About the Project

Designer's Treasure Chest to preschool education groups in fall 2012

The World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 cities — Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen, and Lahti — implement the Designer's Treasure Chest project that provides the cities' preschoolers with design experiences. 

The Designer's Treasure Chest is a design-education package targeted at preschoolers. It includes a guidebook on design methods as well as materials for workshops. The curriculum-based contents encourage children — by means of play, stories, and own doing — to inspect their own environment from the perspective of design.

The Designer's Treasure Chest remains at preschool education where it can be utilized again and again in children's design education.

The exercises focus on considering what design really entails. The slogans — Where is design?  and Let's find design! — are based on a hide-and-seek game familiar to children. The theme of the workshops is a shoe, of which children have their own everyday experiences.

Preschool education employees in all the participating cities are given training events from the beginning of early fall 2012 to support the implementation of the treasure chest. 

City of Vantaa acts as the accelerator of the project, which constitutes part of the World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 program. The year 2012 offers design-centered experiences and conferences both in Finland and globally; our aim is to find and present ways to enhance our urban habitat.