ON ARCHITECTURE 2017
#Conference 7-8 December 2017
Social Innovation
DOT TO DOT© Remaking the Cities
Glasgow
Our habitats are being urbanised, refurnished and restructured and, in this process, our cultural landscape is being radically altered. The city is our open lab. Its demand innovative ways of thinking, playing and remaking waste as social value with new designs for our society. The DOT TO DOT© is a social technology created by Studio Pop’s founding directors. Last year we obtained the “Year of Innovation Architecture and Design – Young Social Innovation Award” (2016), ENCOSI ERASMUS+ “Young Entrepreneurs Award” (2016-17), and recently the “Stalled Spaces Glasgow Award 2017”, among other prizes, to co-develop our social technology. DOT TO DOT© is social business that enables creative social entrepreneurs, researchers, educators, and youth to remake our cities by connecting waste to design for society through ecological design and real projects. This ongoing project is called DOT TO DOT© Maryhill Station, Glasgow. It connects graduates and independent researchers from architecture, art, engineering, natural science, social science and the humanities to take on the societal and environmental problems in Maryhill area and Glasgow by linking design and arts with science and technology in a creative and multidisciplinary manner.
DOT TO DOT© is both a digital community and live project (portable station). They interplay each other. The digital dimension is an app/mobile-friendly website. This social technology allows remakers (members) to start their own community projects; build new skills; exchange knowledge; and share resources. The physical dimension is a portable remake station focused on social waste, eco-design (user-centred and participatory); reskilling by doing (pilot/test design research); and local co-production. Our social model is called “Trash-to-Cash”, waste as social currency, where remakers reuse junk as unit of exchange. It is aligned to socio-economic sectors prioritised by the Scotland’s Economic Strategy that links Creative Industries (eco-design), Environment (waste reuse) and ITC (social technologies). Studio Pop provides eco-design and educational services based on crowdfunding and non-cash material/time exchange. Members and volunteers contribute with materials or time in-kind and as reward they get free training (workshops, courses, online tutorials, downloadable DIY library) to test/pilot new design products with waste.
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Dr Cristian Suau
I am architectural academic, ecological designer and social entrepreneur, with a with specialisation in sustainability. I am SAR/MSA full member of Sveriges Arkitekt (Sweden), MC member, EU COST Action CA16229 ENEC, and WG1 full member, EU COST Action CA16114 RESTORE. I also work independently as international development consultant (CMIS), British Council. I hold BSc/MArch in Architecture (honours 1:1); Master in Urban Design (1997); & PhD in Architecture (cum laude, 2001), School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB), with educational postgraduates in University Teaching and Learning from Cardiff University (2009)/Fellow in High Educational Academy (UK, 2010). In addition, I successfully completed three postdoctoral research fellows on ecological and experimental architectural design in Sweden, Norway and Spain (2003-2006). As senior lecturer I have taught architecture in Cardiff University, AA, Strathclyde University (UK); NTNU, ETSAB; and PUC, UCh, UNAP in Chile. I have also been ERASMUS+visiting professor at prestigious institutions in Europe like University of Stuttgart (2012); University of Ljubljana (2013-2016); University of Zagreb (2012); Chalmers University (2014-2015), CTU Prague (2014); ETSAB Barcelona (2012-15); the Americas, Illinois Institute of Technologies (IIT) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago SAIC (United States, 2011); Technological Institute of Monterrey (2006); Universidad Católica de Asunción (2017); & Universidad de Chile (2013); and Asia, Tianjin University (2011-2012), among other postgraduate and doctoral programmes worldwide.
I worked as independent architect in Chile and Spain (1993-1998) followed by project leader and senior architect in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), Rotterdam (2006), in Fondazione Prada (Milan); master plan and co-housing of Almere Homerus (Almere); Transformer PRADA Pavilion (Seoul); etc. In ECOFABRICA [www.ecofab.org], I have created innovative eco-design solutions like PHS© (Pallet Housing System); FOGHIVE© (3D water fog collector); Europan 8 (Hamar, Norway); Bulnes Boulevard renewal (Santiago de Chile); and MOBILELAND© (Glasgow), temporary portable garden to reanimate brownfields in post-industrial cities (2014-2016). As ecological designer and activist, I was founding trustee of RECICLARQ© [www.reciclarq.com], a NGO on remaking in Barcelona (2006 – 2016), which has been rebranded Fundación REHACER© (REMAKE Foundation) in Chile (since June, 2017).
Currently I co-direct STUDIO POP C.I.C. [www.studiopop.net], a social enterprise based in Glasgow that activates urban voids and brownfields and makes green spaces in cities throughout systemic design thinking, processes of co-creation, co-design and participatory design in the fields of social technologies, open source architecture, low-tech building technologies, urban reactivation, collaborative research and spatial experimentations. Following the principles of the New Urban Agenda Habitat III, circular economy and social innovation, my design research is focused on 3 strategic themes are Waste, Gaps and Water. My practice has obtained the Young Social Innovation Award Scotland 2016, ERASMUS+ Young Enterprise Award, Stalled Spaces 2017 and EU ESP ACF (2017-18) to test/pilot social DOT TO DOT: Remaking the City with agile technologies and portable stations for creative eco-solutions and live experiments in Glasgow and Scottish cities.
