Twelve organisations representing all aspects of Australia’s design industry and research network have launched the Australian Design Alliance [AdA] to boost Australia’s productivity, sustainability and innovation.
One hundred of Australia's designers, architects, planners, artists, educators and policy makers launched the new Alliance at a first-ever meeting held in the Utzon Room of the Sydney Opera House.
One of the attending [AdA] directors, Jo-Ann Kellock, says the new Alliance emerged from a series of consultations about how design should be an integral element of Australia’s national innovation system at a time of rapidly changing business models and processes.
"Australia's design professionals are internationally renowned for their creative skills, project management and teamwork. These are crucial capabilities for a more productive Australian economy," Kellock says.
The Alliance will pursue a national design agenda based on:
- case studies demonstrating how good design can contribute to improved economic growth through supporting superior business models and improved public sector service delivery
- education and design skills at all education levels from school to MBAs
- national design policy linked to Australia's innovation agenda
"The formation of the Australian Design Alliance to provide evidence-based multi-disciplinary advice to governments and industry represents a step towards a new respect for the place that designers can play in our everyday lives," says Michael Bryce, who advocated for design at the 2020 summit in 2007.
"Good design in all of its fields creates economic and competitive outcomes. Poor design or design by default leaves too much to chance. If Australia is to be counted in the progressive nations of the world, competing on a world stage, it is no longer good enough to be only an agricultural and minerals based economy."
In one example discussed at the meeting, Anthony Henry, division director at Macquarie Group, was asked how design thinking has had a positive impact on Macquarie and helped the business maintain a competitive advantage.
"The environment that staff now work in is designed to provide the opportunity for the maximum amount of collaboration and sharing of knowledge to provide the best solutions for clients and client services," Henry says.
"Our new interior has impacted in ways we didn’t anticipate and design process has started to influence the way we think and provide the ability for different teams to sit in customized areas that help them to find business solutions that were simply not possible before."
