Super Contemporary

Interview with the Design Museum for inclusion in the exhibition: http://www.dezeen.com/2009/12/09/super-contemporary-interviews-wendy-dagworthy/ The interview overall, focuses primarily on people and places that have been significant in shaping London’s fashion scene. In relation to my work and career, fashion in the 70s, how it has changed over the decades, and London’s role in educating the fashion designers for the future. “Super Contemporary” was a landmark exhibition that traces the city’s creative networks and maps the impace of London’s rich design history. The exhibition highlighted the creative draw that is unique to London wherein many designers from around the world choose the city to learn, work and establish a name within the industry. It explores what it is that has made design in London so special and asks some of the exciting talents what London means to them. It charts key moments and influential figures within the design world alongside commissioned work which will reveal designers’ unique relationship with the city. I created, for the Design Museum exhibition a wall chart map of my London, which was a collage of words and images that communicates my creative London from 1968 to the present day. The maps from 15 of Londons’ leading contributors are a main feature of the exhibition sitting alongside a series of commissioned work and against the backdrop of a timeline charting the last 50 years of creative activity in London. The 15 commissions from London’s future stars and its current elite, including fashion designer Paul Smith, designer Thomas Heatherwick and product designer Ron Arad, form the centre of the exhibition. Their brief was to give something back to the metropolis in which they have made their name, and their designs, to be revealed in the exhibition, reflect acute and varied observations on London life. Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum comments, “There is no London style, it’s the city in which designers can be themselves. It’s where art and fashion, architecture and design mix with combustible results. And this is a moment to look at what makes London special, and what lies in store” Super Contemporary is on tour at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, from 27th August until 27th November 201

Diabetes Training Camp: A Brief Intervention to Improve Self-Management and Physical Activity in Adults with Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is less common than Type 2 Diabetes (T2D); however, its growing incidence, chronic prognosis, and increased self-management burden, produce unique psychosocial challenges for this population. Specifically, these individuals are atrisk for poor diabetes self-efficacy, and poor glycemic control, which can contribute to diabetes-specific mood alterations, or diabetes distress (DD), and an overall reduction in diabetes-specific health-related quality of life. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Diabetes Training Camp (DTC) 1-week intervention in mitigating psychosocial distress utilizing a repeated measures design to evaluate the impact of participation on measures of DD, diabetes quality of life (DQOL) and diabetes self-efficacy from baseline to 6-week follow-up. Statistically significant improvements in DQOL were found to be associated with participation in the DTC intervention. Similar improvements were not found in measures of DD or diabetes self-efficacy. Additionally, there was not a significant relationship demonstrated between improvements in DQOL and diabetes selfefficacy. These results may partially be attributed to the demographics of the sample. Specifically, many participants indicated high levels of physical activity and glycemic control prior to participation, which likely contributed to higher baseline levels of diabetes self-efficacy. Similarly, self-selection bias in our sample, may have contributed to lower levels of DD prior to participation. DTC is a self-pay program and generally only accessible to individuals with higher SES. DTC and similar psychosocial interventions require further study to evaluate potential benefits and contributions to improving overall health outcomes and relieving psychosocial burden for adults with T1D

Hypothetical Bargains: The Normative Structure of Contract Interpretation

The argument here amplifies the contract literature with respect to basic contract theory and its doctrinal applications. The argument extends and corrects the current understanding of contract theory in several respects. First, it clarifies the role of liberal and communitarian argument in constructing interpretive conventions for contract. As currently understood among lawyers, the predominant noninstrumental theories of contract are in large measure indeterminate as to the question of default rules. Nonetheless, as I shall explain, these theories do have limited implications for the ground rules that govern interpretive conventions. The argument here, then, clarifies the role of noninstrumental theory in delimiting the conventions that the law can adopt. Second, having identified these basic limits, the argument demonstrates that analysis of interpretive conventions should proceed, within these limits, on instrumental terms. While lawyer-economists have taken for granted that their mode of analysis illuminates questions of contract law, there is no reason that lawyers - or legal decisionmakers - should defer to economists\u27 presuppositions on the matter. My argument demonstrates that the small but growing body of instrumental analysis of contract conventions bears directly, as a normative matter, on formulation of legal rules and decision of particular legal controversies

Fixperts

FIXPERTS is a creative social campaign and design education programme that inspires people with imagination and skills to solve problems for others and share the results. It sets out to generate a positive social impact by challenging designers, known as Fixperts, to help people with worthwhile, everyday problems that they face (Fix Partners). The Fixperts’ creativity and knowledge of the design process allows them to apply ingenious, flexible and low-cost solutions to their Fix Partners’ challenges, with resultant immediate and positive impact on their everyday lives. For the designers it fine tunes their understanding of social impact as well as developing their sense of empathy, valuable qualities in future society. The whole process is captured in short films and shared on the Fixperts website to give others the insight and encouragement find their own innovative solutions. The 250 Fixperts films from around the world are a growing resource that also contributes to design education by offering opportunity and encouragement to people, particularly students, to apply the design process to fixing challenges. The films have been viewed over 400,000 times and featured in mainstream media from Berlin to Calcutta. Fixperts collaborates with schools, universities and colleges across the world and has developed a brief and project guidelines to support educators to run Fixperts as part of their course. Fixperts has ambitions to bring fixing into the curriculum in secondary schools and has recently been working with one of the UK examination boards to pilot Fixperts as part of a new STEM technical qualification

The cultural role(s) of makerspaces

Makerspaces and maker programmes are evolving and expanding the roles they are undertaking. This is a work-in-progress summary as of September 2016. The segmentation proposed is an early stage exploration. This excerpt is taken from a presentation event examining the models and tools these spaces are using toward cultural end