Ever wondered how society-driven design can spark profound social change? Join us as we sit down with Judah Armani, an inspiring educator who shares his unique journey from studying design at St. Martin's to cleaning industrial bean-pots for Heinz, and how these experiences shaped his passion for creating meaningful dialogues that lead to material change.
Judah takes us through the importance of moving beyond quick-fix methods, explaining how a balance between data-driven design and visionary insights can lead to transformative ideas that resonate deeply with communities.
Judah's two decades of experience reveal the necessity of being open to personal change before facilitating broader societal transformations.
We dive into the nuances of designing conversations that foster genuine collaboration and trust, stressing that these processes can't be rushed. From building trust within historically let-down communities to creating authentic, impactful solutions, Judah's insights illuminate the critical role of empathetic engagement in driving sustained social change.
But the conversation doesn't stop there. We also explore In House Records, an innovative approach to prison education, where music becomes a powerful tool for learning and rehabilitation. Judah introduces the concept of a record label as a dynamic learning environment, merging numeracy, literacy, and business skills in captivating ways. This chapter not only showcases the enthusiastic response from inmates but also critically examines the limitations of traditional education models. Through compelling narratives and personal anecdotes, we uncover the transformative potential of aligning educational methods with individual interests, ultimately paving the way for reduced re-offending rates and successful rehabilitation.
Judah's book, Society Driven Design was published in May and is available from small independent bookshops (and the big, corporate ones too).
About Judah:
Judah Armani is an educator, frequent maker and occasional writer.He is a partner at The Royal College of Art where he heads up the Social Impact Studio within the Service Design M.A. programme. He is an visitong professor of Service Design at the Musashino Art College in Tokyo, Japan, and a visiting fellow at the Rhode Island School of Design’s strategic studio; The Center for Complexity in Providence, USA.Judah is also a visiting lecturer at Elisava school of design in Barcelona, Spain and Köln international school of design in Cologne, Germany.Judah is the founder of Public Service Design Practice, co-creating award winning initiatives that have been provid
Judah takes us through the importance of moving beyond quick-fix methods, explaining how a balance between data-driven design and visionary insights can lead to transformative ideas that resonate deeply with communities.
Judah's two decades of experience reveal the necessity of being open to personal change before facilitating broader societal transformations.
We dive into the nuances of designing conversations that foster genuine collaboration and trust, stressing that these processes can't be rushed. From building trust within historically let-down communities to creating authentic, impactful solutions, Judah's insights illuminate the critical role of empathetic engagement in driving sustained social change.
But the conversation doesn't stop there. We also explore In House Records, an innovative approach to prison education, where music becomes a powerful tool for learning and rehabilitation. Judah introduces the concept of a record label as a dynamic learning environment, merging numeracy, literacy, and business skills in captivating ways. This chapter not only showcases the enthusiastic response from inmates but also critically examines the limitations of traditional education models. Through compelling narratives and personal anecdotes, we uncover the transformative potential of aligning educational methods with individual interests, ultimately paving the way for reduced re-offending rates and successful rehabilitation.
Judah's book, Society Driven Design was published in May and is available from small independent bookshops (and the big, corporate ones too).
About Judah:
Judah Armani is an educator, frequent maker and occasional writer.He is a partner at The Royal College of Art where he heads up the Social Impact Studio within the Service Design M.A. programme. He is an visitong professor of Service Design at the Musashino Art College in Tokyo, Japan, and a visiting fellow at the Rhode Island School of Design’s strategic studio; The Center for Complexity in Providence, USA.Judah is also a visiting lecturer at Elisava school of design in Barcelona, Spain and Köln international school of design in Cologne, Germany.Judah is the founder of Public Service Design Practice, co-creating award winning initiatives that have been provid
Service Design YAP is developed and produced by the Service Design Network UK Chapter.
Its aim is to engage and connect the wider Service Design community.
- Episode Host: Stephen Wood
- Production Assistance: Jean Watanya
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stephen Wood (00:14):
Welcome to another episode of Service Design.
Yap.
I'm your host, stephen Wood.
As an industry, we seem to havebeen accelerating design with
sprints and jams and hacks tohelp us tackle wicked problems
at speed.
But can this distilled designreally help us to tackle
society's mega-problems?
In this episode, we talk withJudah Armani about creating the
(00:35):
conditions that enable us tohave a longer-form conversation
about deep-seated social issues,to find answers that definitely
won't fit on a post-it note.
I'm joined today by JudahArmani, an educator who has been
focusing on society-drivendesign.
(00:57):
Hey, judah, how are you?
Judah Armani (00:59):
I'm very well.
Thank you very much forinviting me.
Stephen Wood (01:02):
It was inevitable at some point.
I think Everyone we've talkedto and mentioned that we're
having Judah Armani on thepodcast.
He's gone.
Oh, I know, Judah, you seem tobe one of the most connected
people in service design.
Judah Armani (01:15):
Well, that's really kind.
I'm not sure it's entirely true, but I'll take it.
Stephen Wood (01:19):
Take the compliment.
We always start Service DesignYap with our quickfire round.
So for you we've got fourquestions.
Judah Armani (01:27):
Are you ready to begin?
Stephen Wood (01:29):
Fantastic.
So the first question reallylooks at your background.
Was your background?
Judah Armani (01:36):
design school, or was it more the school of life?
It was design school.
Stephen Wood (01:38):
And where did you study?
Judah Armani (01:40):
At Martin.
Stephen Wood (01:41):
Can you tell us the year?
Judah Armani (01:43):
Oh yeah, it was in the early 90s, Mid-90s actually
so.
Stephen Wood (01:49):
Was that Hoban St Martin's?
Judah Armani (01:51):
Yeah, yeah, or was that?
Yeah, yeah.
Stephen Wood (01:53):
Fantastic A building that is beautiful but
has been basically empty eversince.
It's incredible, Right.
Judah Armani (01:59):
I walked past it the other day and I was like
what's actually going on in here?
Stephen Wood (02:04):
The thing is nothing, maybe a little bit of
squatting, but even thoughthere's been this sort of
renaissance around things likethe Blitz Club and what happened
with the St Martin's kids andthe punks and the intersection
there, I thought potentiallypeople would look at it and
you've got such a lot ofdevelopment around there.
That's prime real estate andit's a beautiful building.
It's a weird thing it hasn'tbeen renovated there.
Judah Armani (02:23):
We go, I'm surprised.
Stephen Wood (02:25):
Awesome.
So question two Do you believein data-driven design or do you
believe in the visionarydictating the direction of
design?
Judah Armani (02:36):
Can I say both?
Stephen Wood (02:37):
Everyone says both .
Yeah, why do you say both?
Judah Armani (02:41):
Because we need the past and we need the future
right Absolutely.
Stephen Wood (02:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
You need someone to try andinterpret, but you also need to
be able to pick up signals.
Another background focusquestion what was your first job
and what was your favorite job?
Judah Armani (02:56):
First job, I think , was climbing into industrial.
I guess they were pots, but youcould walk around them for
Heinz to make their beans and Iwas cleaning those.
I'd have an all-in-one thingand I'd be cleaning them.
Stephen Wood (03:09):
My favourite job is the one I'm doing now I would
really like to go back to thebean cleaning.
Judah Armani (03:14):
Who wouldn't?
Stephen Wood (03:16):
What are the things that you took from bean
cleaning?
Judah Armani (03:20):
There was one guy I'm not going to lie, he took
his cleaning very seriously.
He had his standard Heinz issuesort of broom to like clean the
back.
He also had his own sort ofhandy kind of like smaller brush
and I mean I was not a greatemployee but he was quite
(03:41):
inspiring.
I remember him.
I only saw him like twice.
Um, he would do the night shiftso we would work through the
night to get these massive sortthat you could walk in and these
pots clean whilst other potswere being used to like make
beans and beans and sausages andall that kind of thing just
industrialized scale.
It was the first time I wasgenuinely challenged to think
(04:03):
about how the stuff that we eatis made.
Stephen Wood (04:06):
I think it's interesting that you've got
someone who is a vocationalbeanpot cleaner to the extent
that actually no, the tools thatwe've got aren't really fit for
purpose.
I can imagine a better tool andI've actually made it and I
brought it in.
I'm not sure whether that willbe allowed today, but people are
ingenious and inventive in many, many different dimensions.
(04:26):
And how did you find nightshifts?
Judah Armani (04:30):
I mean it was fine then.
I think I would struggle now,but at the time kind of operate
as a youth, you operated withvery little sleep.
So, yeah, it was fine, it was.
I remembered either drivingthere that I just passed my
drunk license no, I couldn'thave been, I was getting driven
there and just this lovelythought of like there's not many
(04:52):
people that are awake while I'mworking, and certainly not that
many people awake when I wascoming back.
And there's there's a twilightperiod, so up until sort of
three, four in the morning,there's always like the
potential people that have goneout to a party, and then from
five onwards you get the earlycommuters, but from four to five
is the no man's land, like noone really should be out in that
(05:16):
hour, and that's just such a agreat hour, like to take a tea
break and just walk aroundoutside of Heinz.
It was just a bizarre moment.
Stephen Wood (05:26):
Just observe all the different tribes coming out
and for many people they're justinvisible because your rhythms
don't intersect.
I also got a summer job.
I was working in a toiletfactory, working in the night
shift, and I've never felt soill in my life.
Judah Armani (05:45):
Really.
Stephen Wood (05:46):
And it made me yeah, absolutely it made me feel
like I had flu and, of course,you know, I did some research.
Oh yeah, this is pretty normalfor people who are shifting
their circadian rhythms.
But there are people who havebeen in that job for years and
years and it was just the waythey engineered their, their
home life.
They'd engineered theirprofessional life.
(06:08):
But when you read the research,you find that longevity is
impacted by perpetual nightshifts.
But, uh yeah, it's definitelynot something that I'd want to
do or could do.
I, I like my beds too much.
Judah, I like my bed well Ithink, don't we all?
Judah Armani (06:24):
but also you raise a really interesting point,
which is how much have weacclimatized to the shape of
life designed by society andwhat would our normal patterns
and cycles look like?
I just find that fascinating,because all of our body clock,
if you you will probably has asunique a ticking narrative to it
(06:48):
as our lives are, but yetthey're kind of forced and
compressed into a morestandardized pattern and just
find that very interesting.
Stephen Wood (06:56):
It's like the industrial mold.
So what is life like before theindustrial mold?
Actually, just look at ateenage boy.
Sleep patterns evolve as youage as well.
So if you think about teenagers, they're most active at night.
Their bodies and the hormonalsystems within them make them
more active at night, and sothey want to lie in.
So it's only when we try andproject our social norms over it
(07:20):
that they become lazy sluggerbeds, as opposed to people who
are just reacting to theirnormal rhythms.
And we never flip it, we neverlook at the other end of the age
range.
And you always remember?
I worked at a supermarket andthe people who were always
queuing up at 7 am were theelderly, because their circadian
rhythms had changed and youknow, for them they were up with
(07:43):
the luck.
But, um, yeah, it's.
It's one of those things that's, you know, fascinating.
And whether you're makingtoilets or cleaning bean tins,
there's always a reallyinteresting aspect for the
curious.
You can always look at humanbehavior.
Judah Armani (07:57):
You can bring a design mind to any job yeah, I
wish, I wish I was thatintelligent at the time or that
mature.
Unfortunately, my mind was fullof teenage stuff that probably
wasn't helpful well, yeah, we'llleave that one there.
Stephen Wood (08:14):
We all know what you're talking about.
Join us next week the teen mindof julioiamani.
Yes, there we go.
No, we will not go into thosedepths.
So our last question we askpeople to list their the
favourite source that theyalways recommend.
So what are the things that youalways recommend to peers, to
(08:37):
people you're mentoring, maybeto people in the pub?
Is there one thing that you go?
Yeah, I probably hub.
Is there one thing that you get?
Yeah, I probably handed thatout more times than anything
else.
Judah Armani (08:45):
Probably a collection of things, maybe
richard sennett's, the craftsman, arthur miller's crucible and
then pt anderson's there will beblood would be a recommendation
.
And then there's probably a fewothers that are a bit more
specific, but I think thosethree I mean.
There was a period of timewhere I would just buy copies of
(09:06):
the craftsman and the cruciblelight in fives and tens to hand
out it's always good when youfind something that really
floats your boat.
Stephen Wood (09:14):
You think, oh, someone else has to find out
about this.
Yeah, we were uh talking to, uh, another designer and we talked
about, okay, what are theinspirational sources, uh, for
him, and uh he said, oh, thecount of monte cristo.
I mean, oh, that's veryinteresting.
That's because we weren'treally thinking of that.
Oh, yes, because everyoneshould know how to do revenge
(09:35):
properly.
It's like that's dark.
There you go.
Have you not thought about thedesign of everyday things or
something like that?
No, no, the count of montecristo.
It was really good.
So your first book can you tellus a little bit about the
craft-focused book?
Judah Armani (10:05):
authors, where you know you read it and you're
like man, is this written?
For me is like.
Is every word like singing inthe way that like for everyone
else is?
It doesn't.
The craftsman is.
This snapshot senate is tryingto connect with that which is in
all of us the desire to makestuff and to make stuff well and
to continue to make stuff well.
And whilst the title of thebook suggests that it is about
(10:27):
people that have decided thattheir career pathway is going to
lie in the world of craft,actually the book is for every
human that makes things, and weall make things, whether we're
making a relationship or makinga sandwich, like we're all
involved in the process ofmaking.
Stephen Wood (10:45):
And for those who want to be better at making,
then you know the craftsmanoffers some valuable insight,
and do you think that that'spart of what it is to be a
craftsperson the fact you'realways looking to perfect
practice, to explore new avenueswhereas maybe, if you're not a
craft focused person, this ideaof having established a best
(11:09):
practice and then turning thehandle almost more of a
mechanized approach is moredominant?
Judah Armani (11:16):
not wanting to get like particularly preachy about
it, but I think it feels likeit's more of a human like.
Somehow along the way, we all,I would hope, want to be better
versions of ourselves, and theprocess of that means somehow
having the space to be able toreflect on how we're doing and
(11:37):
can we improve, and some of theattributes of the craftsman I
think can absolutely be deployedfor like everyday life of can I
explore better ways of being?
Stephen Wood (11:51):
it's a universal option.
It's applied in varying degrees.
I think many people definitelyaren't.
For myself, we're so focused onmoving forward that getting an
opportunity to reflect back andthen to be critical and to
improve based on that somethingyou have to consciously make
time for I mean, I think there'syou're spot on.
Judah Armani (12:13):
There should be an element of that that the onus
is on the individual.
We have our own choice andagency to be able to do that.
But I think also a part of whatwe should be doing is opening
further opportunities for othersto speak into our life.
Right like so that we've gotstreams from multiple directions
that are allowing us to changeor hopefully giving us the space
(12:36):
to reflect on change, so thatit's not all on our ability to
have a reflective practice, butit's people we trust, people we
love, that are able to speakinto our lives and us into them.
Stephen Wood (12:49):
Yeah, and also having that ability to listen as
well.
That's something that we haveto learn.
Awesome.
I will avoid asking you if youwere going to make a sandwich,
what sandwich would you make,given your love of craft?
That was an easy question, butwe won't go there.
Judah Armani (13:05):
I love how you skillfully navigated around that
.
Stephen Wood (13:09):
The sandwich question.
Well, you also said that we'vegot relationships or sandwiches.
Some relationships aresandwiches.
We will have to balance thingsin our lives.
Some of us are lucky, some ofus are not.
Beautiful, beautiful, I've gotan idea.
It's a hundred to one shot.
So, judah, I know you've justpublished your book Society
(13:32):
Driven Design.
Can you tell me a little bitabout why you wrote this book?
Judah Armani (13:37):
Well, firstly, I think why anyone writes a book
is partly to share what isimportant to them, and then the
process of making yourselfvulnerable to seeing if that
thing that I thought wasimportant to me is actually
important to others, and beingopen for critique.
Right, so it might not be asimportant as I thought it was to
(14:00):
other people.
Certainly, it's like theprocess of any art driven thing.
It's like you do somethingbecause it expresses your
philosophy of life, you do itbecause you feel it's important,
and then you're open for thecritique of it as well.
Let yourself vulnerable to it.
So there's some of the sort oflike narratives behind it.
Narratives behind it and itcovers a small portion of my
(14:27):
life, the last 20 years of oftwo decades worth of work, and
then crystallizes it in oneinitiative that has lasted
almost a decade and if we thinkabout those formative
experiences that were the 20years of experience, is there a
a story within that experiencethat comes out in the book that
you'd like to take us through?
Stephen Wood (14:46):
that will help us to understand your concepts of
dialogue and social license Imean, if we're talking about
dialogue, then for sure.
Judah Armani (14:54):
But even before that there's some learning,
maybe some hard learning thatbegins with our understanding of
wanting to be open to change.
Maybe the first decade where Iworked in homelessness I
believed that design had ananswer or a place anyway to be
able to be applied for some kindof social change.
But that belief carried with itMaybe pockets in me that were
(15:18):
impervious to change.
And so the first chunk of thebook is really exploring the
phenomena of those of us whowant to be involved in any kind
of change within society changemakers, entrepreneurs, social
entrepreneurs, designers whoknows who cares like there's a
call that we need to be open tochange ourselves.
Right, because if we'reimpervious to that, then in a
(15:40):
way we shouldn't really begetting involved in facilitating
change for others if we don'twant to see it in our own.
So that's the sort of first bitaround in the book.
But to your point arounddialogue, of course dialogue is
around wanting to use.
In the age of collaboration andco-creation that is quickly
becoming as bankrupt a word ascommunity, the need to want to
(16:06):
do it meaningfully and want todo it well means that we have to
use some of the oldest designtools known to man, which is
language and conversation, and,moving away from, maybe, tools
that might mystify people, thosewhom we're looking to
collaborate with or co-designwith or co-create with or
(16:28):
co-whatever buzzword du jour isgoing to be used for some kind
of meaningful connection ofpeople, to create things and to
to have the skill of designingconversations, to have the
ability and the empathy to knowthat, before actually we're
designing anything in life,we're designing conversations.
(16:50):
Conversations often aboutendings, conversations about
transitions, conversations aboutbeginnings, and how we convene
these spaces and hold thesespaces is part of the skill of
the designer to know where theappropriate space is, to be able
to invite people in, to createthat environment for those that
(17:10):
maybe have not spoken before, totake the first few steps in
speaking and to exercise choiceand agency in a way that's going
to make some kind of difference.
And these conversations oftenneed a vehicle to live in.
And because we have somethingas inaccessible as time that we
need to work with the lack oftime on a project, the fact that
(17:32):
we try and do a hack to solvehomelessness in a day, or
whatever it is challenging weset ourselves right Time, it
becomes inaccessible to a groupof stakeholders that aren't
going to be boxed in in sixworkshops and a three-month
project.
There's the need for long-formconversations.
So the social license is a wayof legitimizing these long-form
(17:56):
conversations over a period oftime that other organizations
could then dock into to say, ah,there's a social license going
on with that community in Camdenbeen going on for like three or
four years.
Let's dock into that and seewhether there's some insights,
learnings, trust, collaborationthat can be deployed into
(18:16):
something that will work.
Stephen Wood (18:18):
And that really contrasts with when you go and
run a design project.
This idea of understanding whatcan be achieved in a specific
time frame.
How can we accelerate theoutcomes?
How do we, you know, do morewith less?
This idea of actually givingthings time and space and not
being reductivist.
I love the fact you said we'llfix the homeless problem with
(18:41):
one project.
We all know that not the waythe world works.
But so many people step up tothe plate with that kind of
attitude that it kind of becomesthe norm and that then sets the
bar for others, as opposed toyeah, we've been dealing with
this problem for decades, forgenerations, for centuries.
We're not going to find asolution instantly you are spot
(19:02):
on.
Judah Armani (19:03):
It also opens up a whole new set of parameters as
well.
Like it's impossible,especially if we're talking
about deploying some kind of adesign initiative around
challenging circumstances.
We need to overcome things liketrust and the paradox that
trust has over collaboration.
(19:24):
We can't really trust someonethat we've never collaborated
before, but in order tocollaborate with someone, we
need to trust them, and we'renot going to get to the bottom
of that conundrum in athree-month project, you know,
in two workshops, in aninterview or a questionnaire.
Yeah, we need time yeah,doesn't exist.
On a post-it note no it doesn'texist on a post, and because we
(19:46):
have a time-based approach toproductivity and business, when
business touches design, we canbe guilty of thinking well, this
project, you know, if we throwenough people at it for the next
six months, we can, you know,at least get to a place where
others haven't got before.
But the point is that we'reunlikely to do that.
If our source data is going tobe the same, it will only be
(20:11):
different if we are meaningfullycollaborated and have been
welcomed into the communitiesthat we are looking to
collaborate with.
Then our source data will lookdifferent.
But that takes time and it'sonly when the source data is
different can we assume thatwe're going to create something
different.
Stephen Wood (20:29):
Absolutely, and you talked about creating the
conditions for dialogue tohappen.
If you're going intocommunities and you're
establishing trust, are thereways that you can create or
foster those conditions?
Judah Armani (20:45):
trust is notoriously difficult to design
for right.
But but to your point, thereare conditions for trust that
exist.
So we can look at consistency,we can look at frequency, we can
look at delivery on promises.
So when we started working inprisons, for example actually
(21:09):
we're talking about a communityof people that had been let down
so many times before, so theirlevels of trust was low, dare I
say, in trust debt right, ortrust poverty.
So what they needed, or one ofthe things just purely to build
the conditions for trust, is forsomeone to say something and
then deliver it.
Even if the thing that thatperson was going to say is I'm
going to be here every day fromeight to four, and then they
(21:32):
happen to be there every dayfrom eight to four.
That is a micro way ofdelivering on a promise.
Right, it's creating a tenantof trust, not trust itself, but
at least something that someonecan rely on.
That also brings frequency andconsistency to it.
So it's not like I'm going tobe here once a month or I'm
going to be here once a year.
The frequency and consistencyis commensurate to the amount of
(21:54):
trust debt that there is, andso, if you can see that there is
a group of people that havebeen constantly let down.
It probably needs moreintervention of time, of more
time that you carve out.
Stephen Wood (22:07):
How do we create that consistency for those that
have been devoid of trust intheir relationships?
That's going to be monthsrather than five minute workshop
.
Judah Armani (22:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stephen Wood (22:19):
You talked about your work in prisons.
I think it's a good time totouch on the story of in-house
records.
Where did the idea first cometo you?
Judah Armani (22:28):
the idea never came to me.
It came to us as a group, um meand about 15 prisoners.
The challenge came from candesign contribute to reducing
the offending?
And from there I knocked on thedoors of a bunch of prisons to
say, hey, I'm a designer, I'dreally like to see if I can
contribute to reducing offending.
(22:48):
At which point the answer waslike see ya, and so I was like,
maybe maybe me saying I'm adesigner isn't particularly
helpful in this scenario.
Okay, um, so I just got intouch with some prison to say
I'm an educator, I know I I cando that.
I've been doing that well for,I guess, a lot of my life, and
(23:10):
I'm willing to do that for freefor you, if you've got any
lessons that need teaching.
And you know the response isdifferent right, because I'm
offering something potentiallyvaluable and then using those
sessions to create a cohort ofpeople to explore how we might
do education differently.
So education in prisons issiloed.
(23:31):
That's not a critique onprisons, it's just a carry-on
from what we do in society.
Anyway.
We have numeracy lessons, wehave literacy lessons, we have
computer skills lessons.
We've got who knows who careswhat lessons, and they're siloed
, they're portioned off.
But the problem is that we'vegot 86,000 people in prison.
Maybe 50% of them neverfinished school in the first
(23:52):
place.
So this way of transferringknowledge, this way of learning,
if it never worked the firsttime around, why do we assume
it's going to work when they'rein jail?
Part of what we explored with agroup of guys was how do we get
away from siloed learning to alake of learning and a place
where actually we can move quitefreely in terms of the
(24:15):
knowledge that's given, workingwith the guys, building trust,
exploring aspirations, exploringambitions and hopes and
creativity Together.
We arrived at music and arecord label became the place
where that lake of learningcould take place.
Numeracy and counting in beatsin bars, in rhythm, literacy in
(24:40):
writing beats in bars, in rhythm, literacy in writing songs,
business plans and the role of alabel meant that you could be
an artist, an artist manager, apromoter, a musician, and also
there was no stigma.
It's one thing to leave thewing to go and do english and
maths and education, which maybeisn't seen as cool.
It's another thing to leavewing to go and be part of record
(25:02):
label.
Stephen Wood (25:04):
That has a different vibe you've got the
kudos there and I wonder whetherjust the fact that there was
such a concrete end point, itwasn't education for education's
sake, it doesn't driveengagement, but where there is
that actually I can see this isleading up to a specific thing.
Maybe that's one way toposition it, in a way that's
(25:25):
more engaging.
Judah Armani (25:26):
It's more concrete you are one million percent,
spot on, although I know thatit's impossible to be a million
percent, but you are, you aretotally back to the numeracy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks, man, Ineed to go on yourself, but you
are totally right and actuallyyou know what you just said also
.
Therefore, the dot dot dot ofthat is that we need to
(25:48):
challenge do we believe that ourcurrent model for delivering
education, for deliveringknowledge transfer, is
state-of-the-art?
Do we believe that we learn bysitting down in a room and
someone talking to us?
Is that the crucible forknowledge exchange?
Or do we believe it's different?
(26:09):
And if it is different, thenwhat does that look like?
Stephen Wood (26:14):
Or is it different for different people as well,
when we get back to the chestnutof the Ken Robinson TED lecture
, where they said actuallydifferent people have different
styles.
You can have someone who's adunce uh, formal learning when
measured against one thing, butactually a genius when put into
a different situation.
It's like measuring a fish byits ability to climb a tree.
(26:34):
It's the wrong thing well.
Judah Armani (26:36):
Well, I mean, like when we're talking about
children, there is a base levelof curiosity that exists there
and within each child there'sthe space for us to be able to
like work relatively quickly tofind where that curiosity lives
at its heightened level.
And from my very limitedexperience so I home educated
(27:00):
all my children, but from thatexperience that I'm not never
been a teacher in that sense,middle school or high school I
think those guys do remarkablejobs.
But from that base limitedexperience, there is the pursuit
of where.
Where does curiosity live?
And therefore that's where I'mgoing to travel to, that's where
the session is, the knowledgetransfer is and the vehicles for
(27:24):
that could be wide and variedand creative and imaginative,
and the forum for that could bealso creative, imaginative.
You know socrates or you knowplato through socrates and did a
lot of the teaching walking,because that physical movement
of your body going forward alsoconnected with the mind moving
(27:45):
forward, right?
So who's to say sitting down ina classroom is even the best
format for anyone to transferknowledge.
Stephen Wood (27:53):
It's the best format to control people and
control a large audience.
I just remember the scene inFerris Bueller with the people
drooling onto their desks andliterally it looked like they
were sedated by the teacher.
Judah Armani (28:07):
Bueller, bueller, bueller.
Stephen Wood (28:11):
Voodoo economics.
We can all remember voodooeconomics just because of that
fantastic film.
So you've started to engagewith folks in prison.
You identified that for them agreat end point would be a
record label.
It's got you know potentialeconomic impacts.
There's a job at the end of it.
It doesn't have the stigma ofgoing back to school.
(28:34):
It's relatively cool.
How did you get people engagedthe first time that you ran
in-house records?
Judah Armani (28:42):
That's easy.
We already collaborated with 15people.
By the time we were ready tolike make it go live, we were
300% oversubscribed, like justthe word got around to that jail
, which is like there's a recordlabel going Cool.
Well, what's the criteria?
I know I guess you just got tobe interested in it, I'm
interested in it, and so we hadmore people than we knew how to
(29:04):
cater for, which was a challenge, but I guess not surprising,
right, when the opposite is truefor education providers in
prison, some of the bigeducation providers that do all
the maths and English, andthey're struggling to get like
eight people, nine people from aprison of a thousand, and
they're struggling to get like,you know, eight people, nine
people from a prison of athousand.
They're struggling to get ninepeople to rock up to maths.
(29:27):
And you know we've got awaiting list of 150 and we're
brimmed to the full of 20 in asession.
Like finding that engagementlevel was never, has never been
like the challenge for us.
Stephen Wood (29:42):
And where did you find the funding?
Because I know we've looked atdesign in state schools and
funding for design in stateschools is dropping off To
actually find funding forin-prison education.
Was that more difficult or wasthere a direct route to funding
what?
Judah Armani (29:57):
was difficult was working out whether it should be
a charitable initiative or abusiness.
That difficulty lasted aboutthree minutes, partly because,
going back to the point of trustand consistency, we can't say
to someone we're going to behere next year, someone that's
(30:20):
got a four or five-yearcustodial sentence.
We can't say we're going to behere throughout your whole
custodial sentence if we're acharity, because we're going to
spend half our year fundraising.
So I was very curious as to thedesigner element here.
The designer should be curiousabout how do the current
education streams work in prisonPrisons, commission education.
(30:43):
They have education contractsto deliver numeracy and literacy
and computer skills and whoknows who cares what skills.
And I felt the the smartest wayof going about this was to say
right, we want to be aneducation provider.
Therefore we're able to drawdown on commission funding for
(31:04):
our services that we're going todeliver as staff.
So in-house now has 21 staff,delivers educational contracts
across the UK prisons and whilstwe're not the big boy education
providers that eat up themulti-million pound contracts
for delivering maps in Englishin like UK prisons, we sort of
(31:25):
feed off the tiny scraps butstill are able to do so to wash
our face and then whateverprofit is left over.
We support guys on the outsidebecause we're through the gates.
So not only do they get to likework with in-house in jail,
when they leave jail they'reable to continue going to studio
(31:45):
in London or in Brightonworking with in-house staff.
Stephen Wood (31:50):
And you've mentioned, when you started you
were looking at how you couldengage with people who were in
prison so you could reduce there-offending rate.
Is that something that you'vetracked for the people that have
been through the in-houseprogram?
Judah Armani (32:05):
Yeah, we've tracked it and we've watched it
through Nesta From those whowe've tracked that continue to
work with us.
After release there's less than1% reoffending rate.
Stephen Wood (32:15):
And how does that compare with the national
average?
Judah Armani (32:18):
64% were flaming right.
Stephen Wood (32:21):
Okay, and how many people have been through the
program?
Judah Armani (32:26):
On the outside that have been connected with us
just under a thousand in totalthat we have in TREK.
There's lots of reasons whypeople won't continue with this.
Out of prison there's probablyabout 3000 people that have gone
through in-house.
For some people when they leavejail in-house.
For some people, when theyleave jail in-house represents a
time that they were in jail andthere's no reason for them to
(32:47):
continue with us on the outsideright, and I totally get that.
For other people they want tocontinue and see in-house as a
way of developing music andthat's great.
For others, a differentarchetype.
In-house has a socialconnection.
Studio is a safe place wherethey can do their housing
benefit forms or maybe even meetprobation or maybe right in
(33:08):
studio there's been deemed as acontact center so guys can meet
their kids there.
Especially guys that might beliving in quite chaotic
circumstances and situations butstill want to maintain
relationships with theirchildren come to studio because
that's a safe place fantastic,and have you seen any folks go
through the program and actuallycome back and become members of
(33:29):
staff?
Stephen Wood (33:30):
yeah, there'll be seven of those for 21 people
that come through the coursethey've actually seen the
benefit it brings to their lifeand they're keen to spread it to
others.
That's a fantastic story.
I was really interested to lookat the numbers because when you
see the difference between 65re-offending if you go the
traditional path versus one butthen you look, actually this is
(33:51):
at scale are many people comingto you and asking you for advice
about how we reshape the inprison curriculum as a whole?
Judah Armani (34:00):
not yet.
But I think that, partlybecause remember we were talking
about currently prisoneducation system is still siloed
and because that is the modelwhich feels the easiest to be
able to mitigate risk for andprison is also about mitigating
(34:20):
risk In-house is a much moreopen space of learning.
It's more work for the educator, so you can't just have a maths
educator.
You know you need to be moreflexible, but dare I say that's
the whole point of education isthat you are flexible to the
needs of the learner.
You're there in service of them, in support of their learning
(34:43):
journey, not necessarily to justdo the bit that you know and
then get out of there, but tosay, actually, how can I create
the environment for this personto engage with knowledge and
then feel good about thatknowledge and then to build on
that?
Stephen Wood (35:00):
that's the second time we've touched on this idea
of how do we foster theconditions.
It's one of the core elementsof designing.
How do we design for an outcome?
Judah Armani (35:08):
well, we have to have the right conditions to
foster that, especially whenwe're dealing with humans and
those conditions will be formedand informed by the challenging
experiences of the humans thatwe're collaborating with.
There will be some universalelements like trust, like safety
.
For sure you need thoseconditions, those dimensions, if
(35:30):
you like, but then there'll beother things that are nuanced
and unique to that group that weare working with, and the more
that we understand that group,the more that will form and
inform the conditions that weneed to create in order to hold
that space in a good place.
Stephen Wood (35:48):
And how do you learn about those conditions?
Judah Armani (35:52):
I think that maybe that's a trite answer.
I don't mean it like that.
I wasn't born in England.
I was born in Tehran and cameto England when I was quite
young but grew up maybe in aless kind London that didn't
necessarily warm to people thatwere foreign and certainly not
(36:13):
warm to people that were foreignand from the Middle East.
You get to experience thelanguage of loss and the
language of outsider quitequickly, but you also want to
learn the language of loss andthe language of outsider quite
quickly.
But you also want to learn thelanguage of society and the
language of acceptance andbefore you know it, as a kid you
can speak many languages and Idon't think that is a unique
(36:36):
experience to children growingup.
I think in whatevercircumstance and whatever our
backgrounds from affluence toquite challenging we will have
all had experience of thelanguage of the outsider.
There'll always beenenvironments where we will be on
the outside of what that microsociety or the wider society are
(36:56):
experiencing and they almostare giving us an understanding
of the vowels and the consonantsthat that language requires.
Now, as we grow older, ourpursuit is often to be accepted
within the main core of society,but the differentiation of the
designer is to never forgetthose languages and be able to
(37:16):
use them in a way that is goingto benefit wider society.
Stephen Wood (37:21):
Again we come back to this idea of looking at
children and looking at how theyembrace language.
They've got a clearunderstanding of.
Let's look at the language ofthe Orthodox.
How do I express myself?
It could be accent, it could bedialect, it could be vocabulary
.
It can easily, easily switch Onmy commute into London as we
pass through the home counties.
(37:41):
It's really interesting to seehow accents change when their
teens are talking to theirfriends and as soon as their
parents phone.
It's a code shifting thing.
Judah Armani (37:51):
But again it shows that there's this view of
understanding the cachet and thedoors that are opened Weirdly
yeah, the reason I'm chucklingis because I remember, oh my
(38:11):
goodness, a few years ago I wasmeeting one of our graduates
from in-house on the train inlondon.
They're coming down to brightonfor the day and we were talking
on the train and as we gotcloser towards brighton, a
couple of young people got youngpeople yes and um shake your
cane, you know they were.
They were brighton.
They were brighton boys.
They were well dressed.
They were probably just, youknow, come from having quiche at
(38:33):
home and they were talking in aparticular way that would make
you think they are not frombright.
It would make you think thatthey were from, you know, like
maybe a more tougher councilestate.
And the guy that I was withthat I met, he just looked at me
and he was like I don't get it.
He was like my whole life Idon't want to sound like the way
(38:54):
I sound.
And here are these kids behindme that are sounding the way I
sound and I would give anythingto sound how they really sound,
but they're choosing not tosound like that.
They're choosing to sound likeme because somehow they think
that has more cachet to it.
Stephen Wood (39:10):
There we go, the Guy Ritchie quotient.
Judah Armani (39:12):
Yeah.
Stephen Wood (39:12):
Definitely there.
Yeah, we can adopt the mockneyor the fake yardie lingo.
It shows an understanding, butit also reflects the fact that
you've got the right to do both,and it's like oh.
And there's a lot of talk ofcultural appropriation.
But yeah, you know, in somesituations, done on the wrong
(39:35):
train, the kids will be reallyglad they're wearing trainers so
they can run.
It's like, oh, come on To thineown self, be true, I've got an
idea.
It's a hundred to one shot.
We've talked a little bit aboutthrough the gate services and
how in-house is something thatisn't just there, through the
custodial part of the service.
(39:57):
Did you design the journey thathappens as you go through the
gate in a different way to thejourney that happens in prison?
Judah Armani (40:07):
Well, yeah, there are some caveats, though, where
all of in-house is really formedand informed by the experiences
of the humans involved, and sothere were some easier things
about delivering in custody andharder things about delivering
in the community, aboutdelivering in custody and harder
things about delivering in thecommunity.
In the custody, people arealways there when they need to
(40:27):
be there because it's a lockedenvironment.
In the community, there is awhole range of other things that
will have people's attention,so we needed to create a more
flexible, softer space asopposed to kind of a regime,
because we were forced to workwith the regime.
We didn't set the regime out ofprison.
We needed to be, you know,mindful of that.
(40:48):
There are a range of otherthings that are going to be
demanding the time of our guys,and so we needed to have an
environment that had moreflexibility and then a lot more
choice and agency.
You know we do gigs on a regularbasis, but certainly not me or
any of the staff put that on.
That's all the graduates, theguys that come from prison.
(41:09):
I'd say accountability, butreally it's about agency to be
able to shape the way that theywant to share music and also,
what's really important with thestuff that goes on on the
outside is there's aninseparable quality between
staff, volunteers and graduates,which means that in-house gigs
(41:30):
are in-house gigs in terms ofthe philosophy of in-house
prison.
It might mean that half thepeople there have an allegiance
and believe in what in-house isdoing and have never been to
prison, but they also play musicand perform.
The point is is that you'remeant to go to in-house gig and
(41:52):
just not know, because it's notimportant, who's on stage that
went to prison, who isn't onstage to went to prison.
So there's this inseparablequality.
On the outside is verydifferent to you know, the
quality of geeks in prison onthe inside, because it's just
the guys in prison that areperforming.
So I think there are someinteresting deviations in terms
(42:12):
of touch points on the outside.
Stephen Wood (42:14):
We've touched on in-house records, which is a
fantastic story.
It's great to see how an ideahas blossomed and you've worked
with a community that doesn'toften get to participate in
co-design and you've helped usto understand how trust building
is that first foundation andafter you've done that, actually
a lot of the ideas and theagency and the design happens in
(42:38):
that community itself.
If you're approaching theproject again today, is there
anything you'd do differently?
Judah Armani (42:45):
That's a really good question has anything
changed in the justice system.
Stephen Wood (42:51):
That means actually think doors are shut or
doors are open for a project.
Judah Armani (42:56):
I don't know about that element because I haven't
tried to start something withinthe custodial world for some
time, so I'm not sure what thosechallenges might be now.
But to the first point, isthere anything I'd do
differently?
Yeah, I think I would have.
I would have probably tried toexplore the project with another
(43:17):
designer.
I think I naively went into iton my own and it really
stretched me.
It was just me for about a yearand a half.
So I was convening, facilitating, doing the kind of sessions,
and then, as it became a thing,I was grabbing a notebook,
(43:37):
grabbing a guitar and runningthe sessions and delivering it
quite every day, leaving, youknow, waking up at half four or
five in in the morning, drivingdown to the prison on the Isle
of Sheffield, and then, when itgot a little bit of success and
the next prison down the roadwanted it, I would do three days
in one prison, two days inanother, and I was just
(44:00):
exhausted for a year and a half.
And and because I like makingthings and I like making things
with people and I like makingthings quickly with people, so
that we can understand there wasa lot of it that was just
embodied knowledge and it wasvery difficult to get other
people on board.
I could get staff on boardbecause eventually the prisons
(44:20):
were like wait, we should payfor this, but staff was
different to someone to designwith, and so I think I would
probably do it with anotherperson, because it really
exhausted me with my reflectionand we often hear that some
designers uh, pack animals.
Stephen Wood (44:39):
So they're really social.
They always work together.
Everyone loves being in astudio environment.
Everyone hated being inlockdown.
So to be on your own for a yeareven the zeal of the purpose,
because clearly you're reallypassionate about this and we're
ultra passionate at the verybeginning as well.
Even with that, the fact youdon't have someone to bounce
(45:00):
ideas off and, as you say, toshare the load with that must
have been really difficult, butthat's a fantastic point for
anyone who's consideringlaunching a purposeful
enterprise.
Up front, you talked aboutturning it into a business and
prison saying, well, maybe weshould pay for this.
Would it have been easier toget someone to collaborate with
(45:23):
on the design phase if you'dhave had that funding from the
beginning?
Judah Armani (45:26):
Oh, no, no, no.
I think there are someenvironments where creativity
comes from squeeze, and I thinkit's important to embrace those
environments, and this one wasvery much one of those.
So I purposefully didn't eventry and get my time covered,
because I knew that not doing sowould unlock another layer of
(45:48):
creativity, and that's what Iwas really keen to find not in a
in a martyr way, but like in apurely I know what this is like.
I've been in these scenariosbefore, and I've been in these
scenarios where there has beenfunding, and I've been in these
scenarios where there hasn'tbeen funding, and my experience
is the funding actually rarelymakes it better yeah,
(46:10):
constraints encourage stretch.
Stephen Wood (46:13):
Stretch means you look at different ways of
problem solving or even thinkingabout potential solution
avenues.
But again, yeah, you've alsogot to think about exhaustion as
well.
Yeah, and then it comes down toscoping.
So how do we make sure thatwe're not trying to boil the
ocean?
That's awesome.
If we think about societydriven design your new book are
(46:38):
there any elements of that thatyou'd like to talk about that
maybe we haven't touched on?
Judah Armani (46:42):
No, I think we have.
You've navigated it carefullyand beautifully.
The beginning section is theneed for the designer to
understand what design means tothem and what their practice
looks like.
We articulate about that.
The second chunk is about howwe design conversations
meaningfully.
The second chunk is about howwe design conversations
(47:03):
meaningfully.
Chomsky talks about actuallylanguage as a way of
communicating in the mosthighest fidelity of form.
And then the last section isputting that all together and
exploring in-house as a casestudy.
So you know, hey, you probablydon't need to buy it because
you've heard it all now.
Stephen Wood (47:18):
I know it's also a beautiful book as well.
So as someone who's alreadyhiding books on design in in his
house uh, that will definitelybe another one I'll need to find
a hiding place for.
As we come to the end of thepodcast, I just want to reflect.
You've talked about buildingtrust and trust as being the
foundation for successfulcollaborative co-design.
(47:41):
You've talked about theelements of consistency and
dependability being there intrust, but you also talked about
approaching prisons and firstsaying, well, I'm a designer and
getting rejected, and thensaying I'm an educator and
getting accepted.
If we think about the trustequation, the thing that's on
(48:02):
the bottom of that equation isself-interest, and I do wonder,
as a designer, do people seedesigners coming in to observe,
to take out, or educators ofpeople that come into an
organization to give back?
So could that also be factoredinto some of that trust equation
?
Judah Armani (48:21):
That's a really interesting point.
I find the term designer to beproblematic in a lot of
scenarios, not just withincriminal justice system, because
the definition andinterpretation of it varies so
much and if one introducesthemselves as a designer, they
(48:42):
might have to spend the nextthree months having to
reinterpret what that means tothe audience.
So they're just like engaged.
So there are some instanceswhere it's helpful, usually when
you are able to do what youwant to do and not be questioned
, but most of the time and thathas a value.
That has a value in certain setthe visionary yeah yeah, yeah,
(49:06):
yeah, yeah, and you know you can.
You can then play with uniform,you know you can dress
differently, you can dress in away that you know that that
industry doesn't dress purelyjust to disarm and to come in
with a way of like, being ableto like, create, uh, positive
sort of friction.
But to your point, I thinkthere's something kind of
(49:27):
beautiful and humble andordinary in in terms of everyday
sense of the role of theeducator.
That I think is phenomenal.
And nick de leon, who set upthe service design program rca,
often talks about educators,animators, you know, people that
will animate others.
I think there's somethingbeautiful about the role of an
(49:50):
educator, a craft of theeducator that feels not
threatening to people andsometimes it might feel a little
bit like what is an educatorgoing to give, but most of the
time it feels like, oh, whatharm would an educator do?
And is there a differencebetween an educator going to
give, but most of the time itfeels like, oh, what aren't?
Stephen Wood (50:05):
and is there a difference between an educator
and a teacher?
Judah Armani (50:08):
I don't, maybe, uh , maybe, I mean, I don't that
that's, that's um something for,like you know, smart, that's
like you need to be able to pullapart, and I think that's
definitely something for thesecond daiquiri yeah, yeah, yeah
, for sure.
Um, I mean, I don't know likethere's something about the
phrase teacher, doesn't?
(50:30):
It hits like a pain point in me, maybe because of experiences
of teachers, I don't know, thereare echoes from the past that
come through with this idea ofteachers.
Stephen Wood (50:39):
But I think it's quite american to talk about
educators and I I'm with you.
I think that people who aregoing to be crafting, the people
that craft the world of thefuture, are going to be in the
education sector and anythingthat helps to build the kudos of
actually making that move togoing and teaching.
(51:00):
That's a great thing.
In the UK we've gone throughsuccessive rounds of moving
teaching from almost theprofession so at one point you
could get your passport signedby a teacher not anymore.
So, yeah, it's obviously no,you can.
It has to be a policeman or alawyer or a doctor, someone in a
(51:21):
respective profession, and Ithink that's really telling.
And I know so many peoplewho've gone into teaching who
are absolutely inspirational andare the people that are going
to create waves in the world,much in the way that you guys
have done with in-house records.
Judah Armani (51:37):
I think that's a really interesting observation
about the erosion of theprofession of teaching.
I think it's worthy of likemore thought, I think maybe a
third daiquiri.
Stephen Wood (51:49):
And on that really happy note, well, we got
pensive.
We got pensive in the end.
So we started off talking aboutcleaning bean pans and uh,
sitting on toilet pans on thenight shift, through to
understanding how we design withcommunities, talking about
records, talking about languageand how it excludes and includes
(52:11):
, and we've ended up talkingabout teaching and back to
daiquiris.
It's a fantastic virtual circle.
Anything that takes us back toa daiquiri is a good thing.
Judah Armani (52:19):
In my book, how wonderfully you have hosted and
I know that of course you'regoing to host it wonderfully
because you're running asuccessful podcast, but still
it's.
It's always nice to see thosehallmarks in real life and the
way you've carefully navigatedthis.
I agree with your summary thankyou very much.
Stephen Wood (52:39):
It's good to show that I've been listening.
To be honest, I know know Geneis often slightly dubious about
whether I've nodded off or not.
Judah Armani (52:46):
But no.
Stephen Wood (52:47):
I'm old, but I'm not that old, jude.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for carvingout time to speak to us and we
look forward to reading yourbook in full.
Come on, thank you.
I've got an idea.
It's a hundred to one shot.
I've got an idea.
It's a hundred to one shot.
I've got an idea.
Service Design Yap is aproduction from STN UK.
It's presented by me, stephenWood, with production assistance
(53:09):
from Gina Wotania and music byDaka Sands.
This episode has been edited byEd Lush.
Thanks, ed.
Oh darling, this trip's aninspiration.
I'm just saying it has happened.
Judah Armani (53:37):
No no, I appreciate that.
Last thing I want is anyonesneezing over a profound moment.
Stephen Wood (53:42):
Yeah, but there we go.
Some of my best work getssneezed over, but there we go.
Welcome to another episode of Service Design.
Yap.
I'm your host, stephen Wood.
As an industry, we seem to havebeen accelerating design with
sprints and jams and hacks tohelp us tackle wicked problems
at speed.
But can this distilled designreally help us to tackle
society's mega-problems?
In this episode, we talk withJudah Armani about creating the
(00:35):
conditions that enable us tohave a longer-form conversation
about deep-seated social issues,to find answers that definitely
won't fit on a post-it note.
I'm joined today by JudahArmani, an educator who has been
focusing on society-drivendesign.
(00:57):
Hey, judah, how are you?
Judah Armani (00:59):
I'm very well.
Thank you very much forinviting me.
Stephen Wood (01:02):
It was inevitable at some point.
I think Everyone we've talkedto and mentioned that we're
having Judah Armani on thepodcast.
He's gone.
Oh, I know, Judah, you seem tobe one of the most connected
people in service design.
Judah Armani (01:15):
Well, that's really kind.
I'm not sure it's entirely true, but I'll take it.
Stephen Wood (01:19):
Take the compliment.
We always start Service DesignYap with our quickfire round.
So for you we've got fourquestions.
Judah Armani (01:27):
Are you ready to begin?
Stephen Wood (01:29):
Fantastic.
So the first question reallylooks at your background.
Was your background?
Judah Armani (01:36):
design school, or was it more the school of life?
It was design school.
Stephen Wood (01:38):
And where did you study?
Judah Armani (01:40):
At Martin.
Stephen Wood (01:41):
Can you tell us the year?
Judah Armani (01:43):
Oh yeah, it was in the early 90s, Mid-90s actually
so.
Stephen Wood (01:49):
Was that Hoban St Martin's?
Judah Armani (01:51):
Yeah, yeah, or was that?
Yeah, yeah.
Stephen Wood (01:53):
Fantastic A building that is beautiful but
has been basically empty eversince.
It's incredible, Right.
Judah Armani (01:59):
I walked past it the other day and I was like
what's actually going on in here?
Stephen Wood (02:04):
The thing is nothing, maybe a little bit of
squatting, but even thoughthere's been this sort of
renaissance around things likethe Blitz Club and what happened
with the St Martin's kids andthe punks and the intersection
there, I thought potentiallypeople would look at it and
you've got such a lot ofdevelopment around there.
That's prime real estate andit's a beautiful building.
It's a weird thing it hasn'tbeen renovated there.
Judah Armani (02:23):
We go, I'm surprised.
Stephen Wood (02:25):
Awesome.
So question two Do you believein data-driven design or do you
believe in the visionarydictating the direction of
design?
Judah Armani (02:36):
Can I say both?
Stephen Wood (02:37):
Everyone says both .
Yeah, why do you say both?
Judah Armani (02:41):
Because we need the past and we need the future
right Absolutely.
Stephen Wood (02:44):
Yeah, absolutely.
You need someone to try andinterpret, but you also need to
be able to pick up signals.
Another background focusquestion what was your first job
and what was your favorite job?
Judah Armani (02:56):
First job, I think , was climbing into industrial.
I guess they were pots, but youcould walk around them for
Heinz to make their beans and Iwas cleaning those.
I'd have an all-in-one thingand I'd be cleaning them.
Stephen Wood (03:09):
My favourite job is the one I'm doing now I would
really like to go back to thebean cleaning.
Judah Armani (03:14):
Who wouldn't?
Stephen Wood (03:16):
What are the things that you took from bean
cleaning?
Judah Armani (03:20):
There was one guy I'm not going to lie, he took
his cleaning very seriously.
He had his standard Heinz issuesort of broom to like clean the
back.
He also had his own sort ofhandy kind of like smaller brush
and I mean I was not a greatemployee but he was quite
(03:41):
inspiring.
I remember him.
I only saw him like twice.
Um, he would do the night shiftso we would work through the
night to get these massive sortthat you could walk in and these
pots clean whilst other potswere being used to like make
beans and beans and sausages andall that kind of thing just
industrialized scale.
It was the first time I wasgenuinely challenged to think
(04:03):
about how the stuff that we eatis made.
Stephen Wood (04:06):
I think it's interesting that you've got
someone who is a vocationalbeanpot cleaner to the extent
that actually no, the tools thatwe've got aren't really fit for
purpose.
I can imagine a better tool andI've actually made it and I
brought it in.
I'm not sure whether that willbe allowed today, but people are
ingenious and inventive in many, many different dimensions.
(04:26):
And how did you find nightshifts?
Judah Armani (04:30):
I mean it was fine then.
I think I would struggle now,but at the time kind of operate
as a youth, you operated withvery little sleep.
So, yeah, it was fine, it was.
I remembered either drivingthere that I just passed my
drunk license no, I couldn'thave been, I was getting driven
there and just this lovelythought of like there's not many
(04:52):
people that are awake while I'mworking, and certainly not that
many people awake when I wascoming back.
And there's there's a twilightperiod, so up until sort of
three, four in the morning,there's always like the
potential people that have goneout to a party, and then from
five onwards you get the earlycommuters, but from four to five
is the no man's land, like noone really should be out in that
(05:16):
hour, and that's just such a agreat hour, like to take a tea
break and just walk aroundoutside of Heinz.
It was just a bizarre moment.
Stephen Wood (05:26):
Just observe all the different tribes coming out
and for many people they're justinvisible because your rhythms
don't intersect.
I also got a summer job.
I was working in a toiletfactory, working in the night
shift, and I've never felt soill in my life.
Judah Armani (05:45):
Really.
Stephen Wood (05:46):
And it made me yeah, absolutely it made me feel
like I had flu and, of course,you know, I did some research.
Oh yeah, this is pretty normalfor people who are shifting
their circadian rhythms.
But there are people who havebeen in that job for years and
years and it was just the waythey engineered their, their
home life.
They'd engineered theirprofessional life.
(06:08):
But when you read the research,you find that longevity is
impacted by perpetual nightshifts.
But, uh yeah, it's definitelynot something that I'd want to
do or could do.
I, I like my beds too much.
Judah, I like my bed well Ithink, don't we all?
Judah Armani (06:24):
but also you raise a really interesting point,
which is how much have weacclimatized to the shape of
life designed by society andwhat would our normal patterns
and cycles look like?
I just find that fascinating,because all of our body clock,
if you you will probably has asunique a ticking narrative to it
(06:48):
as our lives are, but yetthey're kind of forced and
compressed into a morestandardized pattern and just
find that very interesting.
Stephen Wood (06:56):
It's like the industrial mold.
So what is life like before theindustrial mold?
Actually, just look at ateenage boy.
Sleep patterns evolve as youage as well.
So if you think about teenagers, they're most active at night.
Their bodies and the hormonalsystems within them make them
more active at night, and sothey want to lie in.
So it's only when we try andproject our social norms over it
(07:20):
that they become lazy sluggerbeds, as opposed to people who
are just reacting to theirnormal rhythms.
And we never flip it, we neverlook at the other end of the age
range.
And you always remember?
I worked at a supermarket andthe people who were always
queuing up at 7 am were theelderly, because their circadian
rhythms had changed and youknow, for them they were up with
(07:43):
the luck.
But, um, yeah, it's.
It's one of those things that's, you know, fascinating.
And whether you're makingtoilets or cleaning bean tins,
there's always a reallyinteresting aspect for the
curious.
You can always look at humanbehavior.
Judah Armani (07:57):
You can bring a design mind to any job yeah, I
wish, I wish I was thatintelligent at the time or that
mature.
Unfortunately, my mind was fullof teenage stuff that probably
wasn't helpful well, yeah, we'llleave that one there.
Stephen Wood (08:14):
We all know what you're talking about.
Join us next week the teen mindof julioiamani.
Yes, there we go.
No, we will not go into thosedepths.
So our last question we askpeople to list their the
favourite source that theyalways recommend.
So what are the things that youalways recommend to peers, to
(08:37):
people you're mentoring, maybeto people in the pub?
Is there one thing that you go?
Yeah, I probably hub.
Is there one thing that you get?
Yeah, I probably handed thatout more times than anything
else.
Judah Armani (08:45):
Probably a collection of things, maybe
richard sennett's, the craftsman, arthur miller's crucible and
then pt anderson's there will beblood would be a recommendation
.
And then there's probably a fewothers that are a bit more
specific, but I think thosethree I mean.
There was a period of timewhere I would just buy copies of
(09:06):
the craftsman and the cruciblelight in fives and tens to hand
out it's always good when youfind something that really
floats your boat.
Stephen Wood (09:14):
You think, oh, someone else has to find out
about this.
Yeah, we were uh talking to, uh, another designer and we talked
about, okay, what are theinspirational sources, uh, for
him, and uh he said, oh, thecount of monte cristo.
I mean, oh, that's veryinteresting.
That's because we weren'treally thinking of that.
Oh, yes, because everyoneshould know how to do revenge
(09:35):
properly.
It's like that's dark.
There you go.
Have you not thought about thedesign of everyday things or
something like that?
No, no, the count of montecristo.
It was really good.
So your first book can you tellus a little bit about the
craft-focused book?
Judah Armani (10:05):
authors, where you know you read it and you're
like man, is this written?
For me is like.
Is every word like singing inthe way that like for everyone
else is?
It doesn't.
The craftsman is.
This snapshot senate is tryingto connect with that which is in
all of us the desire to makestuff and to make stuff well and
to continue to make stuff well.
And whilst the title of thebook suggests that it is about
(10:27):
people that have decided thattheir career pathway is going to
lie in the world of craft,actually the book is for every
human that makes things, and weall make things, whether we're
making a relationship or makinga sandwich, like we're all
involved in the process ofmaking.
Stephen Wood (10:45):
And for those who want to be better at making,
then you know the craftsmanoffers some valuable insight,
and do you think that that'spart of what it is to be a
craftsperson the fact you'realways looking to perfect
practice, to explore new avenueswhereas maybe, if you're not a
craft focused person, this ideaof having established a best
(11:09):
practice and then turning thehandle almost more of a
mechanized approach is moredominant?
Judah Armani (11:16):
not wanting to get like particularly preachy about
it, but I think it feels likeit's more of a human like.
Somehow along the way, we all,I would hope, want to be better
versions of ourselves, and theprocess of that means somehow
having the space to be able toreflect on how we're doing and
(11:37):
can we improve, and some of theattributes of the craftsman I
think can absolutely be deployedfor like everyday life of can I
explore better ways of being?
Stephen Wood (11:51):
it's a universal option.
It's applied in varying degrees.
I think many people definitelyaren't.
For myself, we're so focused onmoving forward that getting an
opportunity to reflect back andthen to be critical and to
improve based on that somethingyou have to consciously make
time for I mean, I think there'syou're spot on.
Judah Armani (12:13):
There should be an element of that that the onus
is on the individual.
We have our own choice andagency to be able to do that.
But I think also a part of whatwe should be doing is opening
further opportunities for othersto speak into our life.
Right like so that we've gotstreams from multiple directions
that are allowing us to changeor hopefully giving us the space
(12:36):
to reflect on change, so thatit's not all on our ability to
have a reflective practice, butit's people we trust, people we
love, that are able to speakinto our lives and us into them.
Stephen Wood (12:49):
Yeah, and also having that ability to listen as
well.
That's something that we haveto learn.
Awesome.
I will avoid asking you if youwere going to make a sandwich,
what sandwich would you make,given your love of craft?
That was an easy question, butwe won't go there.
Judah Armani (13:05):
I love how you skillfully navigated around that
.
Stephen Wood (13:09):
The sandwich question.
Well, you also said that we'vegot relationships or sandwiches.
Some relationships aresandwiches.
We will have to balance thingsin our lives.
Some of us are lucky, some ofus are not.
Beautiful, beautiful, I've gotan idea.
It's a hundred to one shot.
So, judah, I know you've justpublished your book Society
(13:32):
Driven Design.
Can you tell me a little bitabout why you wrote this book?
Judah Armani (13:37):
Well, firstly, I think why anyone writes a book
is partly to share what isimportant to them, and then the
process of making yourselfvulnerable to seeing if that
thing that I thought wasimportant to me is actually
important to others, and beingopen for critique.
Right, so it might not be asimportant as I thought it was to
(14:00):
other people.
Certainly, it's like theprocess of any art driven thing.
It's like you do somethingbecause it expresses your
philosophy of life, you do itbecause you feel it's important,
and then you're open for thecritique of it as well.
Let yourself vulnerable to it.
So there's some of the sort oflike narratives behind it.
Narratives behind it and itcovers a small portion of my
(14:27):
life, the last 20 years of oftwo decades worth of work, and
then crystallizes it in oneinitiative that has lasted
almost a decade and if we thinkabout those formative
experiences that were the 20years of experience, is there a
a story within that experiencethat comes out in the book that
you'd like to take us through?
Stephen Wood (14:46):
that will help us to understand your concepts of
dialogue and social license Imean, if we're talking about
dialogue, then for sure.
Judah Armani (14:54):
But even before that there's some learning,
maybe some hard learning thatbegins with our understanding of
wanting to be open to change.
Maybe the first decade where Iworked in homelessness I
believed that design had ananswer or a place anyway to be
able to be applied for some kindof social change.
But that belief carried with itMaybe pockets in me that were
(15:18):
impervious to change.
And so the first chunk of thebook is really exploring the
phenomena of those of us whowant to be involved in any kind
of change within society changemakers, entrepreneurs, social
entrepreneurs, designers whoknows who cares like there's a
call that we need to be open tochange ourselves.
Right, because if we'reimpervious to that, then in a
(15:40):
way we shouldn't really begetting involved in facilitating
change for others if we don'twant to see it in our own.
So that's the sort of first bitaround in the book.
But to your point arounddialogue, of course dialogue is
around wanting to use.
In the age of collaboration andco-creation that is quickly
becoming as bankrupt a word ascommunity, the need to want to
(16:06):
do it meaningfully and want todo it well means that we have to
use some of the oldest designtools known to man, which is
language and conversation, and,moving away from, maybe, tools
that might mystify people, thosewhom we're looking to
collaborate with or co-designwith or co-create with or
(16:28):
co-whatever buzzword du jour isgoing to be used for some kind
of meaningful connection ofpeople, to create things and to
to have the skill of designingconversations, to have the
ability and the empathy to knowthat, before actually we're
designing anything in life,we're designing conversations.
(16:50):
Conversations often aboutendings, conversations about
transitions, conversations aboutbeginnings, and how we convene
these spaces and hold thesespaces is part of the skill of
the designer to know where theappropriate space is, to be able
to invite people in, to createthat environment for those that
(17:10):
maybe have not spoken before, totake the first few steps in
speaking and to exercise choiceand agency in a way that's going
to make some kind of difference.
And these conversations oftenneed a vehicle to live in.
And because we have somethingas inaccessible as time that we
need to work with the lack oftime on a project, the fact that
(17:32):
we try and do a hack to solvehomelessness in a day, or
whatever it is challenging weset ourselves right Time, it
becomes inaccessible to a groupof stakeholders that aren't
going to be boxed in in sixworkshops and a three-month
project.
There's the need for long-formconversations.
So the social license is a wayof legitimizing these long-form
(17:56):
conversations over a period oftime that other organizations
could then dock into to say, ah,there's a social license going
on with that community in Camdenbeen going on for like three or
four years.
Let's dock into that and seewhether there's some insights,
learnings, trust, collaborationthat can be deployed into
(18:16):
something that will work.
Stephen Wood (18:18):
And that really contrasts with when you go and
run a design project.
This idea of understanding whatcan be achieved in a specific
time frame.
How can we accelerate theoutcomes?
How do we, you know, do morewith less?
This idea of actually givingthings time and space and not
being reductivist.
I love the fact you said we'llfix the homeless problem with
(18:41):
one project.
We all know that not the waythe world works.
But so many people step up tothe plate with that kind of
attitude that it kind of becomesthe norm and that then sets the
bar for others, as opposed toyeah, we've been dealing with
this problem for decades, forgenerations, for centuries.
We're not going to find asolution instantly you are spot
(19:02):
on.
Judah Armani (19:03):
It also opens up a whole new set of parameters as
well.
Like it's impossible,especially if we're talking
about deploying some kind of adesign initiative around
challenging circumstances.
We need to overcome things liketrust and the paradox that
trust has over collaboration.
(19:24):
We can't really trust someonethat we've never collaborated
before, but in order tocollaborate with someone, we
need to trust them, and we'renot going to get to the bottom
of that conundrum in athree-month project, you know,
in two workshops, in aninterview or a questionnaire.
Yeah, we need time yeah,doesn't exist.
On a post-it note no it doesn'texist on a post, and because we
(19:46):
have a time-based approach toproductivity and business, when
business touches design, we canbe guilty of thinking well, this
project, you know, if we throwenough people at it for the next
six months, we can, you know,at least get to a place where
others haven't got before.
But the point is that we'reunlikely to do that.
If our source data is going tobe the same, it will only be
(20:11):
different if we are meaningfullycollaborated and have been
welcomed into the communitiesthat we are looking to
collaborate with.
Then our source data will lookdifferent.
But that takes time and it'sonly when the source data is
different can we assume thatwe're going to create something
different.
Stephen Wood (20:29):
Absolutely, and you talked about creating the
conditions for dialogue tohappen.
If you're going intocommunities and you're
establishing trust, are thereways that you can create or
foster those conditions?
Judah Armani (20:45):
trust is notoriously difficult to design
for right.
But but to your point, thereare conditions for trust that
exist.
So we can look at consistency,we can look at frequency, we can
look at delivery on promises.
So when we started working inprisons, for example actually
(21:09):
we're talking about a communityof people that had been let down
so many times before, so theirlevels of trust was low, dare I
say, in trust debt right, ortrust poverty.
So what they needed, or one ofthe things just purely to build
the conditions for trust, is forsomeone to say something and
then deliver it.
Even if the thing that thatperson was going to say is I'm
going to be here every day fromeight to four, and then they
(21:32):
happen to be there every dayfrom eight to four.
That is a micro way ofdelivering on a promise.
Right, it's creating a tenantof trust, not trust itself, but
at least something that someonecan rely on.
That also brings frequency andconsistency to it.
So it's not like I'm going tobe here once a month or I'm
going to be here once a year.
The frequency and consistencyis commensurate to the amount of
(21:54):
trust debt that there is, andso, if you can see that there is
a group of people that havebeen constantly let down.
It probably needs moreintervention of time, of more
time that you carve out.
Stephen Wood (22:07):
How do we create that consistency for those that
have been devoid of trust intheir relationships?
That's going to be monthsrather than five minute workshop
.
Judah Armani (22:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stephen Wood (22:19):
You talked about your work in prisons.
I think it's a good time totouch on the story of in-house
records.
Where did the idea first cometo you?
Judah Armani (22:28):
the idea never came to me.
It came to us as a group, um meand about 15 prisoners.
The challenge came from candesign contribute to reducing
the offending?
And from there I knocked on thedoors of a bunch of prisons to
say, hey, I'm a designer, I'dreally like to see if I can
contribute to reducing offending.
(22:48):
At which point the answer waslike see ya, and so I was like,
maybe maybe me saying I'm adesigner isn't particularly
helpful in this scenario.
Okay, um, so I just got intouch with some prison to say
I'm an educator, I know I I cando that.
I've been doing that well for,I guess, a lot of my life, and
(23:10):
I'm willing to do that for freefor you, if you've got any
lessons that need teaching.
And you know the response isdifferent right, because I'm
offering something potentiallyvaluable and then using those
sessions to create a cohort ofpeople to explore how we might
do education differently.
So education in prisons issiloed.
(23:31):
That's not a critique onprisons, it's just a carry-on
from what we do in society.
Anyway.
We have numeracy lessons, wehave literacy lessons, we have
computer skills lessons.
We've got who knows who careswhat lessons, and they're siloed
, they're portioned off.
But the problem is that we'vegot 86,000 people in prison.
Maybe 50% of them neverfinished school in the first
(23:52):
place.
So this way of transferringknowledge, this way of learning,
if it never worked the firsttime around, why do we assume
it's going to work when they'rein jail?
Part of what we explored with agroup of guys was how do we get
away from siloed learning to alake of learning and a place
where actually we can move quitefreely in terms of the
(24:15):
knowledge that's given, workingwith the guys, building trust,
exploring aspirations, exploringambitions and hopes and
creativity Together.
We arrived at music and arecord label became the place
where that lake of learningcould take place.
Numeracy and counting in beatsin bars, in rhythm, literacy in
(24:40):
writing beats in bars, in rhythm, literacy in writing songs,
business plans and the role of alabel meant that you could be
an artist, an artist manager, apromoter, a musician, and also
there was no stigma.
It's one thing to leave thewing to go and do english and
maths and education, which maybeisn't seen as cool.
It's another thing to leavewing to go and be part of record
(25:02):
label.
Stephen Wood (25:04):
That has a different vibe you've got the
kudos there and I wonder whetherjust the fact that there was
such a concrete end point, itwasn't education for education's
sake, it doesn't driveengagement, but where there is
that actually I can see this isleading up to a specific thing.
Maybe that's one way toposition it, in a way that's
(25:25):
more engaging.
Judah Armani (25:26):
It's more concrete you are one million percent,
spot on, although I know thatit's impossible to be a million
percent, but you are, you aretotally back to the numeracy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, thanks, man, Ineed to go on yourself, but you
are totally right and actuallyyou know what you just said also
.
Therefore, the dot dot dot ofthat is that we need to
(25:48):
challenge do we believe that ourcurrent model for delivering
education, for deliveringknowledge transfer, is
state-of-the-art?
Do we believe that we learn bysitting down in a room and
someone talking to us?
Is that the crucible forknowledge exchange?
Or do we believe it's different?
(26:09):
And if it is different, thenwhat does that look like?
Stephen Wood (26:14):
Or is it different for different people as well,
when we get back to the chestnutof the Ken Robinson TED lecture
, where they said actuallydifferent people have different
styles.
You can have someone who's adunce uh, formal learning when
measured against one thing, butactually a genius when put into
a different situation.
It's like measuring a fish byits ability to climb a tree.
(26:34):
It's the wrong thing well.
Judah Armani (26:36):
Well, I mean, like when we're talking about
children, there is a base levelof curiosity that exists there
and within each child there'sthe space for us to be able to
like work relatively quickly tofind where that curiosity lives
at its heightened level.
And from my very limitedexperience so I home educated
(27:00):
all my children, but from thatexperience that I'm not never
been a teacher in that sense,middle school or high school I
think those guys do remarkablejobs.
But from that base limitedexperience, there is the pursuit
of where.
Where does curiosity live?
And therefore that's where I'mgoing to travel to, that's where
the session is, the knowledgetransfer is and the vehicles for
(27:24):
that could be wide and variedand creative and imaginative,
and the forum for that could bealso creative, imaginative.
You know socrates or you knowplato through socrates and did a
lot of the teaching walking,because that physical movement
of your body going forward alsoconnected with the mind moving
(27:45):
forward, right?
So who's to say sitting down ina classroom is even the best
format for anyone to transferknowledge.
Stephen Wood (27:53):
It's the best format to control people and
control a large audience.
I just remember the scene inFerris Bueller with the people
drooling onto their desks andliterally it looked like they
were sedated by the teacher.
Judah Armani (28:07):
Bueller, bueller, bueller.
Stephen Wood (28:11):
Voodoo economics.
We can all remember voodooeconomics just because of that
fantastic film.
So you've started to engagewith folks in prison.
You identified that for them agreat end point would be a
record label.
It's got you know potentialeconomic impacts.
There's a job at the end of it.
It doesn't have the stigma ofgoing back to school.
(28:34):
It's relatively cool.
How did you get people engagedthe first time that you ran
in-house records?
Judah Armani (28:42):
That's easy.
We already collaborated with 15people.
By the time we were ready tolike make it go live, we were
300% oversubscribed, like justthe word got around to that jail
, which is like there's a recordlabel going Cool.
Well, what's the criteria?
I know I guess you just got tobe interested in it, I'm
interested in it, and so we hadmore people than we knew how to
(29:04):
cater for, which was a challenge, but I guess not surprising,
right, when the opposite is truefor education providers in
prison, some of the bigeducation providers that do all
the maths and English, andthey're struggling to get like
eight people, nine people from aprison of a thousand, and
they're struggling to get like,you know, eight people, nine
people from a prison of athousand.
They're struggling to get ninepeople to rock up to maths.
(29:27):
And you know we've got awaiting list of 150 and we're
brimmed to the full of 20 in asession.
Like finding that engagementlevel was never, has never been
like the challenge for us.
Stephen Wood (29:42):
And where did you find the funding?
Because I know we've looked atdesign in state schools and
funding for design in stateschools is dropping off To
actually find funding forin-prison education.
Was that more difficult or wasthere a direct route to funding
what?
Judah Armani (29:57):
was difficult was working out whether it should be
a charitable initiative or abusiness.
That difficulty lasted aboutthree minutes, partly because,
going back to the point of trustand consistency, we can't say
to someone we're going to behere next year, someone that's
(30:20):
got a four or five-yearcustodial sentence.
We can't say we're going to behere throughout your whole
custodial sentence if we're acharity, because we're going to
spend half our year fundraising.
So I was very curious as to thedesigner element here.
The designer should be curiousabout how do the current
education streams work in prisonPrisons, commission education.
(30:43):
They have education contractsto deliver numeracy and literacy
and computer skills and whoknows who cares what skills.
And I felt the the smartest wayof going about this was to say
right, we want to be aneducation provider.
Therefore we're able to drawdown on commission funding for
(31:04):
our services that we're going todeliver as staff.
So in-house now has 21 staff,delivers educational contracts
across the UK prisons and whilstwe're not the big boy education
providers that eat up themulti-million pound contracts
for delivering maps in Englishin like UK prisons, we sort of
(31:25):
feed off the tiny scraps butstill are able to do so to wash
our face and then whateverprofit is left over.
We support guys on the outsidebecause we're through the gates.
So not only do they get to likework with in-house in jail,
when they leave jail they'reable to continue going to studio
(31:45):
in London or in Brightonworking with in-house staff.
Stephen Wood (31:50):
And you've mentioned, when you started you
were looking at how you couldengage with people who were in
prison so you could reduce there-offending rate.
Is that something that you'vetracked for the people that have
been through the in-houseprogram?
Judah Armani (32:05):
Yeah, we've tracked it and we've watched it
through Nesta From those whowe've tracked that continue to
work with us.
After release there's less than1% reoffending rate.
Stephen Wood (32:15):
And how does that compare with the national
average?
Judah Armani (32:18):
64% were flaming right.
Stephen Wood (32:21):
Okay, and how many people have been through the
program?
Judah Armani (32:26):
On the outside that have been connected with us
just under a thousand in totalthat we have in TREK.
There's lots of reasons whypeople won't continue with this.
Out of prison there's probablyabout 3000 people that have gone
through in-house.
For some people when they leavejail in-house.
For some people, when theyleave jail in-house represents a
time that they were in jail andthere's no reason for them to
(32:47):
continue with us on the outsideright, and I totally get that.
For other people they want tocontinue and see in-house as a
way of developing music andthat's great.
For others, a differentarchetype.
In-house has a socialconnection.
Studio is a safe place wherethey can do their housing
benefit forms or maybe even meetprobation or maybe right in
(33:08):
studio there's been deemed as acontact center so guys can meet
their kids there.
Especially guys that might beliving in quite chaotic
circumstances and situations butstill want to maintain
relationships with theirchildren come to studio because
that's a safe place fantastic,and have you seen any folks go
through the program and actuallycome back and become members of
(33:29):
staff?
Stephen Wood (33:30):
yeah, there'll be seven of those for 21 people
that come through the coursethey've actually seen the
benefit it brings to their lifeand they're keen to spread it to
others.
That's a fantastic story.
I was really interested to lookat the numbers because when you
see the difference between 65re-offending if you go the
traditional path versus one butthen you look, actually this is
(33:51):
at scale are many people comingto you and asking you for advice
about how we reshape the inprison curriculum as a whole?
Judah Armani (34:00):
not yet.
But I think that, partlybecause remember we were talking
about currently prisoneducation system is still siloed
and because that is the modelwhich feels the easiest to be
able to mitigate risk for andprison is also about mitigating
(34:20):
risk In-house is a much moreopen space of learning.
It's more work for the educator, so you can't just have a maths
educator.
You know you need to be moreflexible, but dare I say that's
the whole point of education isthat you are flexible to the
needs of the learner.
You're there in service of them, in support of their learning
(34:43):
journey, not necessarily to justdo the bit that you know and
then get out of there, but tosay, actually, how can I create
the environment for this personto engage with knowledge and
then feel good about thatknowledge and then to build on
that?
Stephen Wood (35:00):
that's the second time we've touched on this idea
of how do we foster theconditions.
It's one of the core elementsof designing.
How do we design for an outcome?
Judah Armani (35:08):
well, we have to have the right conditions to
foster that, especially whenwe're dealing with humans and
those conditions will be formedand informed by the challenging
experiences of the humans thatwe're collaborating with.
There will be some universalelements like trust, like safety
.
For sure you need thoseconditions, those dimensions, if
(35:30):
you like, but then there'll beother things that are nuanced
and unique to that group that weare working with, and the more
that we understand that group,the more that will form and
inform the conditions that weneed to create in order to hold
that space in a good place.
Stephen Wood (35:48):
And how do you learn about those conditions?
Judah Armani (35:52):
I think that maybe that's a trite answer.
I don't mean it like that.
I wasn't born in England.
I was born in Tehran and cameto England when I was quite
young but grew up maybe in aless kind London that didn't
necessarily warm to people thatwere foreign and certainly not
(36:13):
warm to people that were foreignand from the Middle East.
You get to experience thelanguage of loss and the
language of outsider quitequickly, but you also want to
learn the language of loss andthe language of outsider quite
quickly.
But you also want to learn thelanguage of society and the
language of acceptance andbefore you know it, as a kid you
can speak many languages and Idon't think that is a unique
(36:36):
experience to children growingup.
I think in whatevercircumstance and whatever our
backgrounds from affluence toquite challenging we will have
all had experience of thelanguage of the outsider.
There'll always beenenvironments where we will be on
the outside of what that microsociety or the wider society are
(36:56):
experiencing and they almostare giving us an understanding
of the vowels and the consonantsthat that language requires.
Now, as we grow older, ourpursuit is often to be accepted
within the main core of society,but the differentiation of the
designer is to never forgetthose languages and be able to
(37:16):
use them in a way that is goingto benefit wider society.
Stephen Wood (37:21):
Again we come back to this idea of looking at
children and looking at how theyembrace language.
They've got a clearunderstanding of.
Let's look at the language ofthe Orthodox.
How do I express myself?
It could be accent, it could bedialect, it could be vocabulary
.
It can easily, easily switch Onmy commute into London as we
pass through the home counties.
(37:41):
It's really interesting to seehow accents change when their
teens are talking to theirfriends and as soon as their
parents phone.
It's a code shifting thing.
Judah Armani (37:51):
But again it shows that there's this view of
understanding the cachet and thedoors that are opened Weirdly
yeah, the reason I'm chucklingis because I remember, oh my
(38:11):
goodness, a few years ago I wasmeeting one of our graduates
from in-house on the train inlondon.
They're coming down to brightonfor the day and we were talking
on the train and as we gotcloser towards brighton, a
couple of young people got youngpeople yes and um shake your
cane, you know they were.
They were brighton.
They were brighton boys.
They were well dressed.
They were probably just, youknow, come from having quiche at
(38:33):
home and they were talking in aparticular way that would make
you think they are not frombright.
It would make you think thatthey were from, you know, like
maybe a more tougher councilestate.
And the guy that I was withthat I met, he just looked at me
and he was like I don't get it.
He was like my whole life Idon't want to sound like the way
(38:54):
I sound.
And here are these kids behindme that are sounding the way I
sound and I would give anythingto sound how they really sound,
but they're choosing not tosound like that.
They're choosing to sound likeme because somehow they think
that has more cachet to it.
Stephen Wood (39:10):
There we go, the Guy Ritchie quotient.
Judah Armani (39:12):
Yeah.
Stephen Wood (39:12):
Definitely there.
Yeah, we can adopt the mockneyor the fake yardie lingo.
It shows an understanding, butit also reflects the fact that
you've got the right to do both,and it's like oh.
And there's a lot of talk ofcultural appropriation.
But yeah, you know, in somesituations, done on the wrong
(39:35):
train, the kids will be reallyglad they're wearing trainers so
they can run.
It's like, oh, come on To thineown self, be true, I've got an
idea.
It's a hundred to one shot.
We've talked a little bit aboutthrough the gate services and
how in-house is something thatisn't just there, through the
custodial part of the service.
(39:57):
Did you design the journey thathappens as you go through the
gate in a different way to thejourney that happens in prison?
Judah Armani (40:07):
Well, yeah, there are some caveats, though, where
all of in-house is really formedand informed by the experiences
of the humans involved, and sothere were some easier things
about delivering in custody andharder things about delivering
in the community, aboutdelivering in custody and harder
things about delivering in thecommunity.
In the custody, people arealways there when they need to
(40:27):
be there because it's a lockedenvironment.
In the community, there is awhole range of other things that
will have people's attention,so we needed to create a more
flexible, softer space asopposed to kind of a regime,
because we were forced to workwith the regime.
We didn't set the regime out ofprison.
We needed to be, you know,mindful of that.
(40:48):
There are a range of otherthings that are going to be
demanding the time of our guys,and so we needed to have an
environment that had moreflexibility and then a lot more
choice and agency.
You know we do gigs on a regularbasis, but certainly not me or
any of the staff put that on.
That's all the graduates, theguys that come from prison.
(41:09):
I'd say accountability, butreally it's about agency to be
able to shape the way that theywant to share music and also,
what's really important with thestuff that goes on on the
outside is there's aninseparable quality between
staff, volunteers and graduates,which means that in-house gigs
(41:30):
are in-house gigs in terms ofthe philosophy of in-house
prison.
It might mean that half thepeople there have an allegiance
and believe in what in-house isdoing and have never been to
prison, but they also play musicand perform.
The point is is that you'remeant to go to in-house gig and
(41:52):
just not know, because it's notimportant, who's on stage that
went to prison, who isn't onstage to went to prison.
So there's this inseparablequality.
On the outside is verydifferent to you know, the
quality of geeks in prison onthe inside, because it's just
the guys in prison that areperforming.
So I think there are someinteresting deviations in terms
(42:12):
of touch points on the outside.
Stephen Wood (42:14):
We've touched on in-house records, which is a
fantastic story.
It's great to see how an ideahas blossomed and you've worked
with a community that doesn'toften get to participate in
co-design and you've helped usto understand how trust building
is that first foundation andafter you've done that, actually
a lot of the ideas and theagency and the design happens in
(42:38):
that community itself.
If you're approaching theproject again today, is there
anything you'd do differently?
Judah Armani (42:45):
That's a really good question has anything
changed in the justice system.
Stephen Wood (42:51):
That means actually think doors are shut or
doors are open for a project.
Judah Armani (42:56):
I don't know about that element because I haven't
tried to start something withinthe custodial world for some
time, so I'm not sure what thosechallenges might be now.
But to the first point, isthere anything I'd do
differently?
Yeah, I think I would have.
I would have probably tried toexplore the project with another
(43:17):
designer.
I think I naively went into iton my own and it really
stretched me.
It was just me for about a yearand a half.
So I was convening, facilitating, doing the kind of sessions,
and then, as it became a thing,I was grabbing a notebook,
(43:37):
grabbing a guitar and runningthe sessions and delivering it
quite every day, leaving, youknow, waking up at half four or
five in in the morning, drivingdown to the prison on the Isle
of Sheffield, and then, when itgot a little bit of success and
the next prison down the roadwanted it, I would do three days
in one prison, two days inanother, and I was just
(44:00):
exhausted for a year and a half.
And and because I like makingthings and I like making things
with people and I like makingthings quickly with people, so
that we can understand there wasa lot of it that was just
embodied knowledge and it wasvery difficult to get other
people on board.
I could get staff on boardbecause eventually the prisons
(44:20):
were like wait, we should payfor this, but staff was
different to someone to designwith, and so I think I would
probably do it with anotherperson, because it really
exhausted me with my reflectionand we often hear that some
designers uh, pack animals.
Stephen Wood (44:39):
So they're really social.
They always work together.
Everyone loves being in astudio environment.
Everyone hated being inlockdown.
So to be on your own for a yeareven the zeal of the purpose,
because clearly you're reallypassionate about this and we're
ultra passionate at the verybeginning as well.
Even with that, the fact youdon't have someone to bounce
(45:00):
ideas off and, as you say, toshare the load with that must
have been really difficult, butthat's a fantastic point for
anyone who's consideringlaunching a purposeful
enterprise.
Up front, you talked aboutturning it into a business and
prison saying, well, maybe weshould pay for this.
Would it have been easier toget someone to collaborate with
(45:23):
on the design phase if you'dhave had that funding from the
beginning?
Judah Armani (45:26):
Oh, no, no, no.
I think there are someenvironments where creativity
comes from squeeze, and I thinkit's important to embrace those
environments, and this one wasvery much one of those.
So I purposefully didn't eventry and get my time covered,
because I knew that not doing sowould unlock another layer of
(45:48):
creativity, and that's what Iwas really keen to find not in a
in a martyr way, but like in apurely I know what this is like.
I've been in these scenariosbefore, and I've been in these
scenarios where there has beenfunding, and I've been in these
scenarios where there hasn'tbeen funding, and my experience
is the funding actually rarelymakes it better yeah,
(46:10):
constraints encourage stretch.
Stephen Wood (46:13):
Stretch means you look at different ways of
problem solving or even thinkingabout potential solution
avenues.
But again, yeah, you've alsogot to think about exhaustion as
well.
Yeah, and then it comes down toscoping.
So how do we make sure thatwe're not trying to boil the
ocean?
That's awesome.
If we think about societydriven design your new book are
(46:38):
there any elements of that thatyou'd like to talk about that
maybe we haven't touched on?
Judah Armani (46:42):
No, I think we have.
You've navigated it carefullyand beautifully.
The beginning section is theneed for the designer to
understand what design means tothem and what their practice
looks like.
We articulate about that.
The second chunk is about howwe design conversations
meaningfully.
The second chunk is about howwe design conversations
(47:03):
meaningfully.
Chomsky talks about actuallylanguage as a way of
communicating in the mosthighest fidelity of form.
And then the last section isputting that all together and
exploring in-house as a casestudy.
So you know, hey, you probablydon't need to buy it because
you've heard it all now.
Stephen Wood (47:18):
I know it's also a beautiful book as well.
So as someone who's alreadyhiding books on design in in his
house uh, that will definitelybe another one I'll need to find
a hiding place for.
As we come to the end of thepodcast, I just want to reflect.
You've talked about buildingtrust and trust as being the
foundation for successfulcollaborative co-design.
(47:41):
You've talked about theelements of consistency and
dependability being there intrust, but you also talked about
approaching prisons and firstsaying, well, I'm a designer and
getting rejected, and thensaying I'm an educator and
getting accepted.
If we think about the trustequation, the thing that's on
(48:02):
the bottom of that equation isself-interest, and I do wonder,
as a designer, do people seedesigners coming in to observe,
to take out, or educators ofpeople that come into an
organization to give back?
So could that also be factoredinto some of that trust equation
?
Judah Armani (48:21):
That's a really interesting point.
I find the term designer to beproblematic in a lot of
scenarios, not just withincriminal justice system, because
the definition andinterpretation of it varies so
much and if one introducesthemselves as a designer, they
(48:42):
might have to spend the nextthree months having to
reinterpret what that means tothe audience.
So they're just like engaged.
So there are some instanceswhere it's helpful, usually when
you are able to do what youwant to do and not be questioned
, but most of the time and thathas a value.
That has a value in certain setthe visionary yeah yeah, yeah,
(49:06):
yeah, yeah, and you know you can.
You can then play with uniform,you know you can dress
differently, you can dress in away that you know that that
industry doesn't dress purelyjust to disarm and to come in
with a way of like, being ableto like, create, uh, positive
sort of friction.
But to your point, I thinkthere's something kind of
(49:27):
beautiful and humble andordinary in in terms of everyday
sense of the role of theeducator.
That I think is phenomenal.
And nick de leon, who set upthe service design program rca,
often talks about educators,animators, you know, people that
will animate others.
I think there's somethingbeautiful about the role of an
(49:50):
educator, a craft of theeducator that feels not
threatening to people andsometimes it might feel a little
bit like what is an educatorgoing to give, but most of the
time it feels like, oh, whatharm would an educator do?
And is there a differencebetween an educator going to
give, but most of the time itfeels like, oh, what aren't?
Stephen Wood (50:05):
and is there a difference between an educator
and a teacher?
Judah Armani (50:08):
I don't, maybe, uh , maybe, I mean, I don't that
that's, that's um something for,like you know, smart, that's
like you need to be able to pullapart, and I think that's
definitely something for thesecond daiquiri yeah, yeah, yeah
, for sure.
Um, I mean, I don't know likethere's something about the
phrase teacher, doesn't?
(50:30):
It hits like a pain point in me, maybe because of experiences
of teachers, I don't know, thereare echoes from the past that
come through with this idea ofteachers.
Stephen Wood (50:39):
But I think it's quite american to talk about
educators and I I'm with you.
I think that people who aregoing to be crafting, the people
that craft the world of thefuture, are going to be in the
education sector and anythingthat helps to build the kudos of
actually making that move togoing and teaching.
(51:00):
That's a great thing.
In the UK we've gone throughsuccessive rounds of moving
teaching from almost theprofession so at one point you
could get your passport signedby a teacher not anymore.
So, yeah, it's obviously no,you can.
It has to be a policeman or alawyer or a doctor, someone in a
(51:21):
respective profession, and Ithink that's really telling.
And I know so many peoplewho've gone into teaching who
are absolutely inspirational andare the people that are going
to create waves in the world,much in the way that you guys
have done with in-house records.
Judah Armani (51:37):
I think that's a really interesting observation
about the erosion of theprofession of teaching.
I think it's worthy of likemore thought, I think maybe a
third daiquiri.
Stephen Wood (51:49):
And on that really happy note, well, we got
pensive.
We got pensive in the end.
So we started off talking aboutcleaning bean pans and uh,
sitting on toilet pans on thenight shift, through to
understanding how we design withcommunities, talking about
records, talking about languageand how it excludes and includes
(52:11):
, and we've ended up talkingabout teaching and back to
daiquiris.
It's a fantastic virtual circle.
Anything that takes us back toa daiquiri is a good thing.
Judah Armani (52:19):
In my book, how wonderfully you have hosted and
I know that of course you'regoing to host it wonderfully
because you're running asuccessful podcast, but still
it's.
It's always nice to see thosehallmarks in real life and the
way you've carefully navigatedthis.
I agree with your summary thankyou very much.
Stephen Wood (52:39):
It's good to show that I've been listening.
To be honest, I know know Geneis often slightly dubious about
whether I've nodded off or not.
Judah Armani (52:46):
But no.
Stephen Wood (52:47):
I'm old, but I'm not that old, jude.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you so much for carvingout time to speak to us and we
look forward to reading yourbook in full.
Come on, thank you.
I've got an idea.
It's a hundred to one shot.
I've got an idea.
It's a hundred to one shot.
I've got an idea.
Service Design Yap is aproduction from STN UK.
It's presented by me, stephenWood, with production assistance
(53:09):
from Gina Wotania and music byDaka Sands.
This episode has been edited byEd Lush.
Thanks, ed.
Oh darling, this trip's aninspiration.
I'm just saying it has happened.
Judah Armani (53:37):
No no, I appreciate that.
Last thing I want is anyonesneezing over a profound moment.
Stephen Wood (53:42):
Yeah, but there we go.
Some of my best work getssneezed over, but there we go.
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