Research Interests

Design Against Crime as Socially Responsive Design (SRVD), using design to address social issues linked to products, public spaces and/or public services. 3D/industrial design, Graphic Design/Packaging, Co-Design/User-centred (interaction) design focussing on abusers and mis-users as well as sustainability issues. Fashion-Product Crossover design; Crime; designing products, places and systems against crime, disorder, drug abuse and terrorism; Gender, and representation; visual communication, consumer culture in the post-modern context.

Current Research

As director of the socially responsive practice-led Design Against Crime Research Centre my research interests can best be understood with reference to the following websites that I have either created/co created or which contain some of my work:-

www.goneshopping.org.uk
www.designagainstcrime.com
www.inthebag.org.uk
www.bikeoff.org
www.stopthiefchair.com

My previous focus on issues relating to gender, representation, consumer culture and design contained in many publications has subsided although I still retain an interest in these debates and my 2008 paper on the Sopranos reflects this interest. Nowadays most of my research is spent on design against crime subjects - publications on bag and bike theft, as well as on the “dark side of creativity” and shoplifting continues. Recently I have been researching design issues linked to public space raised by street furniture design and graffiti, as well as street urination and other social design issues. I am interested in how designers might draw upon the “dark side of creativity” and to “think thief” in order to design against crime. I am keen to show as well as tell what design can deliver, and a lot of my research effort is involved in finding new ways to visualise methodologies and perpetrator techniques delivered as design resources that aim to help designers get smart quick. I am also trying to help DACRC form a partnership with the Drama Centre London to find new ways to dramatise and visualise evidence about crime, and in the international context to set up DAC hubs in partnership with the Designing Out Crime Centre in Sydney, Australia.

In partnership with Adam Thorpe and DACRC my work has won several awards for design innovation and together we have co-curated over 15 design exhibitions and catalysed a number of DAC product ranges including Karrysafe bags, Bikeoff anti-theft bike stands and, with Marcus Willcocks, Stop Thief chairs. I have also run many student projects with the studios at Central Saint Martins and other UAL colleges, often in partnership with Thorpe and have also set in collaboration with other partners national student competitions (including the current RSA Design Directions brief on shoplifting which I co-wrote).

Current Research includes:

• Social design. I am on the expert panel for crime as part of an Audi Design Foundation led project called “Sustain Our Nation” (SoN) - working together to develop a programme to deliver a pan-regional sustainable social enterprise competition during 2009/10; I have also been invited by the British Council to participate in their Creative Cities programme, which is linked to an international social innovation network.
• Business Crime. I work in partnership with the Design Council and am involved in delivering the Home Office’s Design Technology Alliance design agenda. I lead on Business Crime; consulting with businesses about finding efficient ways to use design to minimise the crimes which victimise them, their customers or employees – such as shoplifting and other forms of retail theft.
• Currently, with Adam Thorpe, I am working on how best to pilot a Social Innovation Network (SIN); a University wide online network to archive socially responsive/social innovation projects produced by students across the University.
• Working with the Southbank Centre (SBC) and colleagues from DACRC investigating opportunities to work with young people who are using the Southbank Undercroft space as a public tagging/graffiti art site, and working with other stakeholders to deliver a funding bids to review the crime of graffiti and find new ways, to address vandalism whilst promote arts practice and mitigating stakeholder conflicts.
• Grippa anti theft clips. In terms of further development of my work on bag theft, I have been reviewing user-testing of anti bag theft products in London and Barcelona. The DAC Research Centre in partnership with the UCL Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science and in collaboration with Elisava school of design (Barcelona), have worked with bars in London (Wetherspoons) and Barcelona (Glaciar and Horiginal) to assess the usability of the latest DAC bag clips and communication design prototypes; evaluation (to be led by Prof Ekblom and completed in 2010).
• Bike theft. In terms of further development of my work on bike theft, I have been working with Adam Thorpe to review user-testing of Camden stands and to investigate anti bike theft measures. We have recently completed an AHRC funded project on bike theft, and presently working with Brighton and Hove on a Civitas research project connected to reducing bike theft in Europe.



Recent Research

• 2010: Gamman L and Thorpe A (in press) Are You Sitting Comfortably? Invitation to publish in Saville G (ed) International CPTED Association, Newsletter, Vol 9, 2010.
• 2010: Gamman, L. and Raein, M. (in press) The Art of Crime, in Cropley (ed.) Invitation to publish in The Dark Side of Creativity Reader, Cambridge University Press, 2010.
• Gamman, L., Bowers, K., Johnson, S. D., Mamerow, L. and Warne, A. (in press). Theft of customers’ personal property from cafes and bars. Problem-Oriented Guides for Police, Problem- Specific Guides Series U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
• Gamman, L. and Thorpe, A. Review of Design Against Crime (DAC) and Perceptions of Crime in Kaunas, Urban Ideas Bakery, organised by the British Council in Lithuania.
• 2009: Gamman, L. and Armitage, R. (eds.) (2009) Built Environment, Sustainability via Security: A New Look. Vol 35, no. 3. Alexandrine Press. Also contributed the article with Thorpe, A. Less is More – What Design Against Crime Can Contribute To Sustainability.
• 2009: Gamman, L. and Willcocks, W. (2009) Greening not Cleaning in Saville, G. (ed.) International CPTED Association newsletter. Volume 8, Issue 2.
• 2009: Gamman, L., Ekblom, P., Johnson, S. D., Sidebottom, A. and Thorpe, A. (2009) Bike Off 2 - Catalysing Anti Theft Bike, Bike Parking And Information Design For The 21st Century: An Open Innovation Research Approach in Inns, T. (ed.) Designing for the 21st Century. Gower Publishing Ltd.
• 2009: Appeared in BBC 2. Art in Troubled Times: The Home Front - part of Alan Yentob’s Imagine series. Broadcast 28 July 2009.
• 2009: Designing Out Crime Research Centre (DOCRC) Australia. (June – July 2009). Funded Research and Teaching invitation. Lorraine Gamman and Adam Thorpe who have pioneered the practice-led component of DAC and its 'twin track' research process presented their work and trained others to deliver a similar approach to design research, design innovation and enterprise, to excellent feedback.
• 2009: Appeared with Adam Thorpe in BBC Scotland’s Designed World. Broadcast 5 June 2009, as DAC theme.
• 2009: Mentioned in Design Week. Hot 50. February 2009.
• 2008: Gamman, L. (2008) On Gangster Suits and Silhouettes. In Uhlirova, M. (ed.) If Looks could Kill. Cinemas Images of Fashion, Crime and Violence. London, UK.
• 2008: Gamman, L. and Thorpe, A. (December 2008) Social Innovation, presentation to Beijing Delegation of Civil Servants, University of the Arts London.
• 2008: Gamman, L. and Thorpe, A. (July 2008) Less is More – What Design Against Crime Can Contribute To Sustainability, presentation at Changing the Change Conference, Turin.
• 2008: Gamman, L. and Thorpe, A. (June 2008) Design Against Paranoid Cities and Socially Responsive Design for Public Spaces, presentation at RIBA's Building Futures - Conflict Debate event.
• 2008: Selected exhibitions: Co-curator Putting the Brakes on Bike Theft exhibition on bicycle parking solutions, New London Architecture, and The Barbican, London. (2008). Exhibited DAC exemplars at the Design In Public Space: Safety conference (organised/curated by Katarzyna Jezowska of the Polish Design Centre), Silesian Castle of Art and Enterprise, Cieszyn, Poland. (2008). Co-curator Safer Sustainable Cities - Hosted by Swansea Metropolitan University in partnership with the Design Against Crime Research Centre (2008).
• 2007: ‘Profit from Paranoia’, Conference contribution, European Academy of Design, Dancing with Disorder: Design, Discourse and Disorder, Izmir Turkey.
• 2006: ‘6th Annual Bicycle Film Festival’, Cochrane Theatre, London.
• 2006: ‘Design Against Crime as Socially Responsive Theory and Practice’, Conference contribution, Design 2006, Dubrovnik, Croatia.
• 2006: ‘Dirty Washing - the Hidden Language of Soap Powder Packaging’, Authored book, Booth Clibborn Contract agreed
• 2006: ‘Reinventing the Bikeshed’, Exhibition, Arches, Tooley Street, London.
• 2006: ‘SAFE: Design Takes on Risk’, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
• 2006: ‘What is Socially Responsible Design - a Theory and Practice Review’, Conference contribution, Design Research Society International Conference, Lisbon.
• 2005: ‘5th Annual Bicycle Film Festival, Cochrane Theatre, London,
• 2005: ‘Bikeoff.org’, Exhibition, TfL Bike Fest, Trafalgar Square, London.

Email:

l.gamman@csm.arts.ac.uk