Open Design City

A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a pedal-driven, human-powered, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist or a bicyclist. We would like to expand on the Wikipedia definition of bike and continue to explore [...]

Last week some of the We Creative People crew, together with many others (MakerLab Milan crew), went down to Milan to spark public action during the Milan Design Week. As MakerLab, we took part in the Public Design Festival and set a public workshop in 4 different locations. We set up a workshop (with a [...]

Concept by Michel David ( Helixator ) Mobility is a major issues for the future of our cities. While policy makers, architects, urban planners, engineers and many others continuously try to invent future transport systems – from building new infrastructures and designing electrical vehicles to encourageing bike commuting and car sharing – we have the [...]

At our last session (SESSION 10 / Designing Public Space / Feb 27) we set our self to engage citizens in the designing and shaping of the public space. Here is a video with a taste for the session and the four concepts that came out of it. And here are some of the participants which [...]

The city is where civilization happens; but what is civilization now days? People travelled to other countries bringing -civilization- and colonizing them to impose their culture, is that still happening? Many say that cities and urban spaces are the ideal place for human beings. The place where communication happens, the place where society lives, where [...]

How are coworking spaces an extension of the environment often found in universities? How does competition fare vs. collaboration in a coworking space? Why is coworking a better alternative for freelancers who usually work at home? “People In Beta” begins a conversation on these topics and invites your participation (twitter: #peopleinbeta #futureofwork). KS12 Finally, some [...]

Rooftop graffiti by K!WA , Berlin. Photo by Loso Although commonly used, public space is little considered as commonly owned. Everyone unconsciously shapes it. What we buy, what we do, where we go… but most still wait for local governments to take care of the general planning and design. “Cities have the capability of providing [...]

(c) Jordi Sábat In the magazine Barcelona Metropolis, P. Monràs writes about the knowledge economy and cognitive cities. Monràs writes: La economía del conocimiento no es otra economía, sino la que añade máximo valor a todo lo que hay, mediante el aprovechamiento de la materia prima más extendida, la del propio cerebro con todas sus [...]

Open Source Ecology are running Factor e Farm in Kansas City. They have set out to develop a basic set of tools to create the entire infrastructure for living and thriving from local resources, Open Source! This project is demonstrating the full potential of Open Source being applied to solve human challenges in the physical [...]

Banner-bags and minimalistic teabag books!

Last saturday Trial&Error and our friends from Open Design City joined the Lange nacht der wissenschaften at the Grimm Zentrum, to make smart banner bags, minimalistic teabag books (we recently discovered its possible to write well on teabags with ink and pens) and press buttons.

The bags were made out of commercial banners, put togheter with a connector from upcycled pet-bottle tops, a design developed by Christophe Valliant. If you like the sound of this 100% upcycled bag, using no electricity and not even thread, you got a chance to join the process and make your own bag on sunday afternoon at the umweltfestival.

See you there!