What can we take back from the environment? What has changed? How do we recognise it? How does what surrounds us affect and condition us when we design or conceive objects? What new narrative can we give to the inhabitants who decide to reclaim the rural environment? What value do we give to the materials that cannot be recycled or returned to their original state? What do we do, thinking not of ourselves but of others? What are we going to do?
These are some of the questions that we asked ourselves in the workshop, in order to give formal answers through an archaeological and anthropological journey of the environment that surrounded us during the days we spent in Chantada.
Perhaps the moment in which we find ourselves, and the forced deceleration we are experiencing, is just the right time to take a closer look. We have known for a long time that we need a circular economy, that emissions must be climate-neutral. We're not going to reinvent the wheel, the house or the chair, but we can fix and improve a lot to make better use of our resources. Let's use design to fix things and share the journey together. How can we make an exercise sensitive to the history of the environment, through the humility of the materials and the richness of the nuances of place?
For this workshop, participants reused materials from surrounding workshops that were made with an economy of means; participants were encouraged to work with the idea of 'doing more with less', navigating the boundaries of what is possible and what is not. As a testament to the reuse of materials, participants were challenged to allow process and materials to guide the outcome.
Let us imagine ourselves on a desert island, with no other resource than our questions, ideas, proposals and contradictions in order to inhabit and dialogue with materials from the environment. As anthropologists or archaeologists with the right to transform the findings and with the licence to improve them, question them and build a new scenario that moves away from the rush and speed of navigation, 10-second micro-experiences or fleeting publications.
Isaac Piñeiro
Isaac Piñeiro (Pontevedra, 1976) is an industrial designer of Galician origin who settled in Barcelona after working in Valencia and Milan.
The main objective of the studio is to create products based on the search for efficiency in conception, production and design. Always linked to the development of projects around the product, furniture and lighting, he has worked with national and international clients.
He understands the profession as a trade and diagonal discipline, where collaboration, dialog and co-creation mark his idea of project. He works with the idea of design as a strategic discipline, in which not only aesthetics but also production systems around socio-productive capacities, so that his designs take on compressible and temporary dimensions for durability and the good passage of time. This is sustainability.
He has presented his collections at the most important international fairs and has given lectures for professional and academic audiences. Some of his pieces are part of museum collections or national and international foundations. He has combined his professional work with teaching at schools such as the Escuela Massana and the Elisava School in Barcelona.
Among the awards he has received are the Red Dot Design Award, the German Design Award, IF Design and Best Of The Year. Always in the category of furniture, object or lighting design.
Photos taken by the students during the workshop.
