"Our proposals were met with enthusiasm from local people and the architectural jury alike.”
Charlie Fisher
Oxford Brookes, 2013
Charlie Fisher
Oxford Brookes, 2013
As part of his Travel award in 2013, Charlie Fisher conducted research into how the barriers to housing construction can be brought down in order for everyone to have access to high-quality architectural design. As part of that process, he was involved in WikiHouse, a community dedicated to developing freely downloadable construction kits, and was invited to InSitu 2013 in Lisbon to help run one of their workshop groups and speak about his work at their conference.
That year InSitu, a collaboration between Universidad Autonoma de Lisboa (UAL) and University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE), was looking to assist with improving day-to-day living conditions in a small informal neighbourhood south of Lisbon. The workshop was split into five groups and his group were tasked with coming up with solutions to the waste management problems, with a particular focus on the dumping of large items in public space.
Through teaching their group to use participatory techniques to gather information, they assembled a small table using WikiHouse joints so that we could demonstrate to local people a different type of collaborative construction. Using the table to map opinion and gather people together for conversation, they began to find the areas which were most effective, unpick why the rubbish had gathered and find who might be willing to help clean up.
With two days remaining until the presentation, the students worked tirelessly to create a project out of the information gathered and began to structure a very compelling argument which pivots around a campaign for a neighbourhood clean-up event and a cultural change towards recycling assisted by commitments from the municipal government.
Provocatively, the students suggested that if every adult in the 600-strong community paid 75 cents a month, they could collectively hire someone responsible for keeping the streets and public spaces tidy and therefore make the clean-up efforts sustainable. Using donated material, the group also designed small bin storage structures using a simple boltless joining system which could be slotted together by children through to the elderly without any construction knowledge. The aim of also having a physical output to the project is to reinforce the connection between recycling efforts and the ongoing maintenance of safe and healthy streets.
The bin-stores have to be refined to use as little material as possible and the timber be prepared for cutting. The project was developed in response to these collective suggestions and began with the clean-up day on 9th October that year.
Provocatively, the students suggested that if every adult in the 600-strong community paid 75 cents a month, they could collectively hire someone responsible for keeping the streets and public spaces tidy and therefore make the clean-up efforts sustainable. Using donated material, the group also designed small bin storage structures using a simple boltless joining system which could be slotted together by children through to the elderly without any construction knowledge. The aim of also having a physical output to the project is to reinforce the connection between recycling efforts and the ongoing maintenance of safe and healthy streets.
The bin-stores have to be refined to use as little material as possible and the timber be prepared for cutting. The project was developed in response to these collective suggestions and began with the clean-up day on 9th October that year.
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