and shiny! 

The meeting time for Tuesday (12/11) has shifted from 09:00 in the morning to 14:00 – 17:00 in the afternoon. This is an important meeting as it will define the direction of the workshop in Taipei, as well as further research to be conducted there. Have a good weekend and see you in room 303!

Hi everyone! Today during the meeting, we discussed how it would be useful to get the research we have done so far on physical cards. This is a way for us to get an overview of the collected cases and it could be especially of value for the workshop-participants in Taipei to flick through those cards!

As said in class, but also for the ones who weren’t there, try to summarise your cases onto a physical card (A6). We decided it should have a summarising and catchy title, a short description of the case/phenomenon/project… and some sources. Give it a try and take your card(s) tomorrow, we will discuss whether that works or not.

Look at the example and download the template/fonts etc from the Drive here.

See you tomorrow at 11:30!

EDIT: Notice how I switched the texts around, so when it prints, the correct text is on the back of the suiting image. 

Also, don’t worry if you can’t get it into the template. Per case, just select a good image, decide on a title, a short description and a reference and bring that!

After yesterday’s meeting, hearing the input of your presentations, we suggest to frame the work for the project by the following criteria:

– Focus on veggies (fruits, vegetables, crops etc.) as this allows the biggest flexibility in involvement and scalability

– Look at Community Supported Agriculture – how can this support (or plug into) the individual projects?

– Decrease the middle-men in the supply chain

– Connect/relate people to food and build communities

– Create awareness of food/ingredient quality

– Provide (useful, necessary, feasible and digestible) data and information about food/ingredients and farming products

– Work towards solutions that work in a respectful (check stakeholders!) and scalable (other places, global demand) way

– Searching alternatives for mass-production and industrial food production 

– Investigate opportunities for Restaurant / Street stall / Pop-up Food Place as a touchpoint where experiences are created

– Trying to relate production to consumption

– Think of specific places in the city (abandoned spaces, green rooftops, (pop-up) restaurants, markets… to make things tangible

– Choose farming products which allow enough opportunity for intelligent disposition and re-use (or at least check if there are any) e.g. rice, coffee etc.

– … (more to come)

We hope that helps to frame your approach to finding a topic. And again the advice – be as specific as you can and work with constraints. You will see this again in the next steps when we discuss the increased level of precision of the question-suggestions.

___________

We will meet tomorrow at 10:00-11:00 and Friday at 11:30-13:00 in our room 303. During those meetings, we will continue fine-tuning the questions, discuss possibilities for the workshop in Taipei and briefly talk about what you expect or envision towards the outcome, considering our capabilities as designers.

Also, tomorrow for lunch, we will eat together in the Foodlab. If you are keen to join, please bring some cash with you so we can split the bills easily. 

Thus for you, there are two things between now and the meeting on Friday:

  1. Get back into your questions, rewrite, reshape, rephrase, adjust, … Respond to the feedback and play with them, try to add/delete elements to be more specific. What urban context do you want to work in? Is there a specific medium you want to include in your question? … 
  2. Please post the ‘most interesting’ cases on spaces with the right tags, possibly following the above-mentioned criteria. Thanks!

I went through the questions of the 8 people submitting them by now. Please – ALL should submit their questions! We will discuss them tomorrow, and still some are very open and we need to find a stronger connections to our initial starting point(s) (tomorrow).

Tomorrow we will also go through your investigations of the 3 phases and the respective cases you found. I am really keen to see what you found out!

As we will have a short-noticed Prof-meeting tomorrow from 9-11 please meet anyway at 10 (as David will be there) and if you have time to extend the meeting max to 1400 it would be great. I will be there!

See you tomorrow!

 

Dear teams! Today and tomorrow, the ‘Probevorlesungen’ are taking place. these are try-out lectures from applicants for the position of Professorship in ‘Designing Digital Futures’. Since everyone should have the opportunity to go see those lectures (which you should cause they are probably awesome), the school has decided to not have any official meetings running during those times. 

Tomorrow, two more lectures are happening in the lecture hall. 
1. 8:30-9:30
2. 10:45-11:45

And as you notice the second one would be during our meeting. Therefore, I suggest postponing the meeting to 13:00 o’clock in Room 303. Please bring yourself and your team, your work and your questions and we will prepare ourselves for the days to come. The cooking at Foodlab will definitely take place, I hope there are enough people interested to stay for dinner! Please answer on Anna-Luz her post if you are joining for the evening. See you! 

This post is to shortly summarise today’s meeting and repeat the assignments for next week. For all of the people currently in Venice, you are expected to run through today´s presentation (here) Also, you have been assigned to a team and will have to organise yourself to do individual/collective research. 

Within the presentation, the Creative Food Cycles project is introduced https://creativefoodcycles.org which has “… the aim of developing a cultural and holistic approach, joining all the aspects of Food Cycle: from production to distribution (phase 1), from distribution to consumption (phase 2) and from consumption to disposition (phase 3).” 

Now we will organise our research (at this stage) according to the way they are treating the complex matter of the food cycle, according to those three phases. We have divided the group into three teams, each covering one of those phases.

Phase 1: From Production to Distribution: Anna-Luz, Clara, Jeldrik, Samya, 

Phase 2: From Distribution to Consumption: Maxime, Diana, Matea, Maria, Kojiro

Phase 3: From Consumption to Disposition: Kalia, Yasmine, Kira, Sarah, Anastasia

→ It is your task to investigate the assigned phase as a team and individually look at 2-3 cases which belong to your (or more) phases. You can start by getting familiar with the catalogue by the Creative Food Cycles project. Download it here from their website.

→ Also, everyone individually should contribute 2 precisely formulated questions to the repository on spaces. When formulating questions, try to relate it to the phases and we will see whether it functions as a structure for our work, for coming up with own projects and a joint exhibition at the end.

All of this information you can find in the presentation. Connect with your team members and ask them to update you! We will meet again next Tuesday at 10:00 in which we will discuss the current state of the research and how we will present the materials the week after on Tuesday the 5th of November.

And then last but not least! The Foodlab!! For next week on Tuesday, we have three volunteers to prepare something for us in the evening. To create an idea of the budget, we decided on a max. of €5 pp. If you are keen to join for food next Tuesday evening (and I hope everyone is!) please comment with a simple “I’m in for food” underneath this post so the crew knows for how many they are cooking! 

See you next week

EDIT: I have also set up a Google Drive which you can use to share pdf’s of research papers, statistics … For now, it is organised according to the three phases, including one extra folder for research which covers multiple phases. Let’s see how that works out. Access the Drive here.