Design London stirs it up

Are you looking to get clothing out of a spray? Just air-spray the content of the bottle over your body and when the stuff dries you'll end up with a sweater. The technology can be used in medical applications to automatically create disposable bandages.

Or maybe you fancy floor tiles that illuminate when you walk over them. Used in interiors they can function as safety lights or way-leaders in hospitals or as automatic lights in private or public spaces. In public spaces they can contribute to the safety feeling indoor and outdoor.

You can also find printed books with electronic links. The printed book combines an old-fashioned book that connects to the net and combines electronic links to websites and electronic content. By double clicking on the links with your fingertip you are automatically diverted to the book’s electronic counterpart.

Maybe you are a nurse and interested in one of the designer dispensers for alcohol hand gel to be used to reduce infections in hospitals. The dispenser fits to your belt and counts the number of times you have disinfected your hands the last shift. The dispenser transmits your statistics to the central computer and keeps track of you and all your colleagues. This way, hospitals can get a clear view on the behavior of their medical staff and implement a hospital-wide MRSA- policy.

I have seen all of these products when I was invited to visit the Design London offices. Right behind the corner of the London Museum of natural history is the very impressive entry hall and annexe building of the Tanaka Business School of Imperial College. After a ride to the 3rd floor you enter the incredibly stimulating space of Design London. Its logo is bright pink, its wall is pink. It al has a bit of a stirring effect (stir stands for simulate, teach, incubate and research, not all necessarily in the same sequence).

Design London incubates business ventures based on successful product design. It is a joint venture between the Royal College of Art and Imperial College. The basic idea is to incubate ventures based on promising product designs (the artistic side of the equation). The incubator coaches and guides these embryos to the level where they can become companies that are sufficiently mature to collect their own funding (the business side of the equation).

What makes it a notable initiative is its combination of the business school acumen and experience and the creative forces of the Royal College of Arts. Maybe it can bring us some inspiration and evaluate whether Flanders (or Belgium for that matter) can make its own design incubator? We already have our Flanders DC (district of creativity). I would certainly welcome to have our own little Design Flanders.