The School of Design Contributes to Odsherred's New UNESCO Geopark Status
For me, it is always a special pleasure when KADK's School of Design moves beyond the production of research papers and graduation of design candidates and directly makes a difference in society. This happened again recently when Odsherred Municipality's focus on its unique geology and landscape and its importance to its inhabitants was recognized with UNESCO's Geopark status--a focus where research and development into local civic creative engagement by means of design processes has played an important role.
Since I was a child I have always been impressed by the fantastic landscapes of Odsherred--especially the dramatic Vejrhøj moraine hills which my family passed by in car every time we visited my grandparents in Rørvig in the Northeastern part of this Zealand peninsula. Last Summer our new industrial PhD scholar, Paya Hauch Fenger, Odsherred Municipality, and I invited our research colleagues from the KADK School of Design along with a couple of my former colleagues from the landscape planning studies from the University of Copenhagen to exchange ideas as for research and development in connection with the Geopark initiative. We all entered a bus on Holbæk Railway Station and had a rather unusual but very interesting seminar in this vehicle with presenters using the tour guide microphone while our driver took us to some of the relevant locations in this beautiful region, incl. Vejrhøj where our journey ended.
Today, one year after, we can celebrate that UNESCO now has recognized Odsherred's focus on its underground and its landscape as a ressource for the region's future delopment. Odsherred's newly acquired Geopark status stands for a local pride and a strategic investment in what this region's landscape has to offer current and future inhabitants.
Odsherred Municipality were quick to realize how research may contribute to a strategy. The collaboration with University of Copenhagen's landscape planning studies section has been going on for years. A few years ago we were contacted by the municipality in order to complement the research basis for their work with a project on civic creative engagement and regional identity; a project which the municipality and the KADK School of Design realized by means of a industrial PhD project undertaken by Paya Hauch Fenger and supported by the Danish Research Council (2013-16). Paya's work form part of the Centre for Codesign Research (CODE) at the Department of Product Design. This Summer, Paya worked hard with her main case, the Odsherred Festival, which went on during the last weeks of sunny July for a large audience of local people as well as summer guests; an effort which--along with a long, dedicated work by the munipality--was rewarded with the UNESCO Geopark status last week.
Congratulations to Paya, to Odsherred, and to the municipality!