A New Era for Experience Haus Design Days

Every year, we try to organise at least three Design Days for our alumni as a way to catch up with fellow course mates, network with others, and work on an additional project they can add to their portfolio. Previously, this has involved working on a client brief in just one day to solve a design challenge. This year, however, things looked a little different.

In previous years, Experience Haus alumni were given the opportunity to complete an additional client project by taking part in our popular Design Days. Clients have included the City of London, ActionAid and the MET and City of London Police. During these days, students have created some amazing outputs for the clients, but the issue was ‘what’s next?’ Some of the clients used previously have been able to implement some of the concepts from these days, but only a few. This is where our new venture comes in.

Introducing: hauslabs

Hauslabs is a new internal innovation lab at Experience Haus, a natural next step in a mission to build out impactful ventures. These ventures will provide our students with incredible learning opportunities, and the chance to lead these projects and join the world of entrepreneurship.

On Saturday 30th September, 2023, hauslabs was officially launched to our students and the first challenge  to create solutions to some of London’s most pressing needs.

Londoners living in poverty

According to analysis from the Social Metrics Commission (SMC), around 2.5 million Londoners are in poverty.

That means they are struggling to make ends meet, secure good-quality affordable housing, or tie down the decent work they need to rise above the poverty line. And this affects people from all ages:

• It is estimated that one in three children living in London are living in poverty
• Around one in nine London pensioners are living in material deprivation, unable to access daily necessities

Our students were split into eight teams of five, working through the entire design process to come up with a product or service that would enable those living in poverty in London to improve their current situations. Teams were given the following areas to look at and focus on:

• Access to education and necessary skills
• Access to healthcare
• Financial literacy and inclusion
• Improving individual health and wellbeing
• Gaining employability skills and jobs

Projects included a platform to allow single parents improve their employability skills and so apply for higher paying jobs, a mental health app that helps those dealing with financial stress, and a programme that allows those with limited resources to access laptops, tablets and computers, especially those with children at school who need one for their studies.  

You can read more about each project here. 

So, what’s next?

Now, the next step is exploring how each of these projects can be taken forward, and assessing the viability and feasibility of the approaches so far.   

If you’re interested in taking any of these projects forward or are interested in participating in a design day in the future, please get in touch. Keep an eye on our hauslabs site as we add more solutions tackling some of London’s most important issues.