X-Crop is a research and innovation lab. We make cities, organisations, and people better by design!

With our collective ingenuity, creativity, and commitment to solve, we imagine a world where everyone feels healthy, prepared, safe, and fulfilled.

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The Lab

X-Crop is a Cambridge-based research and innovation lab (a space for open and transparent collaborations between many stakeholders sharing a mutual interest in design research) founded and led by Dr. Idrees Rasouli; exploring products, processes, and places that mitigate and respond to urban emergencies (emergence and unforeseen situations whose sudden and underestimated flows affect the environment, society, economy, technology, and governance).

We’re small, connected, and serious about the extraordinary power of design and its strategic powers as a catalyst for societal transition (systems-level change) through interdisciplinary (influencing other disciplines) and multidisciplinary (drawing from multiple disciplines) collaborations and influence over approaches for creating creative, systemic, and efficient responses for specific geographic, cultural, and political contexts.

We collaborate with public and private sector businesses, civil society institutions, grassroots, and professional associations, communities, and individuals to drive design-led systems change and develop ecologies of interventions with and for cities, organisations, and people affected by urban emergencies.

Our explorations employ cutting-edge design techniques and knowledge-driven approaches, as well as critical design research, participatory systems analysis, deliberate action, and augmented intelligence. Findings from our explorations are frequently presented as case studies at national and international conferences, academic and business inquiries, research publications, international media, community assemblies, and exhibitions to empower changemakers to take bold actions centred on policy, equity, sustainability, and climate change.

Our Purpose

X-Crop refers to the process of investigating the value of the unknown (x) while crafting better responses (crop) to urban emergencies. It was established in 2020 with the help of a Daiwa Foundation grant given to Idrees Rasouli, who began to engage in an emerging academic field of 'Design in/for Emergency' through a cross-cultural project exploring the immediate and long-term needs of Kamaishi, its organisations, and people following the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

We’re motivated by the need to demonstrate the social and economic value of design for emergencies in the service of cities, organisations, and people, as well as to develop, disseminate, and employ new methods for developing systemic, innovative, and effective responses to urban emergencies.

Our Expertise

X-Crop collaborates with designers, researchers, artists, creative technologists, anthropologists, ecologists, scientists, social economists, strategists, engineers, and architects to improve the emotional, physical, and community well-being, as well as the environmental and economic well-being of cities, organisations, and people.

Our work often involves designing products and services that address complex human and urban needs; designing meaningful interactions and ecosystems that define goals, establish direction, and achieve the big picture within the context of larger systems; and designing spaces and experiences that improve social, cultural, physical, and health conditions.

Our Manifesto

Design Accelerates: Believing that cities are complex, organisations are diverse, and human needs are unique! Design has the power to shift and accelerate societal change and ensure the planet will thrive for future generations.

Design Decolonises: Integrating people’s needs and perspectives and starting with the immediate context, available tools, and local materials! Design can create long-term value and give cities, organisations, and people a meaningful and relevant future.

Design Cares: Valuing and reflecting the diversity and sensibilities of cities, organisations, and people when responding to the fragile interdependencies of the world! Design enables simple, impactful, and thoughtful responses; it cares, fulfills purpose, and is easy to measure.

Our Approach

We understand the need to do things differently. Every aspect of our process is approached holistically to provide the most beneficial response possible through experiential and social learning.

Integrated systems thinking and design doing is the process by which we achieve the best results. While research and contextual understanding lead to discovery, ideas, and concept design, the development and production of our ideas are heavily influenced by locally available knowledge, tools, and materials.

Our Values

We start with needs and use design and first-hand experience through the eyes of people who use them, citizens, and experts to understand and respond to cities', organisations', and people's immediate and long-term needs.

Collaboration and Studying Design in/for Emergency

We work with international and interdisciplinary partners to investigate and develop ideas that are manageable, doable, and purposeful for the benefit of all, as well as to engage those with the authority to change policy, approach, and practice. Our vision will not be easily realised, but we will succeed through collaboration, curiosity, and a love of the mundane.

Design in/for Emergency is explored through MA Art, Health and Wellbeing, MA Interior Design Innovation, and MA Human-Centred Design at the Cambridge School of Art, and as part of the programmes we offer placement opportunities for students in the X-Crop lab.

X-Crop
Cambridge, UK

Company No. 9107547 Registered in England & Wales

© 2024 X-Crop