sustainable communities between city & countryside
by StudioTAO of TEKTAO Urban Planning and Design, Shanghai project partners: DESIS Network Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability College of Design&Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai
francesca valsecchi ecsel 2012 Second Round Application February 2012, Shanghai
research based design intervention in the rural China, that aims to achieve more sustainable and fair social and economic balance between city and countryside. With our design practice we are experimenting at crossroads of academy and industry, and we involve stakeholder from both research and business fields in the social innovation challenges and impact.
bridging the city and the countryside through heritage, knowledge & resources exchange 38C 0M 100Y 0K 171R 208G 55B HEX #ABD037
We push alternative sustainable proposal for contemporary urban sprawl. We work to find bottom-up sustainable developing way by “design thinking�, to integrate urban and rural resources.
We involve local communities in the design actions. We design communication, services and experiences contributing to reconstruction of knowledge identity by the villagers.
60C 51M 51Y 20K 102R 103G 102B HEX #666766
Who benefits: proactive citizenship that looks for local immaterial values (food, crafts, heritage artefacts) and local farmers, craftsmen that produce with heritage values, social meaning and quality factors.
3 ongoing main projects
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agri-culture design Seeds food culture &Seeds production by
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crafts heritage preservation
Seeds
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Two piece of land where approach with the local farmers the concept and practice of organic based agriculture and explore direct farmers-citizens market space (last harvest production: rice)
mobile technology based community services
Extended research and prototyping of technology based systems (mobile, internet of things) to support rural-urban connections
Several bamboo crafting workshops around theby islands Seeds and some new crafts objects co-designed wvith the artisans
(ongoing research partnership with nokia)
http://designentwines.tumblr.com/
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how we work We develop design concepts and prototypes through daily field work, design and planning of services, communication strategy and tools, networking, small scale production.
field work
in-depth interviews
ongoing ethnography
prototyping
co-design
participatory events
current distribution & management system research dissemination
project outcoms
outcomes marketspace taobao online shop
distribution and market
We recently opened our taobao shop for manage distribution. Not fully satisfied by remote interactions.
internally managed hand-made packaging
bamboo crafts city sustainable markets and public events dissemination activity
rice
followed by senior research members of the team
design harvests book
material production
direct contacts & committed stakeholders
knowledge production
international academic networks presence
seeds
research funding conferences and journals publications
We participate to public events in city, farmers market, sustainability fairs, and by this we grow the network of stakeholders.
new partners new projects We believe local based entrepreneurship is as positive mechanisms for social innovation projects. We continuosly look for new partnerships, collaborators, and investors of ideas and money.
We mainly distribute directly to people, within network of interests where to promote the cultural values of the products.
city customers
potential investments & partnership
team and organization structure business management 38C 0M 100Y 0K 171R 208G 55B HEX #ABD037 60C 51M 51Y 20K 102R 103G 102B HEX #666766
studio tek architecture department
studio tao design department employees 5+ service design & interaction research projects
employees 15+ urban planning projects
economic flows
project team
research
design & management development
lou yongqi professor cynthia xu project assistant francesca (myself ) research coord. serena project coord. diego research&design joey lei research&design zhu mingjie designer jiang lina designer
team structure and competences scientific support universities & international research network
business outlines
current constraints
impact evaluation
create small scale valuable market space based on trust
organization economic self-indipendence (size constraint)
increase of participation to events we organize, number of fellows
create a culture of the local among the ciy community of consumers
better organization structure among research and management departments
market penetration and distribution efficiency of first experimental harvest production
envision a proactive idea of market in which consumers become users
lack of structure in market strategy
capacity to find next funding
in few words what we want to achieve
well known limitations and weackness point
what we consider positive indicator of success
foster entrepreneurs partnership
future works
greenhouses experiment in the village
bamboo crafts co-designed collection
We have two main tasks for the near future. Our cooperation with the farmers will extend to small production in greenhouses; we aim to push one step forward the use of natural based cultivation techniques among the villagers. Also, we will complete the design a collection of bamboo weaved objects; together with the farmers we would combine and share the knowledge of crafts expertise and design skills.
designharvests@gmail.com http://designharvests.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/designharvests http://weibo.com/studiotao http://www.douban.com/people/tektao/