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Guillermo Aroca | eu collaborators

Category: ⚐ EN+colaboradores+ecosistema urbano+Uncategorized

Dear all! Today we introduce Guillermo Aroca, a young architect who is collaborating with us from September 2014. He is bringing a critical fresh view of urbanism and architecture. A sharp observer who gives the perfect touch to our reports. Below, in his own words:

 

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I was born in Madrid in 1989 and I have always had a special interest for design, society and politics. I developed my passion for politics through my participation in the Model European Parliament (MEP), a debate program organized by the European Union.

I have learned architecture at the Architecture School of Valladolid and I have studied the fifth year of my career at the University of Technology and Economics of Budapest (BME). I have presented a selection of freehand drawings, photographs and collages that I have made during my career to the Association of Architects of this city (FUGA).

I began to practice as an architect at the architecture firms M57 and ODImasP, the former is based in Granada and the latter in Valladolid. I have also worked in the gallery of contemporary art Álvaro Alcázar, where I got in touch with the most active professionals in the Spanish creative scene.

In 2013, after volunteering in a Spanish NGO and submerging myself into the Spanish crisis, I conducted a final thesis project of a social nature, with the desire to serve the most disadvantaged part of the population.

During my stay in Ecosistema Urbano, I have developed an interest for urban social planning with citizen collaboration. These past months I have focused in the execution of a Master Plan for Asunción (Paraguay), I have also been working in the preliminary phase of the development of a Master Plan for Encarnacion (Paraguay) and a group working space in Barcelona. This commission has allowed me to mentally travel to South America without moving from my own city. Apart from learning how to trace a Master Plan full of content and without losing any attention to its design and appearance, I have also enjoyed an extraordinary work environment, full of great energy and fellowship.

In the future I look forward to further developing my passion for architecture, fashion, photography and writing. I have been able to cultivate these interests through various collaborations in many magazines, such as Curador, Doze and Metal Magazine.

More information at:
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Matthieu Darcourt | eu collaborators

Category: ⚐ EN+colaboradores+ecosistema urbano

Today we introduce Matthieu Darcourt, an architecture student who has been doing a short internship with us, bringing the French language back to the office after a couple of years… Here is what he tells us:

Matthieu Darcourt

Matthieu Darcourt

I’m a student in architecture at the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) of Strasbourg in France, and I will graduate in October 2014. I had the opportunity to travel a lot especially during my Erasmus in Budapest and my internship here at ecositema urbano in Madrid. I believe there is no such thing as losing yourself in an unknown city in order to discover it’s deeper essence, culture and personality. As an architect and as a person, I am really interested in this balance between big cities and traditional culture, and Madrid is a beautiful example of it: a 21st century city with a village atmosphere.

Matthieu Darcourt in Budapest

Matthieu Darcourt in Budapest

During my internship at ecosistema urbano, I had the chance to think about it when writting an article about situationist theories and urban participation. Indeed, thanks to their blog, they take some time to think and research concerning urban social design, so it creates a stimulating and creative atmosphere and projects. I found really interesting the original project approach they have, including social networks, technologies, and creative commons, questioning urban landscape and social life. Finally, I enjoyed the nice atmosphere of the studio, especially during cooking time! Thanks again.

Occupation: Architecture student
Interests: Architecture, Anthropology, Sculpture, Cities
City/country: Strasbourg, FR
Web: Portfolio

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Claudio Marras | eu collaborators

Category: ⚐ EN+colaboradores+ecosistema urbano

Today we introduce Claudio Marras, a young architect who is doing an internship with us, taking part in various aspects of our work… and also bringing a great Italian touch to our lunchbreak! Let him tell us a couple of things about himself:

A young dreamer architect.

Passion, Curiosity and Perseverance: I want to travel, I want to see, I want to know.

Architect evolution

Architect evolution

Hello everybody, I am Claudio Marras a 30 years old italian architect come from Sardinia, Italy. I will try to synthesize my life with 3 simple keywords.

Passione (passion)

From from child to young adult

Once upon a time

A life lived wrapped by passion. Food, travel, sport, people, ART… Born in a creative and art-loving family, I was easily able to discover and explore different worlds. Living in a island I had, from the beginning, the pleasure (and necessity) to go abroad.
I lived in Croatia, Usa, Spain and Germany and I traveled throughout most of Europe.

Curiositá (curiosity)

From external world to myself

From Praha with love

From Praha with love

Each place/person could teach you something. It’s up to you understand the way to acquire knowledge from it. Every place can be different for everyone, it’s the culture and meaning behind it that matters and makes it special and unique for every one. It is not only the place, it is also the experience.

As an architect I have to design the space in relation with local dynamics and needs, trying to involve those who will use that space into the process.

Determinazione (perseverance)

From Valencia to Punto d’Incontro

Different forms of urban attraction. The Turia’s park of Valencia for a cultural conversion of spare time

Different forms of urban attraction.
The Turia’s park of Valencia for a cultural conversion of spare time

Social Architect

My architecture thesis project (2007) was the synthesis of my mindset and my professional way of seeing urbanism and architecture: bottom up architecture, social approach, participatory process. The project’s AIM was to find a social and cultural way to convert the spare time of the people. The idea was to give to everyone the opportunity to know and exchange skills and competencies in a public space coordinated by the Time-based currency system. The project was studied for the river park of Valencia, Spain.

Starting from these theoretical input, I’m developing it in a practical way trough Punto d’incontro (Meeting point) project. It is a box that contains active and creative groups or people who work for the re-appropriation of public space through a participatory process. Artists, professionals, and experts interact with the local population to involve people in a urban renewal.

Claudio

Claudio

RESUME

Education
Bachelor Degree of Territorial, Urban and Environmental Planning in 2005.
Master Degree on Architecture in 2007.
Freelance architect from 2009 with a Certificate of Site Safety Coordinators (2012).

Currently a Post-Master student of Urban Research Lab Sardinia – Environmental Design in the University of Sassari (Sardinia) in partnership with Dessau Institute of Architecture (DIA) of Anhalt University of Applied Sciences where I spend the first part of the Master (5 moths).

more information on LinkedIn profile

In times like these, escape is the only way to stay alive and keep dreaming.

In times like these, escape is the only way to stay alive and keep dreaming.

In tempi come questi la fuga è l’unico mezzo per mantenersi vivi e continuare a sognare.

In times like these, escape is the only way to stay alive and keep dreaming.

Henry Laborit, from the italian movie: Mediterraneo

Here is a short summary about Claudio:

cla 2Occupation: Freelance Architect
Interests: urbanism, architecture, design, social, community
City/country: Sassari, Italy
Web: Punto d’Incontro
Online profiles: Facebook, LinkedIn

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Serena Chiacchiari | eu collaborators

Category: ⚐ EN+colaboradores

Today we introduce Serena Chiacchiari, an Italian architect who’s doing right now an internship with us, being mainly involved in our proposal for the competition in Kiruna. Enjoy her introduction and the great photos from her trips around the world!

Serena in Patagonia

In November 2010 after graduating in Architecture in Rome I decided to go to Australia and New Zealand for a period. I was there 2 months, trying to visit as much as I could, from big cities to wild nature. When I came back I decided that what I had studied wasn’t enough so I started a professional master about sustainable architecture in IED Torino. The trip around Australia, where everything is so extreme, inspired me. I started asking myself “Is it possible to live without wasting what nature gives us?”, “Can we as architects help not to waste it?”. So I moved to Turin where I started studying the main elements of sustainable architecture.

Apart from theory, we had 3 workshops, one of which was held by “Arcò”, a young group of Italian architects, who helped us to understand how to build in extreme conditions with poor materials like earth, sand and tires. This workshop was awe-inspiring for me and I decided that I would like to start my architectural career in a young and active studio. I was very happy when I knew that I could have my internship in Ecosistema Urbano, which reflects perfectly my idea of what architecture should be: FUNNY, SUSTAINABLE AND PEOPLE’S.

This experience is very important for me because my passion has always been to travel and meet different cultures and this is the best way to do it!

Serena in Jordania

Here is a short summary about Serena:

Occupation: Architect
Interests: Architecture, photography, travel, sports
City/country: Rome/Italy
Web: www.serenachiacchiari.com
Online profiles: Facebook, Linkedin

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Francesco Cingolani | eu collaborators

Category: ⚐ EN+colaboradores+ecosistema urbano

Today we introduce Francesco Cingolani, one of our closest collaborators in the past couple of years. In the following post he explains some of his projects and interests, and his experience in Ecosistema Urbano.

Francesco Cingolani

Photo above by urban sociologist Andres Walliser, good friend and collaborator.

I have studied architecture and engineering and I’ve always been interested in the relationship between creativity and new technologies, more than in building. For the last 3 years I’ve been payed to work as an architect, professional blogger and creative project manager. Since 2012 I’ve been teaching parametric design in Paris at “École d’architecture de la ville et des territoires” in Marne-la-Vallée.

I recently started my first projects as entrepreneur: one is a creative cohousing in Madrid and the other is about going into Parisian apartments and create handmade Italian pasta; the project is called farine00 and I’m in this with Valentina, in the photo below. At the moment, people are just crazy about those projects but we still don’t get any income from them. Old story.

Farine00

Photo above by flo – flickr.com

I am 34, Italian and I have been living in Paris for 9 years. 3 years ago I quit my job at Hugh Dutton Associates to move to Madrid and work with Ecosistema Urbano, Basurama, Meipi and other amazing people from Spain.

In Ecosistema Urbano, I was in charge of the DIGITAL COORDINATION of dreamhamar, a network design and participation process in Norway. It was the most interesting project I participated since I am working. It was also the most stressful one. Old story.

Thanks to dreamhamar I’ve learnt more about complex systems and emergency phenomena.

I think that the most interesting shift in recent design experience is that we have passed from designing object to designing networks and processes. That’s why for dreamhamar we’ve developed a network design methodology. As a project manager, I also applied minimalism as a management tool for highly complex processes which often tend to information overload.

At Ecosistema Urbano I also was in charge of the development of Urban Social Design Experience, a network learning experience focused on participatory processes and sustainability.

Before that, I took part in some more architectural projects. I especially like this one with Ecosistema Urbano and Koz and the new Louvre in Paris with Hugh Dutton Associates, that is opening in September (photo below).

Département des Arts de l’Islam, musée du Louvre, Paris

Département des Arts de l’Islam, musée du Louvre, Paris
Client: Etablissement Public du Musée du Louvre
Architects: Rudy Ricciotti et Mario Bellini
Muséography: Renaud Piérard and Mario Bellini
Facade and Structure Consultants: HDA | Hugh Dutton Associés
Photo: “La couverture de la cour Visconti, département des Arts de l’Islam, musée du Louvre”
© R. Ricciotti – M. Bellini / Musée du Louvre
© photo 2011 Musée du Louvre / Olivier Ouadah

Since january 2012, I am trying to work no more than 3 hours per day and check my email box only 3 times a week. The italian newspaper “Il Corriere della Sera” featured my story as an example of downshifting in its magazine “Sette”.

I am a walker, and last year I realised intraverso, a slowlife and storytelling project in collaboration with the Italian magazine whymarche. The project included a slow, walking trip through Italian countryside and a digital journal.

Since 4 months ago I am moving through Europe and working remotely without a unique location, even if I consider Paris as my principal home. I don’t have a clear idea of what I am doing in the next future. Looking for new stories.

When writing for the Internet like this, I like sharing details of my physical location:

Montecanepino, (Italy), 11.47 AM August 8th 2012.

Here is a photo of my window right now.

Montecanepino, (Italy), 11.47 AM August 8th 2012.

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Siri Brudvik | EU collaborators

Category: ⚐ EN+colaboradores

Siri is a Norwegian architect, and started working at Ecosistema Urbano for the urban design development of the dreamhamar project in march 2012. When she was told about the opportunity to work for Ecosistema Urbano, she literally jumped on the next flight from Oslo to Madrid. Siri is excited to be part of the EU and dreamhamar team, and she says her first impression was: “It’s is going to be an interesting experience. This is a great team of people!”

Siri, as seen by photographer Emilio P. Doiztúa
This amazing photo was taken by Emilio P. Doiztúa at the Ecosistema Urbano office.

Siri is specially interested in how the inputs from the participatory process based upon network design are going to influence the future development of both the particular square, Stortorget, and the mentality of the citizens of Hamar regarding their involvement and ownership to their local public spaces.

Siri hopes both to contribute to develop the physical realisation of the urban design project into a well-functioning public space, and to push the investigations of the possibilities of participatory elements after the completion of the physical design.

Heimstadlære

Back home in Oslo, Siri has her own small office, and she is dividing her time between working with architectural projects and on “Heimstadlære”, together with Ulrika Staugaard (architect). Heimstadlære is focusing on placemaking, urban development, discussions about public space and bottom-up/participatory processes. At the moment Heimstadlære is collaborating with other artists on the cross-disciplinary project “Bok på Veitvet”; an “Open Source Library” based on trust and self-organizing tools in Oslo.

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Looking for a Norwegian young architect

Category: ⚐ EN+ecosistema urbano+eu:calls

Ecosistema Urbano is looking for a Norwegian young architect for a position at our office in Madrid. The main task will be collaborating on the project Hamar-onethousandsquare, from June 2011 till May 2012.

If you are interested, please contact info@ecosistemaurbano for further details.

More info about the project:
http://onethousandsquare.org/
More info about ecosistema urbano:
http://ecosistemaurbano.com/
https://ecosistemaurbano.org/
twitter: @ecosistema

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new life in old walls

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+eu:abierto

This post is by you.

Hi,
I am an architecture student from Germany and would like to share my last semester\’s urban design project with you. It was a group work focusing on the revitalization of a city quarter in the UNESCO-listed Old Town of Damascus, Syria. We proposed up-to-date housing in the traditional courtyard houses and a new cultural center on what has been urban wasteland for centuries. continue reading