How to move a city: Claes Frossen at TEDxNYIT

Frossen is an industrial designer by trade who works as a senior design advisor at SVID, the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation. He is head of creative industry relations and is committed to developing and applying design methods in new areas for both private industry and society.

How do you move a city? Frossen will explain how 40 people of different professions from 17 countries started a project to do just that when parts of a small mining city Gellivare in the northern part of Sweden had to move because of the expanding mining industry. The original plan was to move houses to a new place. When protests arose, Frossen, SVID, and a team showed that the new focus should be about moving lives instead of buildings. The task, he noted, should come to be about needs, visions, fears and desires—not only housing. And, he notes, a well-crafted design process can help move cities, rebuild others, or re-shape problems in a more democratic fashion.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)