Transforma workshop with Makea

After some months of not participating in collective building initiatives, my attention was attracted by the Transforma workshop with Makea. It took place in the mid July 2016 and lasted a week. Despite it might look a little bit short, it was enough to meditate about collectiveness and discuss problems and solutions about with people like Mireia, Alberto and Luis from Makea.

Definitely it was a unique and enriching experience worth doing.

As in every design project, the first to do was to analyse the place and its needs. The Transforma Youth Centre organized several workshops for collective creating with the goal of making known its recent participatory initiatives policy. There were a wide range of workshops showing the results to the public and thus activating the area by exhibitions or parties. One of the workshops was Makea's aiming new tailored furniture for the current needs of a youth center of a new type. Another strong poing Makea works since its beginning is the litter, seeing it as a valuable resource.

Detecting the future functioning of the centre and what kind of furniture it lacked, we started our first sketches, step-by-step we learnt about the materials and its transformation. We were divided in groups of 3-4 people to work in the furniture of 3 different zones of the building. Although the workshop participants were not only designers or architects, the first problem arose - the lack of negotiation about the materials, One of the groups selected and put apart the materials they would use. Not a very good example of the collective spirit of the initative but for sure, a very good example of the no-sharing notion in the society nowadays. Nevertheless, workshops like this help us learn to be more cooperative, negotiating, sharing, caring about the common well-being.

Going further in our designs, we learnt by the trial-and-error method by also guided by the professional designers with years of experience of Makea. The system was working fine as every element was checked for its strength first and then how it would be assembled with the rest. In some of the cases the tutors advised a change in design which some of the participants couldn't assume. These comments aimed to be paid more attention to certain deficiencies or possible problems in the design, but some people took them personally. Considering their designs good enough and ignoring whatever warning, they proceeded even expressing their unsatisfaction with the received comments. Being persistent and following one's goal is a good thing sometimes, but not when the comments of others can help you be more critical with your own work and help you avoid some mistaks that the others have already done. Creating in common is not a one-direction process, it is a constant feedback and one should learn to listen and re-consider if one is on the right track.

Keeping on the right track is, as well, being supplied by the adecuate materials, applying simple and good detail solutions and having in mind the time available. The first two were perfectly managed by Makea, visiting the municipal trash-disposal and providing the necessary tools to get a good solution within our possibilities. But a good time/management is more a personal stuff, that one of the groups could not accomplish. Producing a whole family of objects might be considered a complete development of an idea but also is a waste of time and effort. Deciding between what is possible to be done in the best case and what is necessary to express well an idea is a dificult task. It might sound that people are natural optimists but experience shows us to simplify and not work in vane. Sometimes it is not worthy despite the personal satisfaction of having it done.

Makea's workshop for the Transforma space was an awesome experience not only to transform the use of a space by adding elements but mainly because of a personal transformation. The participants of this type of collective building are urged to think out of the box, out of the current social norms. Hopefully, applying what we learnt there, we can make a more cooperative, more participatory, more ecological society that cares for the common progress in a more personalized , more time-efficient manner.



You can check the furniture that the team I worked in prepared for the garden of the Transforma youth centre.