Just after opening the new London office, Designit’s Jim Dawton was off to Seoul where he led a winning team at a 48 Hour Inclusive Design Challenge.

The challenge was part of the Seoul Design Conference, and some of its established goals were to raise the importance of inclusive design as a tool for business advantage and innovation. Also, the challenge aimed to present ways for elderly and disabled people to be an integral part of the design process.

The challenge brief was leisure, pleasure and social interactions, and Jim’s team designed a solution to encourage social interaction through a leisure activity that would bring pleasure to a whole community, not just those participating. The solution was called Our Garden.

Our Garden builds on emerging trends of growing-your-own. These environmentally responsible and socially entrepreneurial initiatives are proving both effective and popular in countries around the world. And by taking a holistic, multidisciplinary approach, the team were able to design an integrated solution combining product, web, communication and service offerings.

“I find these challenges electrifying, whether involved in these extreme 48 hour challenges, or more typically in the projects we do at Designit. When design thinking and design doing come together with experts in specific areas of concern, the outcomes are invariably both inspiring and practical. It is the delivery of the solution that really counts.” Jim says.

Read more about the conference and the 48 hour inclusive design challenge here.