‘Students want to stay here now rather than disappear to London’: how design transformed the city of Dundee

The city of Dundee, about 60 miles north of Edinburgh on Scotland’s east coast, was once best known for its industry: whaling and shipbuilding in the 19th century, then its celebrated “three Js” – jute, jam and journalism.

But in recent years, Dundee has developed another reputation: as an arts and culture hub, and the UK’s first and only Unesco-designated “design city”.

On Friday, at a former Michelin factory in the north-east of the city, the finishing touches were being put in place for the fifth Dundee design festival, which opens on Monday. The festival, held every two years, showcases work by more than 180 designers across disciplines including textiles, homeware and more.

In the factory, a colourful woodland of knitted trees points towards a collection of bookends commissioned from Scottish designers and inspired by the globetrotting travels in 1894 of Dundee Courier journalists Marie Imandt and Bessie Maxwell. Elsewhere, sculpture made from coat hangers sits alongside jewellery, ceramics and furniture.

“We’re obsessed with design and we just want other people to see why we’re so passionate about it,” said the festival’s creative director, Stacey Hunter. “You can tell so much about a society by the way it designs things and expresses itself. It’s what gives objects meaning.”

Exhibits ranging from tables, chairs and vases to video games, costumes and aeroplane seats are displayed on reworked plinths and backdrops salvaged from previous exhibitions and retail deadstock – a mark of the festival’s zero-waste commitments. Visitors will be able to attend free practical drop-ins on disciplines ranging from screenprinting to biophilic design, alongside a programme of talks and discussions.

This year’s festival will mark 10 years since Unesco designated Dundee a design city, alongside Berlin, Montreal, Istanbul and others. The accolade is given to cities which have an established design industry and opportunities for designers, among other criteria.

“The designation recognises everything that was happening here already and it also gives us access to so much,” said Annie Marrs, who led Dundee’s campaign to win he status.

“For us, it’s about getting design and creativity out into communities across the city. With the festival, we want to build capacity, grow skills, employ people and create opportunities to make a living from being a designer here.”

In 2018, the Victoria and Albert Museum opened V&A Dundee on the city’s waterfront, the star attraction in a £1bn regeneration of what was once dockland. The V&A, Scotland’s first design museum, is housed in a striking geometric building designed by Japanese architects Kengo Kuma and Associates, and inspired by the jagged cliffs of north-east Scotland.

The city is also home to Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), one of the UK’s top art schools.

“I don’t think there’s another place in the UK that could have this building,” said the museum’s director, Leonie Bell. “With all our history and now the art school, the Unesco designation and the incredibly epic and exciting journey the design festival is on, you’ve got a real layering of design heritage in Dundee, but also the potential to use it and keep the future journey going.”

The welcome desk for the festival stands upon a set of paving slabs – known by the Scots word “cassies”, which are cut with patterns to emulate woven designs associated with Dundee’s textile history.

The cassies were co-created with Dundee residents after hundreds of hours of consultation about how they wanted the city centre’s redesigned Union Street to look.

“Since the designation, we’ve been working more collectively with groups throughout the city, showcasing how design can make a positive impact to their daily lives,” said Gary Kennedy, a co-designer of the slabs and co-founder of the architectural practice Kennedy Twaddle.

“We’re reaching a lot of different people that don’t consider themselves designers. We’re propped up by being a Unesco city of design.

“That is having impacts in communities across the city.”

Alongside his practice, Kennedy and the co-designer of the cassies, Linsey McIntosh teach at DJCAD.

McIntosh said their students benefited from the ambition driven by the Unesco recognition.

“They’re not designing in a bubble within the confines of DJCAD, but getting out there and engaging with people and design across the city,” she said.

“It gives them another string to their bow and makes them more employable. The opportunities are becoming more and more here – it’s really building momentum, and students want to stay here now rather than disappearing to London.”

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Designer and maker Camillo Feuchter, whose work features in the festival, graduated in June in interior and environmental design. On Dundee’s Annfield Road, the results of his ambitious thesis project can be seen in the form of EH9, a coffee shop. He designed and built its interior from scratch – from its service counters and partition walls to the 3D-printed lampshades inspired by the cafe’s rippled mugs, and stools built from recycled plastic.

“There’s a really supportive creative community – within such a short time I feel so embedded,” said Feuchter.

Many here describe Dundee as a “goldilocks” city for creativity: not too big and not too small, but just the right size to cultivate connections and create ambitious work. That is a description Feuchter recognises: “There’s so much going on, but it’s on a level where you can make a name for yourself.”

That future looks bright for the city, with Scotland’s first iteration of the Eden project and a cutting edge visual effects lab among new developments set to arrive in the coming years.

Back at the Michelin factory, between sewing costumes and adjusting lighting, Marrs said: “Things feel really exciting.

“Our Unesco designation is for life and it belongs to everyone – there are so many possibilities.”