"Social Architecture Experiment, and Open Design"

Project 05/ Open Architecture, Social Architecture, with Cesar Harada

How can design actions open new platforms for people to cocreate customised local solutions for sustainable development?” Social entrepreneur Cesar Harada was invited to conduct an Open/Social Architecture co-creation experience. Cesar is a Senior TED Fellow who quit his job at MIT and moved to the Gulf to develop an Open Source robot called ‘Protei’ to clean up the BP oil spill, and has now settled in Hong Kong. He is also the founder of Makerbay in Hong Kong.

At two sessions, more than 40 citizens and HKDI students gathered together at the campus’ Design Boulevard. At first Cesar led the group to experience different forms of networking. The participants were asked to reflect on the experience in different networks until they came up with a final collective form. Out of this new ‘network’, they used just plastic pipes to build a simple but interesting structure. The experience was aimed at exploring the possible forms of structure that could evolve from social networks created by participants. It asks the question whether the practice of building could be a co-creative and collective process.

Title: Open design in action! Design Debates & Projects for our Open Society