SPACES

OBJECTS

NEW

By ARCHIVIE team

OLD

15 November 2011

WE LIVE IN A WORLD FULL OF PROBLEMS...

PROBLEMS ON A GLOBAL LEVEL...

That began 200 years ago with the industrial revolution

When machineries replaced human labor and fossil fuels became our main production source

This made us able to produce more … in a shorter amount of time

And be able to easily satisfy our daily needs

Which had a major effect on human population growth, resource consumption and waste production

How big are these effects on our planet’s scale???

1 billion people in 1804 6 billion people in 1999 7 billion people in 2010 And with a growth of

75 million people/year we will reach

9 billion people by 2046

Each year in the European Union alone we throw away 1.3 billion tones of waste. This amounts to

about 3.5 tones of solid waste for every man, woman and child.

In the past three decades 1/3 of the planet’s resources has been

consumed.

Sources: the United Nations, Population Division; the World Wildlife Fund (WWF); the Environmental Protection Agency; European Commission focus on waste management; Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism

Human consumption has doubled in the last 30 years and continues

to accelerate with 1.5 percent per year.

The average American produces about 2kg of waste a day, 13 kg a week and 726 kg a year.

Between 1990 and 1995, the amount of

waste generated in Europe increased by 10%

Humanity ecological footprint has increased to 125% of global carrying

capacity and could rise to 170% by 2040.

We produce a lot of waste…but how much we recycle?

We recycle over half of our aluminum. Making a new aluminum can out of an old one saves of the energy used to make the can from bauxite ore. It also prevents nearly all the industrial waste and pollution caused by mining new ore. New cans are back in the store in as little as 6 weeks.

We recycle about 38% of all paper. Paper fibers can be recycled several times before they become too weak and must be discarded. Using recycled paper to make new paper saves much of the energy and resources consumed by making paper from logs.

We recycle about 20% of our glass. Making recycled glass uses less energy and makes less than making new glass because crushed recycled glass melts at a lower temperature than the virgin components of glass.

We recycle only 5% of all plastic, but 45% of the type of plastic used to make soda bottles. Although some plastics look alike, they can be made of different ingredients. They must be carefully separated because one small piece of one kind can ruin a whole truckload of another kind.

Recycling won't solve all our garbage problems. Reducing our consumption is still the best option.

The rotten truth website: http://www.astc.org/exhibitions/rotten/howmuch.htm

PROBLEMS ON THE COMMUNITY LEVEL...

Our needs are satisfied within different types of buildings…

Our daily schedule is spent inside different buildings… Our destination is always a building…

And what happens between?

We are so hurried to reach our destination that:

We don’t know who are our neighbours anymore.

We don’t have time to spend with our families.

We forgot about the planet we live in.

We know just how to move and we forgot the joy of life.

Between our departing point and our destination we see the same landscape everyday, so we don’t stop anymore…we

just pass by.

HOW CAN WE CUT THIS CHAIN

AND MAKE PEOPLE STOP FOR A WHILE?

By attracting their attention…

towards the public space

TRASH

GARBAGE

USED OBJECTS

RECYCLING REUSE

SCULPTURES

URBAN FURNITURE

DECORATION OBJECTS

INVENTIONS

TOYS AND GAMES FOR

THE CHILDREN

WHO WILL START THIS? An artist/craftman who knows how to give

a new life to apparently useless obects

A public space that can change it’s appearance when people want it

HOW? By helding lectures, public debates, workshops, expositions, demonstrations...

TO WHOM? To all the interested persons (inhabitants of a neighbourhood, passers-by or tourists)

WHEN? During the weekends, in the afternoon or evening

•By collecting their waste and old objects

•By sharing tools and objects with the community

•By participating in the workshops

•By creating new objects

INHABITANTS

•By holding exhibitions in the neighbourhood’s public space

•By coordinating free recycling workshops in the neighbourhood

•By coordinating debates about new ways of recycling/reuse our trash

ARTISTS

•By providing the authorizations needed to allow the activities happen in the public space

•By promoting the events

•By organizing competitions between the neighbourhoods

LOCAL AUTHORITIES

•By donating tools and materials necessary for this workshop

•By promoting the events

SPONSORS

•By interacting with the inhabitants and knowing their thoughts and needs

•By mediating the relationship inhabitants – local authorities

NGO’S

Who is involved in this change and how?

What could go wrong? And possible sollutions...

- The authorities can refuse our project. This would mean that we have to reformulate the project and make it more appealing to the authorities. Explaining the benefits this project could bring to the city: local publicity in the papers and local radio stations, less money spent on garbage collectors, less money spent to arrange the spaces near the buildings and also a low maintenance cost. - The artist can refuse our proposal because he doesn’t have the time to work for free. We can explain him the indirect benefits he would have after this project: more people will know his work, more people will be aware of the benefits of buying a recycled object and more people will visit his work place in search of “new releases”. - The people can dislike the idea of using their waste or find it dirty. This can be prevented by having meetings with them and presenting/explaining how will be done, giving them real examples of recycled objects that artists make and that are neither dirty nor ugly. - The inhabitants may not have the time to attend the discussions, workshops, etc. We can inform them by email or by a little brochure what happened that month in their neighbourhood and what are the future events. The idea is not to have all the people to the workshops, but to have a constant number of participants in all the events. - The neighbours may argue about the quality/beauty/solidity of a created object. The solution is understanding and equity… and we must not forget that recycled objects don’t have a long life, so we must be understanding and give people the chance to express themselves and their creativity.

? HOW WILL WE DO THIS ?

WE PUT A BOX ON A BIKE…

WE FILL THE BOX WITH TOOLS AND MATERIALS…

Possible MATERIALS: glue, paint, nails, rope, cables, tapes etc. and TOOLS: saws, drill presses, hammers etc.

AND WE WILL HAVE… A “COMMUNITY” BOX

MOBILE, SUSTAINABLE (NO ENERGY CONSUMPTION, NO CO2 EMISSIONS, REUSED MATERIALS – WOOD, IRON ETC.), HUMAN POWERED, LIGHT

WEIGHT, RELATIVELY FAST, INDEPENDENT OF TRAFFIC JAMS

A “COMMUNITY” BOX THAT CAN GO WHEREVER YOU NEED IT

OUR PURPOSE IS A BIG ONE, SO

A “COMMUNITY” BOX THAT CAN GO WHENEVER YOU NEED IT

What will people experience by participating to these activities?

The FUN of spending free time with family and friends.

The joy of CREATING an object with one’s own hands.

The sense of PRESERVING our environment.

The pleasure of WORKING together.

The act of DISCOVERING news ways of recycling.

The benefits of informal LEARNING.

A new way of VOLUNTEERING and creating a social network.

What are the long therm benefits?

-a cleaner planet and a better environment to live

-a new type of urban space where the community decides the activities and

the arrangements they can have

-good publicity for the city, in terms of tourism

-a better development of the city, focused on an ecological approach

-new investors that want to invest in the city/neighbourhood because of its

ecological view

LET’S BE IMAGINATIVE

AND START CREATING OUR PUBLIC SPACES LIKE WE DO WITH OUR PRIVATE ONES

!!!

THANK YOU FOR WATCHING!