Footprint: a collaborative project of socially-engaged sustainable design

Footprint was a University of Edinburgh Innovative Learning Week project aiming to equip students with skills in facilitating social engagement and sustainability and to use them to benefit the local community. Based on the importance of collaboration: we worked with Pidgin Perfect, a Glaswegian creative studio who conceived the innovative design approach that the students used to help PEDAL, a Transition Town action group based in Edinburgh’s Portobello area, who are working to turn Portobello into a sustainable community in both economic and environmental terms.

The project brief set by PEDAL was to research public reaction to the idea of a local currency. The students spent the week in Portobello carrying out fieldwork which was presented in the form of a pop-up exhibition and was attended by PEDAL group members, as well as local councillors and other members of the local community.