As the pressure intensifies and the submission deadline comes closer, Dublin’s Bid for World Design Capital, 2014 comes more sharply into perspective. The closing date for tenders was Tuesday 26 October 2010 – so an announcement about the winner must be imminent. Their role will be to prepare the bid presentation (working closely with Dublin City Council) for submission to ICSID by March 31st 2011. A four month turnaround is demanding , working to such a tight schedule – with Christmas ‘interfering’ at the start – will require an ‘all hands on deck’ approach. Some work will already have taken place in advance of tenders being submitted.

On Wednesday 24 November The Trinity Long Room Hub presents a lunchtime talk by Ali Grehan, Dublin City Architect, Dublin City Council.

Everyone who reads this blog already knows the background – Dublin City and County Councils, in collaboration with the successful tenderer, are preparing a bid to have Dublin designated the World Design Capital of 2014.

The bid itself has one objective – Achieve World Design Capital 2014 designation for Dublin … but the bid submission process has a number of important objectives/outcomes including:

(1) Unify and strengthen the Irish design community and make it more effective as a driver of innovation (this is already beginning to happening)
(2) Set the stage for a subsequent WDC winning bid … in the event that Dublin WDC designation is not achieved on this occasion (this will be the natural outcome of a strong initial bid)
(3) Begin and follow through on the process of making Dublin a ‘real’ design capital – for the benefit of its citizens and visitors (this in itself is a vast project but it has already started).

World Design Capital is a biennial designation awarded following a competition held by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid). The award is intended as a way of recognising cities that most effectively use design as a tool for social, cultural and economic progress.

In submitting a bid, Dublin will compete with a number of other cities worldwide. Some of these cities are recognised globally as centres for design, others have, over recent years, begun to build towards that status and have deployed significant financial and human resources over several years in preparing their cities and their bids.

Dublin cannot currently claim to be a centre for world-class design, but in this talk Ali Grehan will outline the ambition, imagination and vision behind the bid to fashion Dublin into an internationally-recognised centre of excellence in this field.

The Irish Creative/Design Community has considerable potential. There should be no doubt about our ability to mount an exceptional WDC year (when we achieve that designation) and by doing so to contribute greatly to the development of the WDC brand itself – as well as creating a much more pleasant, equal, green, social, interesting … and creative city for citizens of Dublin and those who visit.

BUT … Realistically, this is a most difficult ‘project’ to win as the competition includes many outstanding global cities with longer histories in design, with deeper pockets to fund projects, (and now with more stable economies!) and there are other issues too.

Where are we now? Ail Grehan and Dublin City Council have provided the leadership and impetus for the bid. The design community and the creative sector in general have joined ‘the cause’. Dublin’s bid must be submitted by 31st March 2011. The clock is running – and even after the bid is submitted there is much work to be done.

EVENT DETAILS: Wednesday 24 November from 1 – 2 pm, The Trinity Long Room Hub presents a lunchtime talk by Ali Grehan, Dublin City Architect, Dublin City Council, in the Neill / Hoey Lecture theatre, Trinity Long Room Building, Fellows’ Square, Trinity College Dublin, Admission Free, All Welcome