Our Approach

Improving lives through design-led community engagement

Our Approach

Improving lives through
design-led community
engagement

Our commitment is to communities and people across Aotearoa New Zealand and to improving lives through design and creativity.

We aim to do good. We aspire to contribute to making society better. We do this by fostering connections and relationships with others in Aotearoa and across the globe who are likewise delivering services of value to the public.

We nurture partnerships with people. We understand that authentic engagement is only possible when there is trust. Organisations first have to trust what we can do before agreeing to collaborate with us. Communities have to be confident that we will respect their point of view before they share their stories. We believe the value of trusted partnerships is reciprocal and it forms the foundation of our approach.

We build relationships. Strong relationships built on trust are crucial to the success of the work we do. Our collaboration with Te Rourou: One Aotearoa Foundation has lead to a number of impact research projects exploring approaches to strengthening youth mental health in Murihiku Southland, and understanding the hopes and aspirations of rangatahi, as part of the Foundation’s Invercargill Initiative.

We have a long collaboration with the Joint Centre for Disaster Research at Massey. Our work with them spans Earthquake Early Warning systems with Crisis Lab, participatory design approaches to city-shaping and building resilience and exploring ideas of Creative Resilience.