Design With Costa Rica.
Client
Self-initiated project
Country
Costa Rica
Work
Human-Centered Design
Codesign
Design Research
Our learnings from collaborating with designers, architects and entrepreneurs during our 2 month stay in Costa Rica in 2017.
Costa Rica is our second home. In 2017 we wanted to have a better understanding of the design landscape in the country. We set off to explore everything design in this beautiful land. We organised co-design sessions with different partners and had design drinks with designers.
Explore
The best way to understand the design thinking/ social entrepreneurship landscape in Costa Rica was to have design sessions with several different designers, entrepreneurs, and other creative stakeholders. We choose three additional themes that were relevant globally and in Costa Rica.
1. Mobility/ CO2 reduction - Costa Rica has seen fast economic growth over the last decades; with that comes more people moving to the big city and more car ownership, which affects mobility. Can we design feasible concepts that challenge these mobility issues?
2. Circular Economy - Just like in any other modern country, the awareness about sustainability is growing. The latest global trend is called Circular Economy. What are the future concepts and business models that allow Costa Rica to create a circular economy? How do we design models and concepts?
3. Sustainable Food - Costa Rica is one of the most bio-diverse countries on the planet. How do we sustain this biodiversity and create more sustainable food and agricultural concepts in Costa Rica? How can design help to preserve the beautiful nature in Costa Rica and create a sustainable food chain?
We worked on projects around Mobility and Circular Economy, and instead of food, we explored the design culture in Costa Rica.
Design
With the entire team of Garnier Arquitectos, we co-designed a circular society of the future. From circular living, circular housing to circular cities, imagining how a circular community would look.
With Impact Hub San Jose, we explored how design thinking could help the hub. Together, we designed a customer journey for caregivers of incontinent older people in collaboration with Tena.
Together with Costa Rican design agency Pupila, we organised design drinking. An afternoon where we invited over 30 designers, illustrators, and other creatives to discuss the future of design in Costa Rica and how design could help shape the county.
Next to this, we had smaller design meetings with several other designers and innovators at the University of Peace. Also, we rode on a bicycle march to demonstrate more space and awareness for cyclists on Costa Rican roads, and we researched co-working possibilities for Asesores Mesoamericanos.
Visualize
Before we started the project, we designed all the tools for the co-design sessions and a little project branding. We kept it minimal but colourful. Minimal because the content should be leading and colourful because Costa Rica is a vibrant country with lively people and nature.