Open Source Playscapes
Basic information
Project Title
Open Source Playscapes
Full project title
From waste to co-creation of circular design for public spaces
Category
Shaping a circular industrial ecosystem and supporting life-cycle thinking
Project Description
The “Open Source Playscape” is a bottom up process built on the interaction between design, public space and civic living labs. These laboratories move from the concept of Fab Labs, but expand their original digital approach to upcycling applied to recovered material. A design community is the core of the project. It works with a large network of partners to co-create sets of playful open components of public spaces that become tangible, friendly daily symbols of the European Green transition.
Geographical Scope
Local
Project Region
Rome, Italy
Urban or rural issues
Mainly urban
Physical or other transformations
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
EU Programme or fund
No
Description of the project
Summary
The “Open Source Playscape” provides people with a playful and joyful approach to circularity and sustainability, using design as a key for their involvement in an open process.
The objective of our research lie around the production of design components that furnish public and shared spaces, parks and playgrounds.
These objects are playful, open forms, and are entirely manufactured out of a digitized upcycling process based on cardboard and wood, totally recovered from urban chains, and processed with small machinery available in local laboratories.
These “Living Upcycling Labs” are sandboxes to finally connect waste and design, today bound in separate silos, that are instead melted into the same, shared space.
This space is at the same time physical and social: it creates and promotes new profiles of designers, educators and civic actors, that work together around co-creating the producing tangible objects and projects for the community.
A space that expands into the city, open to interaction with people, at all times.
The proximity and direct connection between material recovery, manufacturing and public spaces is a key to the project. It is achieved by building local clusters, interconnecting education, parks, common goods and living labs.
The target groups of our projects are families and schools, intended as roots of our local communities.
Our proposal encompasses the establishment of physical and digital spaces that, through the synergy of conscientious and out of the box design thinking, alongside the utilization of easily attainable "robotic" machinery to upcycle underused materials, enable the production of customizable and adaptable objects over time. This initiative aligns with codesign principles, fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders, including designers, technologists, and end-users.
Beyond innovation in design, this approach emphasizes continuous modification and customization, with a strong focus on its social impact
The objective of our research lie around the production of design components that furnish public and shared spaces, parks and playgrounds.
These objects are playful, open forms, and are entirely manufactured out of a digitized upcycling process based on cardboard and wood, totally recovered from urban chains, and processed with small machinery available in local laboratories.
These “Living Upcycling Labs” are sandboxes to finally connect waste and design, today bound in separate silos, that are instead melted into the same, shared space.
This space is at the same time physical and social: it creates and promotes new profiles of designers, educators and civic actors, that work together around co-creating the producing tangible objects and projects for the community.
A space that expands into the city, open to interaction with people, at all times.
The proximity and direct connection between material recovery, manufacturing and public spaces is a key to the project. It is achieved by building local clusters, interconnecting education, parks, common goods and living labs.
The target groups of our projects are families and schools, intended as roots of our local communities.
Our proposal encompasses the establishment of physical and digital spaces that, through the synergy of conscientious and out of the box design thinking, alongside the utilization of easily attainable "robotic" machinery to upcycle underused materials, enable the production of customizable and adaptable objects over time. This initiative aligns with codesign principles, fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders, including designers, technologists, and end-users.
Beyond innovation in design, this approach emphasizes continuous modification and customization, with a strong focus on its social impact
Key objectives for sustainability
Sustainability is at the core of the concept: used cardboard envelopes become a raw material, thus consistently reducing the embodied energy of each component we produce. Cardboard is also a fully biodegradable material and, after recycling it may be used for new productions, extending its life virtually endlessly.
Upcycling also uses less energy than recycling to process materials, since their transformation is not involving chemical processes.
This idea also comes as a way to bring awareness on waste management and envelope use in our day by day: so many times in our consumerist society we buy new appliances sold in bulk envelopes that just last from a warehouse to our homes. These materials, usually in very good conditions, are thrown away too soon. Upcycling them into new components, produced by contemporary digital artisans looks as a win-win solution.
These materials can also be considered having a really close origin with respect to the new place where they will be upcycled: a new km0 raw material that significantly reduces the emissions related to transportation.
In the most “frontier” application of our concept, for example in refugee camps, cardboard envelopes are the easiest raw material to be found around.
Upcycling also uses less energy than recycling to process materials, since their transformation is not involving chemical processes.
This idea also comes as a way to bring awareness on waste management and envelope use in our day by day: so many times in our consumerist society we buy new appliances sold in bulk envelopes that just last from a warehouse to our homes. These materials, usually in very good conditions, are thrown away too soon. Upcycling them into new components, produced by contemporary digital artisans looks as a win-win solution.
These materials can also be considered having a really close origin with respect to the new place where they will be upcycled: a new km0 raw material that significantly reduces the emissions related to transportation.
In the most “frontier” application of our concept, for example in refugee camps, cardboard envelopes are the easiest raw material to be found around.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
#Open Source Design -
Open Source Design embraces co-design and project sharing, fostering "hackable" designs that users can modify. Prioritizing "interpretable" and multifunctional objects, this approach encourages diverse interpretations and adaptations. It embodies a culture of collaborative creativity, transparency, and accessibility, promoting innovation in a shared design space. Open source also means accessibility and sharing of ready to use design, that embeds files and instructions for fabrication by local, small Fab Labs, craftsmen and local facilities. Last, it also means physical interactivity: objects with a dry assembly technique, called “press-fit” that can be easily modified, disassembled, reconfigured down to change and also renewal of components, thanks to their distributed fabrication source.
#Hubs
Hubs serve as innovative spaces where underutilized materials, primarily packaging materials such as cardboard and wood, are gathered and sorted based on their condition. These hubs transform into collaborative environments where individuals with basic machine skills can creatively upcycle these materials into new objects. Here, people come together to design their projects collectively, fostering a sense of community, or draw inspiration from a shared web community, turning waste into functional and artistic creations.
#Playground
Playgrounds are the enchanting result of hubs' creative output, with some hubs even co-located. Objects crafted in these hubs find homes in public spaces like courtyards, parks, and schools, injecting vitality into these areas. Children and citizens are invited to participate in assembling or interacting with these objects once ready. Over time, elements can be easily changed, "hacked," or repaired, ensuring sustained utility and functionality, fostering a dynamic and engaging community space.
Open Source Design embraces co-design and project sharing, fostering "hackable" designs that users can modify. Prioritizing "interpretable" and multifunctional objects, this approach encourages diverse interpretations and adaptations. It embodies a culture of collaborative creativity, transparency, and accessibility, promoting innovation in a shared design space. Open source also means accessibility and sharing of ready to use design, that embeds files and instructions for fabrication by local, small Fab Labs, craftsmen and local facilities. Last, it also means physical interactivity: objects with a dry assembly technique, called “press-fit” that can be easily modified, disassembled, reconfigured down to change and also renewal of components, thanks to their distributed fabrication source.
#Hubs
Hubs serve as innovative spaces where underutilized materials, primarily packaging materials such as cardboard and wood, are gathered and sorted based on their condition. These hubs transform into collaborative environments where individuals with basic machine skills can creatively upcycle these materials into new objects. Here, people come together to design their projects collectively, fostering a sense of community, or draw inspiration from a shared web community, turning waste into functional and artistic creations.
#Playground
Playgrounds are the enchanting result of hubs' creative output, with some hubs even co-located. Objects crafted in these hubs find homes in public spaces like courtyards, parks, and schools, injecting vitality into these areas. Children and citizens are invited to participate in assembling or interacting with these objects once ready. Over time, elements can be easily changed, "hacked," or repaired, ensuring sustained utility and functionality, fostering a dynamic and engaging community space.
Key objectives for inclusion
The hubs of the Open Source Playscape project are sandboxes of innovation as they represent the “intermediate space” between waste collecting and Fab Labs.
They need and promote the evolution of professional profiles at all levels, since we need designers able to deal with digital fabrication and waste, sorting know-how, but in terms of human labour, here with a great chance of inclusion, as there is a new need for a chain or recovering materials that are no longer in-differentiated waste. They become object with a life, that have to treated with care, talking to people, helping them to bring them to Labs : a new work space to be filled with a very low entry barrier. It is a new model for inclusion and involvement of people at all levels: the schools for instance are already involving families of their students in collecting the materials to be used for their own projects. This evolution can be enhanced and helped by digital technology, also sophisticated, but tailored to a social use.
The OSP project is based on a digital space, where design is shared but is also paired with digitized material, that is produced through recognition technologies, including video-intelligence and machine learning to distinguish and classify incoming material, based on past activities, to have waste ready for becoming digital source for design.
Simple devices can be provided to these new professional to come to people, digitize their materials, and share them with the community, both physically and digitally.
They need and promote the evolution of professional profiles at all levels, since we need designers able to deal with digital fabrication and waste, sorting know-how, but in terms of human labour, here with a great chance of inclusion, as there is a new need for a chain or recovering materials that are no longer in-differentiated waste. They become object with a life, that have to treated with care, talking to people, helping them to bring them to Labs : a new work space to be filled with a very low entry barrier. It is a new model for inclusion and involvement of people at all levels: the schools for instance are already involving families of their students in collecting the materials to be used for their own projects. This evolution can be enhanced and helped by digital technology, also sophisticated, but tailored to a social use.
The OSP project is based on a digital space, where design is shared but is also paired with digitized material, that is produced through recognition technologies, including video-intelligence and machine learning to distinguish and classify incoming material, based on past activities, to have waste ready for becoming digital source for design.
Simple devices can be provided to these new professional to come to people, digitize their materials, and share them with the community, both physically and digitally.
How Citizens benefit
Role1 - Material collectors
People have been involved in collecting materials at different levels: micro-level when families save with their children the used envelopes and then deliver them at school or directly at local hubs. We launched the initiative during events, by providing people with produced objects as a compensation to their delivery effort. As mentioned earlier, this also open space for new professionals, with a low entry barrier, that can become “upcycling collectors”, armed with simple digital devices to work as facilitators of the collecting process.
Role 2 - Co-Designers
Kids and children have been the main target of co-design for the Open Source Playground. The process worked by providing them with furniture and spaces able to be modified, disassembled and reconfigured. This approach communicates immediately a friendly set of objects, perceived as open. We have been offering, then to older students and people another level of variation of the produced forms using the same principles of the “mother” object, in order to co-design and then produce “child objects”.
This was, for example the approach used in schools when the technique imagined for a cardboard bag became the source for objects such as cans and containers to be used in the classes. Meetings have been organized in the neighbourhoods to choose and drive the designs towards the needs of the civic society
Role 3 - Players
People are active in managing the spaces and therefore help kids, children in playing and modifying the designed components. They manage assembly, disassembly and the daily maintenance and storage of the most delicate parts.
Role 4 - Craftsmen
With a very basic level of knowledge needed to operate machines and manage digital files, people can easily involved in the productive force of this project
People have been involved in collecting materials at different levels: micro-level when families save with their children the used envelopes and then deliver them at school or directly at local hubs. We launched the initiative during events, by providing people with produced objects as a compensation to their delivery effort. As mentioned earlier, this also open space for new professionals, with a low entry barrier, that can become “upcycling collectors”, armed with simple digital devices to work as facilitators of the collecting process.
Role 2 - Co-Designers
Kids and children have been the main target of co-design for the Open Source Playground. The process worked by providing them with furniture and spaces able to be modified, disassembled and reconfigured. This approach communicates immediately a friendly set of objects, perceived as open. We have been offering, then to older students and people another level of variation of the produced forms using the same principles of the “mother” object, in order to co-design and then produce “child objects”.
This was, for example the approach used in schools when the technique imagined for a cardboard bag became the source for objects such as cans and containers to be used in the classes. Meetings have been organized in the neighbourhoods to choose and drive the designs towards the needs of the civic society
Role 3 - Players
People are active in managing the spaces and therefore help kids, children in playing and modifying the designed components. They manage assembly, disassembly and the daily maintenance and storage of the most delicate parts.
Role 4 - Craftsmen
With a very basic level of knowledge needed to operate machines and manage digital files, people can easily involved in the productive force of this project
Physical or other transformations
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Innovative character
At the regulatory level:
the project aligns with the EU efforts to reduce not only waste but also packaging and the needs for its direct recycling by putting emphasis on the upcycling seen as “designed reuse” of envelopes, including the necessary updates to current regulations on waste management and classification. In that sense, the project is a sandbox of a different model, purely aligned with the NEB principles in the will to promote design, and beauty as engines of a socially shared green transition.
At the technical level:
the project reuses directly the wasted envelopes so it pushes for innovation in terms of material recognition, sorting, and digitization towards a fully digital design and manufacturing process.
the project aligns with the EU efforts to reduce not only waste but also packaging and the needs for its direct recycling by putting emphasis on the upcycling seen as “designed reuse” of envelopes, including the necessary updates to current regulations on waste management and classification. In that sense, the project is a sandbox of a different model, purely aligned with the NEB principles in the will to promote design, and beauty as engines of a socially shared green transition.
At the technical level:
the project reuses directly the wasted envelopes so it pushes for innovation in terms of material recognition, sorting, and digitization towards a fully digital design and manufacturing process.
Disciplines/knowledge reflected
The project is basically aimed at combining social innovation with digital innovation and sustainability using design as a connecting engine. The disciplines involved therefore are: Digital Fabrication, Material Recognition and Sorting, Flipped Classrom and hands on, interactive education, Bottom up civic maintenance practice, Co-Creation practices. They interact through Design, conceived as an Open Practice practiced by a community that connects and share the projects by allowing them to replicated and modified in the different contexts, being them schools, civic labs, universities
Methodology used
During our research towards a more sustainable future, the beliefs of reuse and recycled design stands as a proof of our adaptability and creativity. By embracing these principles, we not only alleviate the strain on our planet's resources but also redefine our relationship with the objects that surround us. From discarded materials to purposeful creations.
Our network embodies the essence of designing for people, with people. Ensures that sustainability is not an ideal but a lived experience, co-created by the very individuals and communities, that aims to benefit together.
Our commitment extends not only in the neighbourhood and Partners, but also extends to Schools where workshops serve as interactive platforms, encouraging hands-on learning and skill development, and also the foundation of values about the environmental responsibility.
Our network embodies the essence of designing for people, with people. Ensures that sustainability is not an ideal but a lived experience, co-created by the very individuals and communities, that aims to benefit together.
Our commitment extends not only in the neighbourhood and Partners, but also extends to Schools where workshops serve as interactive platforms, encouraging hands-on learning and skill development, and also the foundation of values about the environmental responsibility.
How stakeholders are engaged
Network
During our research we started collaborations, exchanges and mutual support with social associations, citizens, productive entities, neighborhood workshops, public schools. This network is the real engine of our endeavor: design for the people, with the people.
Waste Upcycling collecting chain:
The Urban Re-Tree project established a network of actors for the urban chain to collect cardboard envelopes as well as wood saved from maintenance of city trees, by federating actors interested in providing a second life to these materials. These actors include companies such as FERCAM (logistics), BRICO (home hardware store) but also Ge.Ve.San (maintenance of parks for Rome Municipality). In addition to the main actors, the project involved a series of local shops as well as private people, providing their own source. They are not listed as they grow constantly. They include, for instance: COIN (textile), RUBEI (motorcycles), EXPERT (appliances), IKEA (furnishing, in talks now for a set of in-store workshops on cardboard playgrounds), and so on.
Design and Fabrication stakeholders:
The material is then conveyed to the design and fabrication part where actors include the social woodworkers and carpenters of k_alma, and partner companies such as DEVOTO (furniture makers), Solido3D (prototyping services), Fonderie Digitali (network of digitally furnished companies), Roma Makers/Chirale (network of city Fab-Labs and education living lab), D.R.E.A.M. Fab Lab (Naples Scientific Fab Lab).
Social and civic stakeholders
The third pole is the network of social actors, that includes the communities of Casetta Rossa (Rome, Cavallo Pazzo social park), Villetta Giaquinto committee (Caserta, network of social parks) and a big role played by schools, mainly located in Rome Municipal Area. These schools, federated in the “Green School Network” are the current target of the project evolution, as explained in the development plan.
During our research we started collaborations, exchanges and mutual support with social associations, citizens, productive entities, neighborhood workshops, public schools. This network is the real engine of our endeavor: design for the people, with the people.
Waste Upcycling collecting chain:
The Urban Re-Tree project established a network of actors for the urban chain to collect cardboard envelopes as well as wood saved from maintenance of city trees, by federating actors interested in providing a second life to these materials. These actors include companies such as FERCAM (logistics), BRICO (home hardware store) but also Ge.Ve.San (maintenance of parks for Rome Municipality). In addition to the main actors, the project involved a series of local shops as well as private people, providing their own source. They are not listed as they grow constantly. They include, for instance: COIN (textile), RUBEI (motorcycles), EXPERT (appliances), IKEA (furnishing, in talks now for a set of in-store workshops on cardboard playgrounds), and so on.
Design and Fabrication stakeholders:
The material is then conveyed to the design and fabrication part where actors include the social woodworkers and carpenters of k_alma, and partner companies such as DEVOTO (furniture makers), Solido3D (prototyping services), Fonderie Digitali (network of digitally furnished companies), Roma Makers/Chirale (network of city Fab-Labs and education living lab), D.R.E.A.M. Fab Lab (Naples Scientific Fab Lab).
Social and civic stakeholders
The third pole is the network of social actors, that includes the communities of Casetta Rossa (Rome, Cavallo Pazzo social park), Villetta Giaquinto committee (Caserta, network of social parks) and a big role played by schools, mainly located in Rome Municipal Area. These schools, federated in the “Green School Network” are the current target of the project evolution, as explained in the development plan.
Global challenges
The “Open Source Playscape” embodies the core principles of the New European Bauhaus in a bottom up strategy centered on people. That’s why it focuses on design. As students of architecture we learned how big the emotion can be when a project succeeds in bringing together technical, social and aesthetical issues in a building, a space, an object, tangible in everyday life.
Beautiful : Design is at the core of the project, and we firmly believe in its power of engagement of people. For this reason we turned it into a performative activity, that matches what is today perceived as waste (technical, material) with necessities of the communities and of their spaces (social). Most importantly it does so through imaginative, open forms, inspired by the research of artists and architects such as Isamu Noguchi, who in the 1950a introduced the use of sculptural forms to enhance and change the way playgrounds were conceived at his time.
Sustainable : Sustainability made tangible, to everyone. This is what we observed as effect of our strategy based on upcycling, that means taking materials today considered as waste, and work directly on them through digital fabrication. This means in technical terms having the life of materials last longer, but design linked to digital manufacturing allows this to happen through a new identity. The objects are not vintage or just reused, and at the same the process avoids the pure recycling activity, that is somehow invisible to most people. The components of the OSP are design objects, with a purely new aesthetic, that embeds though their story in the text, the colours, the matter itself, resignified by the design.
Together : People are involved at all levels, from co-design to use, assemble and feedback, down to the material gathering and collecting as well. We have been testing the project approach in several events during the last years and this informed the evolutions of the design by looking at hor people interaction.
Beautiful : Design is at the core of the project, and we firmly believe in its power of engagement of people. For this reason we turned it into a performative activity, that matches what is today perceived as waste (technical, material) with necessities of the communities and of their spaces (social). Most importantly it does so through imaginative, open forms, inspired by the research of artists and architects such as Isamu Noguchi, who in the 1950a introduced the use of sculptural forms to enhance and change the way playgrounds were conceived at his time.
Sustainable : Sustainability made tangible, to everyone. This is what we observed as effect of our strategy based on upcycling, that means taking materials today considered as waste, and work directly on them through digital fabrication. This means in technical terms having the life of materials last longer, but design linked to digital manufacturing allows this to happen through a new identity. The objects are not vintage or just reused, and at the same the process avoids the pure recycling activity, that is somehow invisible to most people. The components of the OSP are design objects, with a purely new aesthetic, that embeds though their story in the text, the colours, the matter itself, resignified by the design.
Together : People are involved at all levels, from co-design to use, assemble and feedback, down to the material gathering and collecting as well. We have been testing the project approach in several events during the last years and this informed the evolutions of the design by looking at hor people interaction.
Learning transferred to other parties
We already transferred our methodology to different clusters in the city of Rome and the city of Caserta. The model based on the interaction between laboratories and communities, guided by our expandable design community already proved to be effective and we are now willing to expand it with a increasing role given to schools as civic and educational institutions.
Keywords
circularity
upcycling
co-design
livinghubs
open-source
