We are moving our wednesday club

Just to let you know we are moving this week to Cardiff Arts Institute, which used to be incognito opposite the museum. So if you are keen on coming along we will see you all at 7pm.

Project 5 - Word Hospital Wiki setup

For everyone interested in ARK's project 5 – which will be involved in all of the other projects during the next few months – a Wiki has been setup for the beginning of the online Word Hospital.

ARK - Wiki can be found here

You can see what we have so far and add extra discussions to words and issues you have most interest in.

ARK Project announced

Following ARK's launch at the ATRiuM, Cardiff. We have now come up with the first few projects that we will be working on in the coming months.

Project 1 - Lost & Found

Centred around reuse and urban psychology, Lost & Found will investigate issues of ownership, sharing and the good old British weather. Lost & Found aims to bring awareness to the general public through fun one off events. If you are interested in this project please let us know. We will be looking at how to move this on next Wednesday.

Project 2 - Cycling Safely

During the launch Cycling was brought up repeatedly we are therefore going to investigate aspects of Cycling within the Cardiff area. The recent passage from Government figures seems to mean it for us.

"Cycling deaths and serious injuries have soared by a fifth as more people have taken to two wheels during the recession, Government figures showed today. The number of cycle deaths and serious injuries in April-June 2009 totalled 820 - a 19per cent rise of the same period the previous year."

Source - Ray Massey, Daily Mail

Project 3 - Dead spaces

Having personally been an avid user of public transport over the years I wanted to investigate the possibility of bringing back the age of when travelling was an experience, and seen as an adventure. If you would like to investigate concepts and ways forward along these lines then let us know.

Project 4 - Pop up Education

Close to Simon's and Lynsey's heart the Pop up education project, will aim to encourage the development of opportunities to both transfer knowledge and develop 'time banks'. We will also be looking at the unusual and different in how 'education' is delivered. If this sounds interesting let us know and we will be investigating this over the next few weeks.

Project 5 - Word Hospital

Central to ARK has always been heavily invested in inclusivity through the use of simple everyday language. We just needed a name for the project. Word Hospital coined by Mathilde Lopez will become this ongoing project. It will be involved through all of ARK's projects to bring understanding to the language that is currently being used within the social and ecological design sector. Through the project it is hoped that words and the meanings of these words will be re-evaluated and lead to a better understanding for both 'experts' and the general public.

Reading list

This is the start of the reading list from the Launch night mobile library.

blur - stan davis and christopher meyer
brand hijack - alex wipperfürth
citizen designer - steven heller and véronique vienne
cradle to cradle - michael braungart and william mcdonough
do good design - david b. berman
emotionally durable design - jonathan chapman

enough - john naish
in the bubble - john thackara
join me - danny wallace
nudge - thaler & sunstein
radical consumption - jo littler

stumbling on happiness - daniel gilbert
the age of access - jeremy rifkin
the art of looking sideways - alan flectcher
the art of the long view - peter schwartz
the brand gap - marty neumeier
the future of life - edward o. wilson
the ingenuity gap - thomas homer-dixon
the mental world of brands - giep franzen and margot bouwman
the mind map book - tony and barry buzan
the rise of the creative class - richard florida
the selfish gene - richard dawkins
the shock doctrine - naomi klein
the tipping point - malcolm gladwell
the value of things - neil cummings and marysia lewandowska
time to eat the dog? - robert and brenda vale

ARK launch photos

Well it's taken us 12 weeks of planning, meeting, and experimenting but we got round to holding our launch event at University of Glamorgan - ATRiuM building. We have had some great feedback and most importantly a number of projects that we can move forward with. We are going to be working on them over the next few days ready for our regular Wednesday Club which will be at Buffalo bar from 7pm. We also hope to get the book list posted in the next few days. so for those of you who missed our mobile library, it's your chance to to find out what we have been reading.

thinkARK launches at the Atrium

thinkARK began just over 10 weeks ago now with 3 people and an idea and now we want to share the idea and we would love you to come along and take part in our first ever micro event. Its kind of an experiment, its definitely fun and hopefully you will want to come back for more!

Anyway if you do here is the invite:

You are invited to an engaging two hours of connecting, agitating, creating, thinking and designing.

Responding to how can we use design thinking to improve Cardiff?
If you could do one thing, What would it be?

Join us at University of Glamorgan’s Atrium building (Cardiff City Centre) between 7pm – 9pm on Wednesday the 28th October.

About ARK
Historically the public has been told to be eco-aware, environmentally friendly, to be sustainable and to reduce, reuse and recycle. This has all been done through advertising and other media channels. The conversation so far has been predominantly one way and we want to make it open to all. ARK wishes to challenge current practices within the industry/design/advertising/community, around eco issues and sustainability. Through engaging with businesses, localised/fluid communities, and closer alliance with institutions of Higher Education. ARK aims to share these tools to achieve small steps for change. Projects will involve the public who wish to actively engage in social design issues and make a difference to their immediate communities.

ARK wishes to thank University of Glamorgan for allowing us to hold our launch event at their Atrium building.We would also like to thank OrangeBox for something very special?? (the first animal to join the ARK!!)And for their continuing support thanks also to attic 2, Ecodesign Centre and Hoffi

Wednesday Club - turns into think ARK

It's now been nearly two months and we have setup a small but promising little club. Initially we had started with no name and 'Wednesday Club' was coined by Lyns. We have now finally come up with something which we think fits 'ARK'. We are all very happy with it, and look forward to posting more of our thoughts. As you may have guessed we meet on Wednesday's in Cardiff. So if you are interested in joining us to chat about social design please get in touch by commenting below.