“EVERYBODY is a designer,” says Hilary Cottam. Having just landed the award for Designer of the Year, these are generous words.

The Design Museum’s £25,000 award, supported by The Times and announced last week, was given in recognition of ground-breaking work in public sector design carried out by Cottam as head of the Design Council’s RED team. The award is considered the most prestigious in the world of design.

For some, “public sector” and “design” may appear to be unlikely bedfellows: the d-word often arouses suspicions, regarded by many as a matter of aesthetics. Translated into the public sector this can summon up visions of little more than hanging baskets and good street lighting. But Cottam is keen to explain that a design-led approach goes much deeper: “It’s about having a radical vision,” she says. “It’s a toolkit for bringing together the right people.” Like a film director, the key to Cottam’s success lies with her ability to involve the best experts for any given project.

Refreshingly, Cottam’s acclaimed design skills have come about not as a result of specific training, but through more practical experiences of working in developing countries where consultation work was carried out at a grass-roots level. Development projects in Ethiopia and the Dominican Republic were followed by a stint at the World Bank in Washington DC.

“I had always wanted to work in the UK, but there was not much investment in the public sector,” she says. But this changed in 1997 when the Government announced plans to invest millions in refurbishing secondary schools. Though she was working on her PhD at the time, Cottam spotted an opportunity to use her skills and experiences, and School Works was born (see Data File).

In a manner befitting the collaborative way in which she works, Cottam is hopeful that her status as designer of the year will open up the debate on public sector design, and is quick to identify key issues.

“Procurement processes. We need to be much more sophisticated in the ways we compute best value.” Too often, Cottam explains, costs are examined in simplistic ways and the Government often asks the wrong questions.

Similarly, she would like to see consultation procedures evolve into something more meaningful than expensive exercises in lip-service.

“There’s lots of cynicism around,” she admits. So how does she overcome this? “With sheer enthusiasm.” And it is hard to imagine that any of the public sector professionals, experts and service users who have collaborated on RED’s projects would not be affected by Cottam’s evident passion for design-led solutions.

ANNA KÖNIG

Data File

PROJECTS

www.designcouncil.org.uk/mt/red/

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