Dott 07 picks Land Design and hunts for festival designer

Dott 07 is focusing on its climax with the hunt for a consultancy to design and build the final 12-day festival in Gateshead later this year.

The move comes as Dott 07 and Tyne & Wear Museums announce the appointment of Land Design Studio to create the 3D design for the main exhibition, Our Cyborg Futures: Me, or Machine?, a joint project with Culture10.

An initiative of the Design Council and Regional Development Agency One North East, Dott 07 aims to enable communities and individuals in the North East to collaborate with designers in ‘real-life situations’.

The festival will be held on the Gateshead Quays in October, bringing together the results of all community projects exploring how design can make a positive difference to daily lives. Projects deal with health and wellbeing issues, food and nutrition, school and community, energy and environment, sustainable tourism and mobility and access.

According to the tender for the design of the festival, Dott 07 requires a consultancy to create the theme and build the zones. It must have the ‘ability to create a distinctive look and feel for the festival that will be both striking and welcoming’. Additionally, the programme leaders are looking for expertise and experience in turning an idea into a design specification for a public festival.

Dott 07 executive producer Robert O’Dowd says, ‘We need a design consultancy that can carry out the 3D design and also animate and bring alive the stories we have been doing. It is about taking the outcomes of the projects and communicating them. We have based the whole thing on the question “How do we want to live today?”. The festival must show how we have resolved each challenge and opportunity, and how design has played such an important part.’

Credentials tender proposals must be received no later than noon on Friday 23 February.

An appointment will be made on Monday 19 March. For more information, consult the website, www.dott07.com.

DOTT 07
• Partnership between the Design Council and One North East
• Our Cyborg Futures: Me, or Machine? will be designed by Land Design Studio and hosted at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle between August and October
• Main festival will be located on Gateshead Quays between the Baltic Arts Centre and the Sage Music Centre from 14-28 October
• Programme led by director John Thackara and executive producer Robert O’Dowd