Comments: (0)

EU collaborators | Urska Cernigoj

Category: ⚐ EN+colaboradores+ecosistema urbano

Urska

Urska Cernigoj

Architectur student in Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana

My four months internship at Ecosistema Urbano is at the end. Working with such a great team, of young creative people is excellent experience for me at the point when I am just about to start my professional career. When I came here I immediately landed in the dreamhamar project. I took part at preliminary design process and now I am a part of a network design team. Coordinating, communicating, developing and dreaming Hamar’s square with so many participants and experts made this four months even shorter.

I am from Slovenia and I am an undergraduate student in the urbanism oriented program at the Faculty of Architecture from the University of Ljubljana. Before I finish my studies I decided to take the opportunity of the scholarship for international training exchange and to apply for internship.

In academic year 2009/2010 I was on Erasmus student exchange in ETSAG, University of Alcalá and became more familiar with Madrid’s architecture and also with Ecosistema Urbano, which became one of my favorite’s studios. Specially because of the projects, which are creative, smart, innovative, social and environmentally friendly. Probably the endless blue sky and mostly sunny weather only helped in my decision to come to Madrid again.

I am also the kind of person who always thinks that she does not have enough knowledge and I am always searching for new ways to learn more. Not just more about architecture but also about things from other professions, because when you have knowledge from different fields you can manage it and do things better. And my curiosity only helps. All this I found here and after four months I am even more convinced that my choice about the internship was right.

You can follow Urska on Twitter: @aksruc

Comment: (1)

The Bureau of Doing Something About It

Category: ⚐ EN+critical city+design

Bruce Mau Design, a design and innovation studio centered on purpose and optimism, set up design exhibition “The Bureau of Doing Something About It”. The exhibition took place in the Propeller Centre in Toronto, Canada.

During the past year over 1000 grievances, gripes, and annoyances were collected from people across the city. The Toronto Complaints Choir transform this complains into “disappointed people’s song”.

BMD studio decided to do something about it.  Studio designers Amanda Happé, Kar Yan Cheung, Chris Braden, Michal Dudek, and Paul Kawai team set up a pop-up studio, working in real-time in the Propeller Centre. They tried to design solutions in response to the complaints. A book of these ideas was also simultaneously designed, and sent throughout the city of Toronto and their citizens.

Comments: (2)

Shop with a concept: Unpackaged

Category: ⚐ EN+creativity+sustainability

Unpackaged is one of the shops with interesting, environmental friendly, and ethical concepts. Their philosophy is simple and they are describing it with this statement: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” (Buckminster Fuller)



photo: www.flicker.com (c) Grainger Laffan (globalpressgang.com).
For The Social Enterprise Coalition

The model of “world with less wasteful packaging” was created in 2006 by Catherine Conwayin, and company is achieving it one customer at a time. Unpackaged was set because Catherine wanted to refill her groceries using her own containers. She set up shop that made it really easy for customers to come and refill all their daily essentials. The products they sell are usually seasonal and from local production, with minimal transportation, mostly certified organic, and fair trade. In Unpackaged shop in London you can buy the exact amount you need or want so you don’t waste anything and also save money. And in the end going packaging-free means also that less waste will end in landfills.

How It Works? They are giving us some instructions:

– Remember to bring your containers* from home (if you forget, you can buy reusable containers here)
– Come to Unpackaged & say hello
– Weigh your containers at the counter then choose the product & amount you want
– Take your goods home & enjoy
– When you’ve run out, come back for a refill, simple as that!

*Containers: bring anything you like, there’s nothing to date that we haven’t been able to refill (even our lovely friend who likes putting lentils in old water bottles!) Bring glass jars, tupperware, old takeaway cartons, brown paper bags, plastic bags, old packaging.. if it’s heavy, we’ll weigh it first, if it’s light then just refill and we’ll weigh at the end.


photo: www.flicker.com (c) Grainger Laffan (globalpressgang.com).
For The Social Enterprise Coalition

Comment: (1)

Dreamhamar network of european workshops: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture.

Category: ⚐ EN+arquitectura+dreamhamar

Copenhagen 5-9th september 2011

During one week master students and 3rd year students from the Royal Academy of fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen were working around dreamhamar project. The students were mainly from Denmark but there was an important amount of them coming from countries all around the world. There were students from: Australia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Chec Republic,
Island,…
The workshop was lead by the danish professor Frans Derniak and the ecosistema urbano partner Jose Luis Vallejo (@jlvmateo).
The main aim of the workshop was to experience public spaces in Copenhagen by directly acting on them and later extract the learning of the process and comunicate to Hamar citizens involved in the design of the new Stortorget Square. continue reading