Palmwood presents a workshop in which participants will be given weird and wonderful design prompts to see how wild their brain can go. This creative workout will add to their design flow, and they’ll take home some truly surreal products.

Creativity is not a “gift” for some special few - it’s a muscle that needs constant exercise to grow bigger and stronger. IDEO’s ‘Creative Gym’ offers weekly Design Fiction workouts which invite participants to let their imaginations go a little crazy, and jolt them outside of their comfort zones with surreal challenges. What might a sand restaurant look like just for ants? How do you design action figures made from Celine Dion’s dreams? If the world was different during the Cambrian Explosion, how would our evolutionary family tree look different?

Mitch Sinclair, Chief Creative Officer of Palmwood and Senior Design Director at IDEO, hosts this workshop which will get creative juices flowing, blood pumping and hearts racing, pushing the approach to these quirky design challenges with a playful, open, and non-judgmental spirit. Using elementary craft supplies and found objects, the team imagines, builds and presents concepts. No constraints, no rules, no judgement. This ambiguous, abstract space allows everyone to truly let go and imagine the unimaginable. The truth is - every big idea that’s changed the world has come from this mindset. This isn’t design thinking, it’s design fiction.

This event is sponsored by Dubai Future Foundation.

Recommended for ages 8-80

Free Entry.

Limited spaces. RSVP here.

About Palmwood
Palmwood is a creative organization founded by the UAE Government and IDEO, a global design firm. Building on a deep-rooted tradition of collaboration, Palmwood works with partners dedicated to generosity, curiosity, and creativity to improve lives in the UAE and beyond. It is a design-led movement creating new solutions for governments and organizations, developing creative capabilities in the people of the UAE, and opening up new conversations about what is possible through design.