Wednesday Club and the evolving face of ARK

We have been looking into the formation of ARK for a number of months now. ARK is an unusual beast as it is many things to many different people. With everyone getting something out of ARK's various guises we are trying to sum up ARK and it's activities, these are the very first steps.



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Closing off the Railway Project

Next Wednesday (31st of March) ARK will be closing off its National Assembly railway consultation project with a few design challenges. We have picked 6 different design themes coming from the last two Wednesday club discussions to help us propose some creative and unexpected solutions (please see below). We will include the outcomes of these design challenges in the consultation document we send to the Assembly on the 1st of April. Come along get involved and get creative.

• "People based solutions" are non-technical solutions to accessibility problems
• "Coldness!!" are any solutions that make stations more welcoming and inviting
• "Levels of information" are all solutions related to communication
• "Fun theory" is fun theory http://www.thefuntheory.com/
• "Colour coding" are all solutions related to the use of colour
• "Experience journeys" are all solutions that bring people back to the railways for more than commuting"

Hope to see you at Cardiff Arts Institute from around 7pm.

ARK team

Tim Brown talks about Design Thinking

The subject of "Design Thinking" regularly crops up at the weekly ARK meet-ups so I thought this little video from TED talks raises some interesting ideas in a more open, collaborative and participatory approach. Tim Brown believes this approach could have a bigger impact than designers working alone and suggests the first step "is to start asking the right questions". what do you think?

book case

Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Wednesday Club - 17/03/10

We have had a lot of interest in ARK recently with a number of people asking what we get up to. I tried to take some photos to give you an idea. We had a great turn out this week and have managed to create two strong groups to concentrate on the train inquiry for Assembly Wales and also the dead spaces project which one response will be the pop-up store/mini festival.


The two groups discussing the projects.


More detailed discussions about the train project.


More detailed discussions about the dead spaces / pop-up shop project.

Some happy snaps from last weeks talking

We are trying to document the Wednesday club's and what happens. The problem is we are always pretty busy doing the workshops and chatting about the projects and what everyone has been up to over the last week or so. Not ideal but below are some images from the idea break out session we got involved in.

Shop project

Provisional invitation for Happy Spaces / Dead Spaces. Work in Progress.

Facebook discussion on Train Stations

We have been working hard on a train inquiry for Assembly for Wales, to broaden the discussion we have started a chat on facebook which you can see here Also if you are interested in any other social design ventures we hold get togethers every Wednesday at Cardiff Arts Institute from around 7pm.