francesca valsecchi ecsel 2012 second Round ApplicationFebruary 2012, shanghai

by StudioTAO of TEKTAO Urban Planning and Design, Shanghai

project partners:DESIS Network Design for Social Innovation and SustainabilityCollege of Design&Innovation, Tongji University, Shanghai

sustainable communities between city & countryside

research based design intervention in the rural China, that aims to achieve more sustainable and fair social and economic balance between city and countryside.With our design practice we are experimenting at crossroads of academy and industry, and we involve stakeholder from both research and business fields in the social innovation challenges and impact.

We push alternative sustainable proposal for contemporary urban sprawl. We work to find bottom-up sustainable developing way by “design thinking”, to integrate urban and rural resources.

We involve local communities in the design actions. We design communication, services and experiences contributing to reconstruction of knowledge identity by the villagers.

Who benefits:proactive citizenship that looks for local immaterial values (food, crafts, heritage artefacts) and local farmers, craftsmen that produce with heritage values, social meaning and quality factors.

bridging the city and the countryside

through heritage, knowledge & resources exchange38C 0M 100Y 0K

171R 208G 55BHEX #ABD037

60C 51M 51Y 20K 102R 103G 102BHEX #666766

3 ongoing main projects

Two piece of land where approach with the local farmers the concept and practice of organic based agriculture and explore direct farmers-citizens market space (last harvest production: rice)

agri-culture design food culture & production

mobile technology based community services

crafts heritage preservationbySeeds

bySeedsby

bySeeds

bySeedsby

extended research and prototyping of technology based systems (mobile, internet of things) to support rural-urban connections(ongoing research partnership with nokia)

several bamboocrafting workshops around the islands and some new crafts objects co-designed wvith the artisanshttp://designentwines.tumblr.com/

bySeeds

bySeedsby

farmer

how we workWe develop design concepts and prototypes through daily field work, design and planning of services, communication strategy and tools, networking, small scale production.

participatoryeventsco-design

prototypingongoingethnography

in-depthinterviewsfield work

current distribution & management system

researchdissemination

outcomesmarketspace

potentialinvestments& partnership

city customers

city sustainable markets and public events

taobaoonline shop

direct contacts & committed stakeholders

rice

seeds

bamboo crafts

distribution and market

internally managed

hand-madepackaging

research fundinginternational

academic networkspresence

design harvestsbook

conferences and journalspublications

dissemination activity

followed by senior research

members of the team

project outcoms

material production

knowledgeproduction

We recently opened our taobao shop for manage distribution. Not fully satisfied by remote interactions.

We participate to public events in city, farmers market, sustainability fairs, and by this we grow the network of stakeholders.

new partnersnew projects

We believe local based entrepreneurship is as positive mechanisms for social innovation projects. We continuosly look for new partnerships, collaborators, and investors of ideas and money.

We mainly distribute directly to people, within network of interests where to promote the cultural values of the products.

team and organizationstructure

design &development

researchprojectteam

management

studio tekarchitecture

department

employees 15+urban planning projects

employees 5+service design& interactionresearch projects

studio taodesigndepartment

lou yongqiprofessor

lou yongqiprofessor

cynthia xuproject assistant

francesca (myself )research coord.

serenaproject coord.

diegoresearch&design

joey leiresearch&design

zhu mingjiedesigner

jiang linadesigner

business management

team structureand competences

scientific supportuniversities &internationalresearch network

38C 0M 100Y 0K 171R 208G 55BHEX #ABD03760C 51M 51Y 20K 102R 103G 102BHEX #666766

economic flows

business outlinesin few words what we wantto achieve

create small scale valuable market space based on trust

create a culture of the local among the ciy community of consumers

envision a proactive idea of market in which consumers become users

impact evaluationwhat we considerpositive indicator of success

increase of participation to events we organize, number of fellows

market penetration and distribution efficiency of first experimental harvest production

capacity to find next funding

foster entrepreneurs partnership

current constraintswell known limitations and weackness point

organization economic self-indipendence (size constraint)

better organization structure among research and management departments

lack of structure in market strategy

future worksWe have two main tasks for the near future. Our cooperation with the farmers will extend to small production in greenhouses; we aim to push one step forward the use of natural based cultivation techniques among the villagers. Also, we will complete the design a collection of bamboo weaved objects; together with the farmers we would combine and share the knowledge of crafts expertise and design skills.

bamboo crafts co-designed collection

greenhousesexperiment in the village

designharvests@gmail.comhttp://designharvests.comhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/designharvestshttp://weibo.com/studiotaohttp://www.douban.com/people/tektao/