KEA Design Charrette 2020
“Reshape your community. Sustainability, Entrepreneurship & Culture After the Crisis“
In October 2020, I had the chance to participate in a multidisciplinary design challenge organized by the Copenhagen School of Design and Technology. The team included students and professors from three universities, as well as a local partner in Denmark.
Objective
The purpose was to create a plan that would work towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals published by the United Nations and, at the same time, help an organization connect with its local community.
Our local partner was FabLab Nordvest, an initiative by Space NV that offers knowledge and workshop space for people to create their own crafts, with cheap access to tools like CNC machines, laser cutters, 3D printers, a 6-axis robot arm, vinyl cutter, or a silkscreen printing workshop.
Team
Nelly Martinez, Humber College, Toronto.
Pia Araneta, Ryerson University, Toronto.
Maria Clara Abud, Senac University, Rio de Janeiro.
Concept Exploration
Due to the constrictions derived from the Covid-19 pandemic at the time, the proposed solution was to make use of the outdoor spaces. Through a community garden, people could interact, learn, build, and share in a safer way.
Proposed Solution:
Interactive Community Garden
A place for people to come and learn how to build sustainable products to improve the community. Workshops to teach how to make benches, panters, bird feeders, etc. These objects would populate the surrounding space and can also be given to nearby businesses to use, like a planter outside a restaurant, for example.
This way, the community would learn how to use the FabLab tools, while contributing to a greater landscape that they can be proud to be a part of. The goal is to empower citizens with achievable projects so they can feel accomplished, and to feel that any FabLab project is a community project.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
As part of the Interactive Community Garden proposal, we made sure to include and support four of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.
They were:
#4 -Quality Education
#9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
#11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
#17 - Partnerships for the Goals
Discoverability: How could the community get to know about the FabLab?
We got inspired by successful initiatives like Chicago's and Sao Paulo's Cows on Parade', Cincinnati's 'Big Pig Gig', Seattle's 'Pigs on Parade', and the similar sculpture show of colorful moose in Toronto.
Instead of choosing an animal, the common piece would be the FabLab logo, which is visually attractive itself.
The participants would create a physical design with a creative variation of the FabLab logo. One example of this could be to create a mural made from wood residue materials and install it on the premises of a local café, like this abstract mural.
Murals, sculptures, sidewalk paintings, benches, or separation structures for the 'new normal', the possibilities are endless.
A way to promote the participation in creating these artifacts would be to have a contest.
It does not have to involve money or profit, as the participants could win a month/semester/year membership for the FabLab, or win a spot in their desired course or workshop.
This would result in even more promotion of usage of the makerspace.
On the other side, community members and the public in general walking around the neighbourhood would notice the presence of the artistic interventions, just as with the animal sculptures previously mentioned in Sao Paulo, Toronto, Seattle, etc.
In those cases, the idea was welcomed among the civilians. In Toronto, for example, the expressive moose have been around since 2000, being modified several times.
In the same way, people could be intrigued at first, and then spread the word the Space NV innitiative. Surely the participants could get more people involved, telling them to vote for their creation.
This would result in personal interactions among the members of the community, and in reinforcing the feeling of belonging.