Towards a Creative Dún Laoghaire
Project Background
A project funded by Creative Ireland’s Creative Communities Economic Development Fund, in collaboration with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (DLR) and the Institute of Art, Design & Technology’s (IADT) Public Design Lab (PDL)
Towards a Creative Dún Laoghaire was a project funded by Creative Ireland. The purpose of the project was to identify the barriers and pathways for IADT graduates to stay working in and with Dún Laoghaire town. Creative Ireland has identified the various benefits that occur to the overall economy when investment is made within the creative industries sector. As a result, this pilot research study investigated the ways in which the local town may be able to facilitate recent graduates, and interrogate the development plans for the town to find gaps and build bridges.
The Approach
This six-month long project encompassed four phases of research activities. The design of the project was determined by the principles of the PDL, guided by founders, Clyde Doyle and Peter Evers, researchers, Ella Fitzpatrick and Justyna Doherty employed co-design tools and strategies to reach as many stakeholders as possible using a range of formats for communication and engagement.
01
Initial Research & Mapping
02
Problem Statement Definition
03
Ideation, Prototyping & Testing
04
Wrap Up & Public Launch
Research Activities
A variety of public engagement activities took place; a week-long charrette workshop, coffee morning, expert panel discussion and 1:1 interviews with stakeholders. Our team at IADT also conducted various brainstorming sessions throughout the project where we analysed the findings to identify potential areas for further examination.
Interdisciplinary and intergenerational collaborations allowed us to capture important insights and facilitate discussions about the creative economy. The conversations served both as a method of data collection and as an accelerator in terms of building relationships between the stakeholders, which was a valuable outcome of the strategic design of this research study.
Systems Map of the Creative Economy
Tools
Stakeholder mapping / stakeholder value maps
Context mapping
Brain writing
Idea filtering
Storyboarding
World-building
Affinity map
Research sense-making workshop
Methods
Design Thinking
Speculative Design
Future Thinking
Systems Thinking
Interview Analysis
I leveraged Miro's collaborative features to encapsulate the essence of the interviews. The template not only facilitated efficient data analysis but also acted as a powerful tool for team collaboration.
The visual representation of each interview allowed for a holistic view of the data, helping to identify patterns, themes, and emerging trends. It was necessary to divide the stakeholders firstly to identify themes within their own interest groups, before combining the overall insights where common themes emerged. The image below shows a sample of the analysis process.
Coffee Morning
I presented a project research update to a group of 26 stakeholders at a coffee morning hosted in the dlr Lexicon. Attendees included artists, business people, DLR County Councillors, IADT and DLR staff, as well as senior executives from both institutions. A lively discussion followed the presentation, providing further insights and ideas and highlighting current challenges.
