Energised communities: Energy and Co-Designing Communities: Designing a Deployable Research Device

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• published: 23 Jul 2013
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Energy and Co-Designing Communities: Designing a Deployable Research Device - Professor Bill Gaver, Goldsmiths University of London The 'Energy and Co - Designing Communities' project is investigating how an 'Energy Babble' device can draw together and reconfigure a number of existing UK energy communities and practitioner groups around ways of talking about environmental issues and practices. The Babble presents a variety of voices (literally and figuratively) speaking about energy demand reduction and related issues, drawn from Twitter, other online information sources as well as messages from the local communities themselves. These are mixed and presented to highlight their diversity and potential agreements and disagreements, with the intention of adding to and unsettling the communities' existing conceptions and expectations. The presentation will describe the project's research process including initial fieldwork with energy communities and practitioner groups in the UK, a community engagement event, a cultural probe study which led to a a series of design workbooks that resourced the design and development of the Energy Babble device. The presentation will draw out the relations between design - led research, empirical methods and intervention by way of an interactive system. Join researchers, community group representatives and other professionals working in community energy to hear about a range of approaches to researching the impact of communities and community groups on the way we use energy. The University of Bristol has been working with the Bristol Energy Network on how to support local community based energy groups to 'Maintain Momentum' and the seminar will link the outcomes of the 'Maintaining Momentum in Bristol Community Energy' project to a number of other academic projects exploring community energy around the UK and also to the launch of the Bristol Community Energy Strategy. This is one of the first local community energy strategies in the UK and is intended to further inspire activities locally. The morning session will introduce the Bristol initiatives and then consider other approaches taken, with speakers from Edinburgh, Oxford Brookes and Keele Universities exploring whole community approaches to energy. In the afternoon, we will hear more about the Bristol project and then look at individual responses to community initiatives with research from the University of Southampton, Goldsmiths University of London and Cardiff University informing the debate. As well as introducing the projects and exploring how the lessons from research relate to community experiences, there will be time to discuss and develop new directions and shared outcomes in an energized forum with a range of stakeholders. We are grateful for the support of the University of Bristol's Cabot Institute and Centre for Public Engagement and the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) in enabling us to hold this event. Presentations can be downloaded here http://www.bristolenergynetwork.org/mm/bgwseminar More films and great articles on building a new world here: http://www.permanentculturenow.com/films/