The Collaborative Design Studio started in 2012 and has been conducted with volunteers and as part of a university curriculum in the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico. The course focuses on the design of collective spaces in collaboration with its inhabitants. Students learn from the experience people gained in the spaces they inhabit and take into account their needs, aspirations and expertise as make proposals to transform existing spaces. At the same time, community members receive some technical and design knowledge from the students, and this knowledge helps them to continue maintaining and developing the spaces in which they reside. On the other hand, the students, taking into account the requirements of the inhabitants, establish guidelines to design spaces for collective use that reflect the identity of the community.
The name “Collaboration” is used for this studio because, unlike “Participation”, it suggests equal conditions in the work to be performed by all involved. Therefore, a project is not just for the community but is done with the community.
Keeping this in mind, students are required to observe how spaces in a community are inhabited, to find out patterns of behaviour in them and to derive spatial qualities from these patterns. Then, they have to design a process of dialogue or interaction with residents to exchange information about the spaces and know their needs and ideas. This process should be interactive, inclusive, with images and even playful so that the largest number of people gets involved. After getting the inputs from the residents, students have to make design proposals consulting every idea with the residents. Finally, they have to build part of the project together with the community. This methodology based on observing and discussing, designing and building with the community helps to bridge the gap between academy and practice.***
El propósito de este taller es acercar a estudiantes de arquitectura, arquitectura paisajista, urbanismo, planificación, diseño e ingeniería a la realidad de las personas que habitan y utilizan los espacios que proyectan en un entorno colectivo. Los estudiantes aprenden de la experiencia de las personas (habitantes/usuarios para quienes trabajen y con quienes colaboren) en los espacios que habitan y toman en cuenta sus necesidades, sus aspiraciones y su conocimiento del lugar al momento de proyectar. Conjuntamente estas personas aprenden del conocimiento académico y técnico de los futuros arquitectos y se sienten capacitados para continuar manteniendo y desarrollando el espacio en el que residen. El taller se especializa en el diseño y construcción de espacios de uso común. La finalidad es que juntos, futuros arquitectos y habitantes, colaboren en la creación de espacios habitables de calidad. Se utiliza el concepto colaboración porque implica una igualdad de condiciones.
Mission and Purpose
- To bridge the gap that often exists between the academy and the practice, as well as the academic knowledge of the architects and the experience of the inhabitants.
- To create an environment in which experts and dwellers collaborate in the process of shaping the built environment.
- To encourage students to design spaces which foster the participation of people over time. Students are trained to be architects, but will also learn to be counselors and mediators.
- To empower the inhabitants to be aware of the space they occupy so that they can proceed to care and improve their living spaces.
- To encourage students to design spaces that can evolve over time along with the inhabitants.
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Objetivos Generales:
1. Salvar la brecha que muchas veces existe entre la academia y la práctica, como también la que existe entre el conocimiento académico de los arquitectos y la experiencia de los habitantes.
2. Poner el conocimiento académico al servicio de comunidades que necesitan arquitectos que los orienten y los ayuden a describir y materializar el espacio en el que desean vivir.
3. Permitir que no solo se proyecten espacios para habitar sino que también se proyecten espacios para la participación de los habitantes en el proceso. Además de educarse para ser arquitectos, arquitectos paisajistas, urbanistas, planificadores, diseñadores o ingenieros, aprenden a ser orientadores y mediadores.
4. Crear un entorno en el que estudiantes de arquitectura, arquitectura paisajista, urbanismo, planificación, diseño e ingeniería y habitantes colaboren en la creación de espacios habitables.
5. Empoderar a los habitantes para que tomen conciencia del espacio que habitan y puedan continuar manteniéndolo y desarrollándolo.
6. Exponer a los estudiantes al conocimiento de la tectónica de un proyecto.
Objetivos Específicos:
1. Aprender sobre procesos colaborativos de diseño y construcción de espacios habitables.
2. Que los habitantes los ayuden a entender mejor el lugar en el que intervienen y sus necesidades como comunidad. Luego, con sus diseños, pueden capacitar a los habitantes sobre exploración de la forma, utilización del espacio y materialidad.
3. Tomando en cuenta los requerimientos de los habitantes, pueden sentar pautas al proyectar espacios que reflejen la identidad de la comunidad.
4. Conjuntamente, tienen la experiencia de construir sus diseños de manera que aprenden sobre la viabilidad de un proyecto y sobre técnicas constructivas.
History
In Fall 2012, the first project of the COLLABORATIVE Design Studio was conducted outside the university in conjunction with Proyecto ENLACE, a public-private entity that helps residents of the eight neighborhoods that surrounds the Caño Martin Peña in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to help improve their living conditions. Volunteers from different disciplines such as design, graphic design, urban planning, architecture, landscape architecture, engineering or sociology, and mostly college students designed and developed a participatory process (using photomontages, images, clue words and questions) to help residents of Buena Vista –one of Santurce’s neighborhood to communicate their necessities. The end result; residents and volunteers painted all the houses of the street #1 - with the colors they chosen, they built site specific urban furniture and created a garden in an underground landfill using recycled materials.
The second project of the studio was an initiative of the School of Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico carried out in 2013. Students helped residents of Alto del Cabro neighborhood, in San Juan, to improve unused and depraved spaces. In this particular situation, there was no support from other organizations. Students designed a participatory process to acquire ideas together with the residents. This participatory process included a blackboard where residents could write their aspirations regarding the neighborhood and a puzzle game with which they could explore and identify opportunities for development.
The third project took place in 2014. It was an initiative of the Municipality of San Juan to revitalize an abandoned bridge in the Tras Talleres neighborhood. It was in Tras Talleres that the trains that used to traversed the island with goods and passengers were repaired. Students devised an interactive timeline in which residents of the nearby neighborhood could display their memories of the train (oral history) and a map in which they identified -applying the elements of Kevin Lynch, trails, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks nearby the bridge. With this information, students made a preliminary design, highlighting the bridge as landmark, portal and meeting place.
A fourth project carried out in 2015 emerged from an initiative with the community association “Machuchal Revive” in San Juan. One of the main goals of the association was to rescue an abandoned house, called Casa Taft 169 (because of its location in Taft Street #169). The Casa was to be converted into a civic center. Students created four game booths, which residents visited to express their ideas for the development of the civic center. Then, they made an architectural model of the house with interchangeable parts that could be combined in different ways by the participants. Finally, students built two of the proposed interventions with the help of community members; a wall in the backyard, which separates the neighboring yard, and a door that facilitates access to the house.
The fifth project carried out with students of the School of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico in 2016 consisted of helping the community of TrasTalleres to restore an abandoned building to become the Museum of Memory of the Neighborhood. Students designed a participatory process with questions as part of a giant domino game with the neighborhood's historic symbols replacing the numbers. Taking into account the community's input, they designed a door for the museum and refurbished the façade.
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El taller fue fundado en el año 2012 por la profesora y doctora en arquitectura Omayra Rivera Crespo en San Juan, Puerto Rico. El primer taller se llevó a cabo en las facilidades de Beta Local en Viejo San Juan y del Proyecto Enlace del Caño Martín Peña y participaron estudiantes y voluntarios de distintas disciplinas. Los siguientes talleres se realizaron como parte de un curso y un laboratorio de la Escuela de Arquitectura de la Universidad Politécnica de Puerto Rico.
Specializations and activities
- Collaborative Design (co-design) / Diseño colaborativo
- Community Design / Diseño comunitario
Major projects and events
- Proceso participativo, diseño e intervención en la Calle 1 del barrio Buena Vista en Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Proceso participativo, diseño e intervención en el barrio Alto del Cabro en Santurce
- Proceso participativo, diseño y pintura de murales para el Puente del Tren / Viaducto de la Calle Labra entre los barrios de Tras Talleres y Figueroa en Santurce.
- Proceso participativo, diseño e intervención en la Casa Taft 169 en el barrio Machuchal en Santurce.
- Proceso participativo, diseño e intervención en el edificio destinado a ser el Museo de la Memoria de Tras Talleres.
Funding Publications
http://www.ciapr.org/templates/CIAPR/Dimension/dimA28v4.pdf
Secondary Sources External Links
http://collaborativedesignstudiopr.blogspot.com