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Creativity, network and European mobility

Paris 2014Text and images Eugenia Morpurgolayout Angela Pescolderung

During the next Biennial of Ljubljana-BIO50, designers from all over Europe will be collaborating with each other from afar for a period of six months, on projects to be presented in September. An initial meeting that took place in the host city helped lay the foundations for this process to be able to work. This type of undertaking, once inconceivable, is now characteristic of our way of living, designing and working.

Five years ago, after graduating from my BA in Industrial Design in Italy, I decided to continue my education abroad, and enrolled in the Social Design MA at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. What really pushed me to continue my studies abroad was finding an educational institute that sought to discuss the traditional role of the designer - as a creative person in relation to an industrial production system - as well as the will to further my experience in the Social Design field - from the refurbishment of crafts to both System Design for the individual and the community. My path is not atypical, but rather representative of the choices of a generation who’s lives are characterized by constant mobility in terms of location and

flexibility. As the Erasmus project gave many the opportunity to have the experience of studying abroad, more and more of my peers intend to live far from their country of origin either by choice or out of economical necessity. Once having completed studies abroad, often you find yourself part of a system flush with institutions and connections that offer you interesting work opportunities. Parallel to that, the accessibility of low cost airlines and the ease of communicating via the web, makes it easier to consider Europe as an area to exercise our profession.

All this is allowing us, as freelancers, to work and think within a network of collaborations that are targeted to our own interests, without geographical limitations. Collaborations between companies and professionals spread all over Europe are on the agenda. And from this landscape new interesting parallels and cross pollinations can arise.

Factories and reconversion

In the context of this exhibition which aims to reflect on the specific situations of Italian designers between Italy and Holland, I decided to compare two realities of the independent maker culture in these two countries. Two very different situations which have the principle of industrial spaces reconversion in common, and are both dealing with the topics of making, creating and producing in a community.

I suggest such a confrontation with the aim of inspiring a reflection on the different national policies towards the management of abandoned spaces, reconversion of systems and spaces of production, and the role of the state toward the creative sector in general. Both the presented cases, with their analogies and differences, appear to be a fertile ground for research and experimentation that can define valid alternatives to the existing production system which is already in decline. A comparison between two states that, in different periods, brought innovation and had a very important role in the history of design, and that now, beyond everything, are living the same crisis and urgency to propose new values in the design world.

The context is the one of the reconverted factories, that, from Buenos Aires to Marseilles, through to Rome, in the past 15 years, has become more and more, and taken on various forms of organisation. From 2001 until now, more than 200 Argentinian factories, the so called “fabricas recuperadas”, went through a reconversion process initiated by the workers. In Italy we speak about workers buy out (WBO), when the employees take over the company and become the owners. In some cases, like in the one of the Officine Zero in Rome, the still existing industrial structure is squatted,

ensuring the area won’t experience a real estate boom, and instead ensures its reconversion as space and as production.

A valid reason to talk about this theme nowadays is to think about the worker’s self management, as an opportunity to experiment innovatively on the product itself. It’s the people, those movement are saying, that have to decide what, how and where to produce. The recovery of industries can therefore be interwoven with urgent and present topics, like reducing the ecological footprint of production, but also with the need of rediscovering craft and new shapes in autonomous work. Three different levels of the reconversion of the factory exist: the reconversion of the spaces, kept for production or for other uses; the reconversion of the machines, in order to use them for new types of production; the reconversion of know-how when the workers, still present, use their abilities to imagine a new type of production.In this case, the factory, from a simple place of production of consumption goods, has become a space for the collective and a centre where values are elaborated and spread.

This transformation of the industrial and production scenarios exist thanks to the great cooperative will of many different realities like the co working movement, the FabLabs and more in general the precarious work. All of it is strongly characterised by interesting aspects of interdisciplinary work and the mix of different generations. All this allows us to outline interesting scenarios for the theorising and realisation of new design practise, that relating to those contexts, can’t be anything other than social and participative.

The reconversion can happen on three levels: spaces, machines, and the reconversion of the know-how of the workers.

The factory as a space for production of goods, comunity and values.

Holland has a successful tradition in entrusting abandoned spaces to the creative community in order to change the fate of neglected buildings and uplift entire neighborhoods. From churches which have been transformed into libraries to schools converted into ateliers, the state has always recognised and valorised the possibility of solving two issues with one intervention: the need to offer low cost spaces to facilitate creative work and the need of regenerating neglected contexts with minimum investment.

In this scenario, Eindhoven represents one of the best examples of re-qualification of ex-industrial areas. The history of this city has been strongly influenced by the presence of Philips, a leading company in the electronic sector, that influenced practically all of the city’s development - not only economically but also on a city planning level. In a moment of great expansion, the construction of industrial buildings and residential neighborhoods built especially for the workers were seen taking place during different phases. This followed a de-localisation process of the production apparatus, with a loss of around 30.000 jobs in a population of 200,000 citizens.

In the last few years the city initiated a process of requalification of industrial buildings, transforming them partly into housing but mostly into exhibition spaces, workshops for small scale productions and ateliers for the various creative sectors. The city reinvented iitself from an industrial aspect and successfully rebuilt its image and social structure around design, research and innovation.

Holland Eindhoven Sectie-c

Section-C is a clear example of the Dutch reconversion model, where an ex industrial area has been transformed into spaces dedicated to creativity. A hundred individuals consisting of designers, artists, photographers, musicians and other small creative industries are animating four industrial buildings on the outskirts of Eindhoven.In this specific case, is not even the state that is managing the spaces to facilitate the creative sector, but instead a private organization is taking economical advantage, in giving a new use to the existing buildings and the land on which the warehouses have been built.

Something unusual about their participation is evident in the way they decided to manage the inner spaces. In an empty area of the warehouse the space near the walls have been equally divided and rented out, with each of the tenants having the task of building up an overhead space to use as a studio, meanwhile the central area is used as a shared workshop. The management of the common spaces is organised in different ways: in some cases the group co participated to the acquisition of all the machines; in others each tenant participated in the composition of the workshop by contributing one or more personally owned machines to be used by everyone.

In this way it’s possible to create a community, which is not only inhabiting and living the same spaces but also confronting himself and collaborating generating a mutual exchange of opinion and knowledge. In this specific example

the intervention is limited to the space. Nothing of the previous factory exists anymore, demonstrating that already offering a shell and giving freedom in the use of the space within, an empty industrial skeleton can come back to life with new energy and new values. In the few years since its “founding” Section-C has became one of the main points of interest during Dutch Design Week which takes place each October in Eindhoven.

The same industry, that historically through its product was a source of innovation and social economical values, is now, thanks to the smart management of its architectural heritage, fostering the development of new cultures and economies.

Empty industrial skeleton can come back to life with new energy and new values.

A hundred individuals consisting of designers, artists, photographers, musicians and other small creative industries are animating four industrial buildings on the outskirts of Eindhoven.

Inside and outside images of Section-c.

A community, which is not only inhabiting and living the same spaces but also confronting himself and collaborating generating a mutual exchange of opinion and knowledge.

The same industry, is now, thanks to the smart management of its architectural heritage, fostering the development of new cultures and economies.

Inside images of Section-c and moments of the production of few components with 3D printing.

ItalyRomeOfficine Zero

students

citizens

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kers

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A few steps from Roma Tiburtina station you will find “Officine Zero”, old RSI (Rial Service Italy) workshops which were once used for the maintenance of night trains. These workshops have been squatted by a large coalition of workers on redundancy payment, students, precariat and autonomous workers, to avoid the cancellation of a heritage of technical experience only to make space for a real estate boom in a neighbourhood that has already been invaded by privatized concrete and lacking in services for the community.

One of the goals of this action is to create a “Social Lab”, intended together with other things, to perform an economical and ecological reconversion of the upholstery, metal and wood workshops still active and present in the factory.Guided by the necessity and desire to create a new idea of an alternative production, the project built its foundation on the reuse principle: reuse of machinery and resources - both material and know-how. The key idea of the project is that the maintenance workers’ practical knowledge can be partially re-used for works of public utility: like the training of professionals that could work in recycling/reusing economy; in the renewable energy field; and with old and new crafts. Another contribution to an economy that is based on solidarity and innovation.

Following these ideas, the “reconversion laboratory” was brought to life (already active since September 2012), thanks to the contribution of architects, economists, experts of the sector and activists. For months they discussed and designed a concrete alternative to the closing of the factory, to be able to relaunch and regenerate production that would use the workers’ know-how. The project now interweaves training and production with self-protection, mutuality and cooperation

between workers. The “reconversion laboratory” is happening together with a co-working space, and a labour and welfare chamber - a place where you can produce in a communitarian way, connecting knowledge and skills.

The four cornerstones that the promoter of Officine Zero is using to describe the project are:

1) The Officine Zero is a Workshop for the “common work”, where the main product is the union; where design and decision making is done in a communitarian way. A space where forms of co-working self management, craft and self training exist together.

2) The Officine Zero is the chamber for autonomous and precarious work where precarious and autonomous workers together with the unemployed, can find services and space to organise themselves, getting together to fight against fragmentation and isolation.

3) The Officine Zero is a self managed student house. Reacting against the lack of student welfare and a university system with no money, the self managed student house Mushroom is using re-appropriation to make decent living possible.

4) The Officine Zero is an economical, social and environmental reconversion that is welcoming design proposals developed by the local community, intending to keep together work dignity and environmental balance; to give back social richness and solidarity to the local community.

The Officine Zero experience is proposing an alternative to break the isolation - an alternative in which students and precarious workers can confront each other and build a space where to live and not only pass though - a space for dignity, humanity and autonomy.

A project for an economical and environmental reconversion.

“Once again collective forms of action based on shared responsibility are presenting innovative and alternative models across many spheres, not only that of culture. “Rana Zincir Celal, Jury member of The sixth ECF Princess Margriet Award, talking about the Teatro Valle Occupato

Skeleton of trains in the Officine Zero spaces, in particular a freight car in phase of transformation into an space to host workshops.

It’s the people, those movement are saying, that have to decide what, how and where to produce.

A place where you can produce in a communitarian way, connecting knowledge and skills

Images of working moments in the wood and metal workshops. Images of the storehouse of trains spare parts.ricambio per i treni.

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