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The website of Palomar5 may look like some kind of secret project initiated by the government where second generation mutants are planning to come up with a concept a new world order. But really, it’s not. The last week, I was invited to come to Berlin to join 19 other young people to participate in a very interesting project, or maybe a journey is a better subscription..

Following the principles of the ‘Design Thinking‘ method (research, ideate, protype, choose, implement and learn) the groups tried to tackle some ‘hot’ subjects including intellectual property, identity, skill and knowledge collaboration, leadership and value …). Within these seven steps, problems can be framed, the right questions can be asked, more ideas can be created, and the best answers can be chosen. Sounds cool eh? Well…, it is.

What striked me most was how well  the design thinking method worked the entire week. The principles are very simple but worked very well, even in a such diverse group as the Palomar5. Alexander Gross’ (CEO of IDEO, Germany) introduced the Visual Thinking process to us. The thing I found most interesting was that he mentioned a thing he personally liked a lot, to ‘find inspiration out-door’. One of these things he mentioned were ‘workarounds’. A workaround is a bypass of a recognized problem in a system. A workaround is typically a temporary fix that implies that a genuine solution to the problem is needed.

Workarounds can be found everywhere, sometimes very visible, other times less visible. Cities are great places to find these smart solutions for small problems. A tile to hold a door open, a screw to hang your jacked on, using your phone to open up beer (seriously, I have a friend who does that) - workarounds come in many forms. And Berlin has got quite some workarounds too.

When a train track is closed for construction, the BVG (the German public transport service), rents ‘velo-bikes’, (the same ones used by tourists to cruise around). Normally, the bike drivers would rent a bike for the day and work as a kind of freelancer to make money. The more rides, the more money. But using the bikes as a substitute for the train is not only an environment friendly solution for transporting, it’s also a way to support the local biking companies.

One of the first things when you are in Berlin is the visibility of a turbulent and a very recent history -including the second WW2 and the falling of the wall. This left the city of Berlin with many very visible  ‘concrete scars’; the wholes in the walls, the gray former-communist buildings and the wide streets show that Berlin has a rich history. Call it DIY-on-a-city-level, City-hacking or pimp my city, these young artists have found an interesting way to make there city a little more colorful.

Do you know any other workarounds in your own city? Mention them in the comments and I’ll update this blog post.