Fostering creative citizens in China through co-design and public makerspaces

该项目旨在通过战略性地使用共同设计和公共创客空间，以自下而上的方式开发一种新颖而包容的方式来培养中国的创意公民。其理由是，人力资本日益成为一个国家最重要的资产，专家们认为，一个城市/国家可持续经济增长的关键是吸引、培养和留住有创造力的劳动力的能力。这一论点与预测相吻合，即到2020年，雇主将寻找的最佳技能分别是解决复杂问题、批判性思维和创造力。然而，这一项目将超越支持有报酬就业的人，并包括尽可能多的人，因为无报酬就业的人也可以为中国的可持续经济发展作出积极贡献。先前的研究表明，良好的设计可以对社会价值的创造产生重大影响，包括个人行为的改变和社会参与。因此，这个项目也将考虑如何利用最好的设计来创造更多的公民参与，以产生社会影响。促进和培养创造力的一个有效方法是积极地让人们参与创造性活动，例如共同设计。先前的研究表明，让人们参与到共同设计过程中不仅有助于培养参与者的创造力，还可能带来许多社会效益，例如鼓励自助态度。该项目旨在通过设计干预，公共创客空间和在线设计资源的新颖组合来培养创造性公民。设计干预措施将通过设计师和社区成员之间的共同设计项目提供。在这种情况下，公共创客空间是指人们聚集在一起共同创造、共享资源和知识、从事项目、建立网络和建设的物理场所。重点是提供多功能的空间，在那里可以进行创造性的活动，而不是提供高科技的制造工具。在这种情况下，将以设计案例研究库的形式提供在线设计资源，该库将作为社区产生的解决方案的数字储存库，可用作未来发展的组成部分。通过在线提供这些资源，中国各地的创意社区可以共享、修改和利用这些资源。在线资源还将包含支持社区项目的共同设计工具包。该项目为期三年。在第一年，该团队将进行文献综述和案例研究，以确定创意社区的良好实践，并确定中国公共创客空间的关键要求，以制定合适的战略。该团队还将组织实地考察，带领中国的主要利益相关者参观英国选定的创意中心和公共创客空间，为他们提供第一手经验，交流想法和灵感的机会。在第二年，该团队将在上海杨浦区的一个社区邻里中心开发一个公共创客空间的原型，并打算扩大规模并扩展到中国其他地区。该团队将在当地居民和同济大学设计专业学生之间发起社区共同设计项目，将共同设计过程介绍给当地社区。社区项目的过程和结果将得到彻底评估，以确定从经济和社会角度的潜在影响。将吸取主要经验教训，以制定适当的战略和行动计划，扩大规模。第三年将专注于制定一个战略设计框架，并为开发社区创意中心提供适当的指导方针。该项目将通过高质量的国际出版物、合适的社交媒体平台（如微信）、共同创作活动和参与活动，不断与更广泛的受众接触并向他们传播知识。

This project seeks to develop a novel and inclusive means of fostering creative citizens in China in a bottom-up manner through strategic use of co-design and public makerspaces. The rationale is that human capital has increasingly become the most important asset of a country and experts argued that the key to sustainable economic growth of a city/country is an ability to attract, nurture and retain a creative workforce. This argument matches the prediction that, in 2020, the top skills employers will be looking for are complex problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity, respectively. However, this project will go beyond supporting people in paid employments and include as many people as possible, since people outside paid employment could also contribute positively to sustainable economic developments in China. Previous studies show that good use of design could make a significant impact on the creation of social value including individual behaviour changes and societal engagement. Thus, this project will also consider how best design can be used to create greater engagement with citizens to generate societal impact.One effective way of promoting and fostering creativity is to actively engage people in creative activities such as co-design. Previous studies showed that engaging people in the co-design process not only helps fostering participants' creativity, but also could lead to many social benefits, such as encourage self-help attitudes. This project intends to foster creative citizens through a novel combination of design interventions, public makerspaces and online design resources. The design interventions will be delivered through co-design projects between designers and community members. The public makerspaces, in this case, refer to physical locations where people gather to co-create, share resources and knowledge, work on projects, network, and build. The emphasis is on offering multipurpose spaces where creative activities can take place, rather than provide high-tech fabrication tools. In this case, online design resources will be provided in a form of the design case study bank, which will act as digital repository of community-generated solutions which could be used as building blocks for future developments. By providing these resources online, they can be shared, modified and utilised by creative communities across China. The online resource will also contain co-design toolkits to support community projects.The project spreads across three years. In Year 1, the team will carry out a literature review and case studies to identify good practices of creative communities, as well as identify key requirements regarding public makerspaces in China in order to create suitable strategies. The team will also organise the field trips to take key stakeholders from China to visit selected creative hubs and public makerspaces in the UK in order to give them first-hand experience, opportunities to exchange ideas and inspirations. In Year 2, the team will develop a prototype of public makerspace in one of the community neighbourhood centres in Yangpu District, Shanghai with an intention to scale up and expand to other areas in China. The team will initiate community co-design projects between local residents and design students from Tongji University to introduce the co-design process to local communities. The processes and outcomes of community projects will be thoroughly evaluated to identify potential impacts from economic and social perspectives. Key lessons learned will be extracted to develop suitable strategies and action plans for scaling up. Year 3 will concentrate on developing a strategic design framework with suitable guidelines for developing community creative hubs. The project will constantly engage with and disseminate knowledge to the wider audience through high-quality international publications, suitable social media platform (e.g. WeChat), co-creation activities and engagement events.