Design Studio 01

The journey in Design Studio starts with an exploration of emergent futures through the 1st Term.

One thing that really captured my attention is the framework shown in the diagram, which outlines how we transition from broad, large-scale issues down to personal experiences and perspectives. The idea is to move from planet-wide challenges and gradually zoom into the personal scale, using our own lived experiences to ground our interventions. It’s a way to connect global problems to individual design actions, which will ultimately shape our final project.

Multiscalar design diagram

In this first term, we are focused on the left side of the diagram, which reflects our move from general problems to personal connections. The idea is to develop a critical stance on how we interact with these big questions from a first-person perspective. We also explored the concept of weak signals, identifying those early indicators of change that can inspire us to propose future interventions.

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One of the most intriguing concepts is 1st Person Research through Design, where we engage in hands-on activities that allow us to experience the issues firsthand. This includes the hyper-connected networks we worked on in class, comparing global interconnected systems to hyper-local environments, like the neighborhood around IAAC in Poblenou. These explorations have helped shape our understanding of how macro and micro scales interact, especially when considering sustainability and urban design.

Workspace

I also enjoyed the exercise of shifting from present continuities to alternative presents. It was about thinking not only about what could change in the future but how we can intervene right now, challenging traditional design approaches by presenting alternative realities rather than solutions. My group and I made the following points, by comparing and seeing the commonalities of our design spaces.

Present continuities

The citizens of Barcelona like ourselves, are part of a society that is based on Planned obsolescence revolving on non renewable materials as a main source for ideation and fabrication in almost all areas of society; therefore their actions reflect and feed the system further worsening the situation.

Alternative present

The citizens of Barcelona like ourselves, are educated on the use of the materials, processes, and “implications” of the natural world such as bees, moss, and mycelium. This mentality is applied on all possible areas of society such as architecture, mass production, and waste management while taking into account the human sensory experience as a priority . A new era of Nature(al) intervention was born, the end of the conventional anthropocene.