DUBLIN WILL step up its efforts to establish itself as a global design icon after the city narrowly missed out on being named World Design Capital in Taipei.
During the process of bidding, there had been an enormous amount of work done and the capital remains committed to implementing the ideas generated during the bidding process, said Dublin city architect Ali Grehan.
“The ideas in the bid strategy should be done. The Innovation Dublin festival has had a successful purpose – innovation through design. That’s design as a verb rather than a noun,” said Ms Grehan.
She was speaking after an event in the capital city of Taiwan to announce the winner, and the Dublin team had looked like excellent candidates to win. However, in the end the World Design Capital jury chose Cape Town, which celebrated the announcement with flag-waving, dancing and a speech by executive mayor Patricia de Lille.
Dublin’s Lord Mayor Andrew Montague, who attended the award event, was disappointed that Dublin didn’t win.
“But we have to not lose the momentum that we’ve gained in putting design centre stage in Dublin, to tackle some of the serious problems in the city. There’s been huge energy created by the whole process and you can’t lose that energy and somehow harness that energy,” he said.
The decision is made by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design on behalf of the International Design Alliance. Previous winners include Torino in Italy and the Korean capital Seoul, and next year Helsinki will take over the mantle.
The ideas that were generated as the bid was compiled, in a project known as Pivot Dublin, were extremely useful and the design community would follow them up, said Ms Grehan.