From 1968’s merger of design and industry, to 2008’s peek into the expanded potential of the design process, HDL Global offers a platform for collaborative efforts at the intersection of multiple areas of expertise.

HDL Global 1968*

Originally known as Teollisuus Ympäristö Tuotesuunnittelu

Photo copyright Kristian Runeberg.

More information at www.HDL1968.org

On February 29, 1968 a young group of engineers, designers, and architects approached the newly established Finnish National Fund for Research & Development (now Sitra) for support in organizing a summer seminar focused on the changing role of design. This was a reaction to the craft based tradition of design and the growing need to develop an industrial design-based approach to developing products and services.

The Industrial, Environment and Product Design Seminar (Helsinki Design Lab 1968) ran in two sessions on the island of Suomenlinna bringing together a diverse and rich group of minds. Included were Buckminster Fuller, Victor Papanek, Kaj Frank, Christopher Alexander, and Antti Nurmesniemi to mention only a few.

The challenge was to examine the emerging needs of a new world: Differing perspectives would need to come together in defining a new kind of design, one that could more effectively address the problems of its day.This new definition of design brought together “engineering, human factors, production, and sales” knowledge, interfacing it with “technicians, doctors, psychologists, [and] economists”.

This kind of thinking had the objective of broadening design to include “system design, computer use, human factors engineering, applied psychology, and anthropology.”

In 1968 Sitra President Klaus Waris saw the need for the fund to support—especially in research that connected technical, industrial, and governance areas—activities that fell into a sort of “no-man’s land”. The group’s call for a new kind of cross disciplinary collaborative form of design met this mission perfectly.

HDL Global 2008

More information at www.HDL2008.org

Forty years after 1968, in collaboration with the Tapio Wirkkala - Rut Bryk Foundation, HDL 2008 was held in commemoration of the first Helsinki Design Lab event to discuss the potential of design in our contemporary era.Over the course of three days in June of 2008, a group of 108 people from around the world, each a leader in their respective field, converged on Helsinki to discuss the potential of design in the 21st century.

HDL Global 2010

This September Helsinki Design Lab will host a group of international participants for its third HDL Global event. Spending three days together in September, we’ll share the in-process results of our HDL Studios and hear from some of the leading practitioners of strategic design throughout the world. By invitation only.