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UAL Research Online

Thinking Thief - Designing out Misuse, Abuse and 'Criminal' Aesthetics

Hughes, Ben and Gamman, Lorraine (2003) Thinking Thief - Designing out Misuse, Abuse and 'Criminal' Aesthetics. Ingenia, 15. pp. 36-43. ISSN 14729768

Type of Research: Article
Creators: Hughes, Ben and Gamman, Lorraine
Description:

This article is a dissemination of work undertaken in association with the Centre for Design Against Crime to the engineering community.

It documents the unique practice and evidence-based approach to designing out opportunities for crime developed at the Centre. It demonstrates how research techniques that encompass an understanding of the innovative nature of criminal activity can be used to predict and eliminate potential risk. The paper includes reference to work undertaken in areas such as burglary and home security, bag theft and assault.

Official Website: http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/ingenia/issue15/Gamman.pdf
Additional Information (Publicly available):

Ben Hughes

Research Interests

Product design/development, concept, image and its relationship to function. Design against crime, anti-theft bag prototypes. As a director of DTG (Design Transformation Group) I have instigated, designed, curated + organised several events incuding workshops, conference papers, exhibitions. Forthcoming events under the "claystation" series include the Jerwood prize "My Chair" at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, July 2005, Designersblock Frankfurt August 2005, Block Architecture Festival at the Lighthouse, Glasgow October 2005 and Designersblock, London September 2005.

Current Research

All the research is incorporated into the development and design of the cited projects. These have primarily been large commercial products which have involved the development of concept, image and its relation ship to function. The most recent research and product development has been undertaken in the context of the 'Design Against Crime' project in this case applied to the design of a anti-theft bag concepts and prototypes. The results of this research have been exhibited in the UK and more recently in Milan.

Lorraine Gamman

Director, Design Against Crime Research Centre
Reader, Design Context, School of Graphic and Industrial Design

Research Interests

3D/industrial design, Graphic Design/Packaging, User-centred (interaction) design, Fashion Product Crossover Design, Crime; designing products, places and systems against crime, disorder, drug abuse and terrorism, Gender,Visual communication, Consumer culture in the post-modern context

Current Research

There are two strands to my research profile. The first is the most significant (0.8 of my time) and linked to the newly created University of the Arts, Design Against Crime (DAC) Research Centre, which received designation status in July 2005, which develops the work of the Design Against Crime Research Initiative at Central Saint Martins, that I set up in 2001. I am currently the Director of the DAC Research Centre and involved in developing business and research links as well as externally funded to work on "drug related crime in shopping environments" by the Home Office (project concludes in 2006), and with Adam Thorpe, externally funded by Transport for London (TfL) in 2005-6 to develop further practice led design research into bike theft, started originally with funding from the Arts Humanities Research Council (2004-5).

Since 2001, I have collaborated with the Design Council/ Home Office who funded me to produce a resource for designers interested in designing out bag theft In the Bag (2001 - reprinted in 2002, and 2004) and distributed both nationally and internationally as part of fourteen DAC exhibitions including: Stop Thief - Secure Design Doesn't Have to Look Criminal (Royal Institute of British Architects, 2001, Designers Block), Don't Tempt Me (I Saloni, Milan and Primavera, Barcelona 2001) and Secure Design for Safer Travel (I Saloni Milan 2002, Victoria 2003). During this period I have also delivered numerous practice led externally funded anti crime research projects including Karrysafe - anti theft bags and accessories, funded by the Design Council 2001-2 and Grippa - concept proofing and testing of anti theft furniture accessories and design process documentation, funded by an Arts Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Innovation Award 2004-5 and by matched funding from Westminster and Islington Councils. I have also been involved in creating publications that explain design against crime as a practice based research activity and which offer a model of the design against crime iterative research process (Crime Prevention and Community Safety Journal - co-editor of special issue 'Seeing is Believing' with Dr. Tim Pascoe and co-author of 2 articles and book review, published in November 2004 by Perpetuity Press ('Seeing is Believing: Notes Towards a Visual Methodology and Manifesto for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design' with Dr. Tim Pascoe; 'Bike Off! Tracking the Design Terrains of Cycle Parking: Reviewing Use, Misuse and Abuse' with Adam Thorpe and Marcus Willcocks; 'Design Out Crime? Using Practice-based Models of the Design Process' with Dr. Tim Pascoe; a book review of 'Travel Advisory: How to Avoid Thefts, Cons and Street Scams While Travelling' by Bambi Vincent and Bob Arno). Co-author of the article 'Thinking Thief', RSA Ingenia Magazine, with Ben Hughes, May 2003).

The second strand to my research profile (0.2 of my time) is linked to much earlier work on gender, representation, and the body as well as packaging. In the last RAE period I have written a number of critical essays on connected themes for books published by Routledge and Rutgers University Press (UK and USA). I have worked on Smoke Free London - tobacco point of sale material scoping study and have contributed (with Sean O'Mara) to the Encyclopaedia of Clothing and Fashion, (Charles Scribner's Sons, September 2004). I am presently writing up a single authored book on soap powder packaging (Clean Dreams) to be published by Middlesex University in 2007 (which develops the catalogue work of the exhibition I co -curated for the Design Museum in 2001-2 "Dirty Washing - the Hidden Language of Soap Powder Packaging").

Your affiliations with UAL: Colleges > Central Saint Martins
Research Centres/Networks > Design Against Crime at the Innovation Centre (DAC)
Date: 1 February 2003
Date Deposited: 05 Dec 2009 11:42
Last Modified: 19 May 2010 14:41
Item ID: 1136
URI: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/1136

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