In our projects we design concrete yet bold solutions that are vehicles for social change. We work in a wide range of domains, from mental health to restoring biodiversity and everything in between.
With GEM (ecosystem mentale gezondheid – mental health ecosystem) we are setting up a new way of organising mental healthcare: centralising the patient perspective and promoting collaborations between healthcare providers and social players. Initiatives are taking root throughout the Netherlands – from Deventer to Amsterdam and from Harderwijk to Doetinchem.
Reframing Welfare
To ensure a healthy and fair future in the metropole region Amsterdam, for this generation, for future generations and for ecosystems, Amsterdam Economic Board aims to reframe our current view on welfare. Therefore, we developed a new perspective on prosperity and quality of life together with a group of 25 stakeholders. The result is an overview of nine challenges that will help strengthen quality of life in the region and can spark new ways of collaborating. Currently, we are investigating what this can mean for the theme ‘health and prevention’.
Future of parenting
Commissioned by the Bondgenoten we explored the future of parenting and growing up in the Rijnmond Region of 2030. Based on this exploration, the Bondgenoten defined their joint ambitions. With the Garage 2020 and the Bondgenoten as our partners, we are now working on their ambitions and shaping the future of raising and growing up, through concept development, prototyping and user evaluations. After working on a play free state (in collaboration with Villa Zebra), to enhance free play, we are now dreaming about the future of inclusive education (in collaboration with Cult North). Our last project in this series is about designing the equal dialogue between youth that got stuck in life and their (formal and informal) caretakers.
Redesigning relapse
In this project, funded by the Agis innovatiefonds, we are exploring how adolescents struggling with addiction can be supported. In this new perspective we shift the focus from preventing relapse to strengthening the resilience of youngsters and their social network to deal with the ups and downs that are part of the journey to recovery. This project is done in collaboration with Brijder Jeugd.
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Reframing Studio is an independent innovation agency with over 25 years of experience.
What is a social city in 2030? And what kinds of interventions are needed for a city to facilitate connections and community among its residents? The Chief Technology Office of the city of Amsterdam has commissioned Reframing Studio to explore these questions. The result is a vision on the social city, as well as interventions and concepts that serve as an embodiment of the vision. Two of the concepts were developed into pilots. These pilots were carried out on the ground in Amsterdam with Amsterdammers.
Team Sal van Dijk Justus Tomlow Roald Hoope Femke de Boer
Connections between Amsterdam residents are formed in various places throughout the city; at schools, in associations, at businesses, in neighborhood stores, in libraries, on public transport, at events, in residents' initiatives, and so on. In the future, too, Amsterdammers will connect with other Amsterdammers. However, sustainable connections are becoming less and less self-evident. Key reasons are digitization, growing spatial segregation, and the city's expansion. This distance has an impact on the attitudes of Amsterdam residents towards connecting and community.
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spatial segregation is increasing
surveillance in both physical and digital spaces leads to 'social cooling'
Amsterdam has many 'fleeting' residents
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Process & results
The vision is based on 26 interviews and 4 workshops with Amsterdam residents, academic experts, operational experts and other stakeholders that have a connecting role or who may take on a connecting role in the future. The key insight is that the ease with which connections are established is situational. Someone may be open to making contact with a stranger at one moment or in one situation, and not at another moment or in another situation.
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framework of situational attitudes towards connecting
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Situationality
Thinking in terms of situationality fundamentally differs from the way in which facilitating social connections is typically approached. Firstly, initiatives often focus on reductive target groups, such as 'lonely people' or 'the elderly'. Secondly, initiatives often focus on changing the attitude that people in such a group have. The preference is often a more "connection-focused" attitude. People are expected to become more self-reliant or they are actively linked to others. As a result, these initiatives often have the unintended effect of mainly appealing to people who are already inclined to connect in the situation that is offered. The people who need the most help with connecting in that situation remain a blind spot. Our advice is to start from the diversity of attitudes towards connecting to others and design the social city around all of these attitudes.
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concepts & pilots
In order to put this advice into action, a variety of concepts for a more social city was designed. These concepts aimed to cater to different connection attitudes and focused on mechanisms that eased the distance between different attitudes. Two of these concepts were developed into pilots that were carried out in the city with the cooperation of the municipality, as well as local businesses and non-profit organisations.