EPPPS - Space for the Prototyping and Production of Sustainable Projects
The lack of access to open spaces for makers in Valencia, moved the design cooperative Makea to install EPPPS in a disused industrial building inside the green agricultural belt of the city.
EPPPS is an urban regeneration strategy articulated around a workspace for circular and sustainable design, that brings access to digital and conventional manufacturing technologies. With a learning-by-doing approach, it encourages the active participation of people in shaping the world around them.
Local
Spain
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Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Makea Coop. V. Type of organisation: Non-profit company (cooperative) First name of representative: Mireia Last name of representative: Juan Cucó Gender: Female Nationality: Spain Function: Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Plaza Músic Lòpez Chàvarri 5 pta 1 Town: Valencia Postal code: 46003 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 676 18 94 55 E-mail:hola@makeatuvida.net Website:https://makeatuvida.net
EPPPS is a makerspace that promotes principles of sustainability, circularity and self-sufficiency, driven by the design cooperative Makea.
EPPPS facilitates access to digital and conventional fabrication technologies, with a learning-by-doing approach.
With a threefold objective, it promotes activities, strategies and platforms that encourage the active participation of people in shaping the world around them.
EPPPS started in July 2022, when Makea moved to their new work atelier in an unused industrial unit in La Punta neighbourhood, Valencia, Spain.
Makea placed a big shipping container inside the industrial building and began to adapt it into a makerspace, with the aim of transforming it into a travelling service for communities, and a node of activation and support for sustainable projects, in Valencia and beyond.
A space from which to disseminate and share all the know-how, resources and methodologies, that Makea gathered in more than 15 years of experience in coordinating circular and sustainable design projects with cultural and educational institutions, companies and communities.
EPPPS project is structured around 4 axes:
— LEARNING. A space for peer-to-peer learning. Courses, workshops and other formats for education, training and knowledge exchange.
— MAKING. A shared workshop space, equipped with digital and conventional manufacturing machines for working in wood, iron and plastic.
— RESIDENCIES. A residency program to support the local ecosystem of designers, architects, makers, and anyone who has an idea or project to develop.
— EXHIBITIONS AND TEMPORARY PROJECTS. An open, multi-purpose exhibition space where all kinds of activities and events can be held.
Please have a look at our website:
https://www.eppps.es/
https://www.makeatuvida.net/
circular design hub
learning-by-doing empowerment
knowledge sharing
systemic collaboration
social & environmental awareness
EPPPS is a collective workspace offering technical and social support to every citizen that wants to build objects and spaces through a sustainable process, by redirecting material and immaterial resources.
1. Circular economy at the core.
EPPPS focuses its activity on generating and supporting new circular economy processes through design, exploring how manufacturing (digital and conventional) can support a more sustainable lifestyle.
2. Reuse and repair.
EPPPS encourages the reuse of materials in the creation of devices for public use. The EPPPS workspace is designed in a circular way, with a special section for collecting leftover and reusable materials. Makea collective fights for the development of mechanisms for the certification of this type of manufacturing, in order to be accepted by the current regulations.
3. Social and environmental awareness.
EPPPS generates dynamics of collective and participatory work that motivate citizens to self-construction as a tool for reflection and awareness-raising.
4. Resource mapping.
At the beginning of each project, we deeply analyse the flows of materials and knowledge of the environment, mapping resources and finding new relationships of value. In turn, this research generates a database of resource providers for us and the communities we work with, in order to collect and make use of raw materials for future interventions.
5. Resource-flow collaborative platforms.
EPPPS through Makea collective is part of Arquitecturas Colectivas, a network of designers in the Spanish territory, with the same concerns about sustainability,
promoting collaborative strategies related to this type of practices, such as:
www.El-Recetario.net, a platform for the self-construction of reclaimed materials furnitures
www.GRRR.tools that promotes the exchange of materials between communities, public administrations and private institutions.
EPPPS is a makerspace committed to the development of collective construction and design, and the pleasure and benefit that this brings to people:
in a respectful and collaborative, non-competitive environment, attentive to the cure, feeling to share ideas and solutions.
1. Co-creation.
EPPPS provides design and production tools to local collectives and people interested in learning how to build, to exchange knowledge and work together.
The space proposes a model based on methodologies of open participation and collective creation.
2. New collective identities (empowering communities).
Through a process of co-creation, new spaces of relationship and exchange of knowledge are built, generating bonds and a sense of belonging in our closest context, which can empower individually and collectively to address larger issues and to think about new possible imaginaries.
EPPPS is a place to make networks where social distances are shortened and access to knowledge is brought closer.
3. Care and maintenance.
The collectives and professionals in residence at EPPPS foster processes in which citizens participate in the design and construction of the objects and spaces that surround us. The community itself designs and makes its own furniture and consequently takes care of it.
4. Care and welfare.
The co-creation experiences generate spaces of relations in which to participate and meet, spaces that nourish you and in which your actions are able to nourish others.
It is key to generate collective benefits that have an impact on your own well-being.
5. Aesthetics of reuse / urban regeneration.
An abandoned industrial plot is inspiring on how to reuse spaces, how to rethink possibilities and new economic activities in the area that are sustainable, in order to open new possibilities of what can happen in La Punta neighbourhood and beyond.
1. Access to manufacturing technologies.
With a fully equipped workspace, EPPPS gives access to digital and conventional manufacturing technologies, with a dynamics of learning-by-doing that mixes people with expert knowledge and people with basic knowledge.
2. Literacy and training in the use of tools and manufacturing machines (digital and conventional).
The technological skills acquired by people involved in EPPPS activities, reduce the digital divide through technological learning and development of intra- and interpersonal skills, also enhancing social inclusion.
3. Peer-to-peer exchange and cooperation.
EPPPS is a space for collaborative work where people of different ages, interests and skills help each other by sharing the facilities and tools, as well as knowledge, experience and ideas.
4. Open source for inclusion.
EPPPS supports open standards, open access, and open source technology wherever possible in order to maximize distribution and to encourage broad participation.
5. Designing systems instead of unique solutions.
From the learnings of previous collaborations with organisations that focus their work on inclusive design (such as Entorno a la Silla in Barcelona and Autofabricantes in Madrid) Makea brings into EPPPS the responsibility for inclusive design, by creating systems, spaces and objects that can adapt, morph, or stretch to address human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender, age and other forms of human diversity.
6. Participation in the design and construction of our immediate environment.
In line with Makea's working philosophy, EPPPS collaborates with public entities to run workshops to co-design and prototype common spaces and facilities, contributing to turning Valencia into a more inclusive city that cares for the needs and desires of citizens.
BENEFITS
— A Makerspace opened to citizens.
In the city of Valencia, EPPPS covers the lack of makerspaces specialized in circular and sustainable design. Here, citizens benefit of digital and conventional manufacturing machinery for working in wood, iron and plastic, and of different formats for training, capacity building and the exchange of ideas and knowledge.
— Regeneration of industrial sites for eco-development.
An inspiration for the reuse of industrial sites, an opportunity to rethink economic sustainable activities for the surroundings.
— Supporting a more sustainable lifestyle.
EPPPS community works under principles of circularity and sustainability, in order to benefit communities with accessible and inclusive designs.
CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION
A core axis of EPPPS project is the involvement of civil society organisations:
Since its start, 6 months ago, EPPPS has collaborated with various social entities, such as ISCOD Foundation, in the design and construction of an exhibition, and with the El Arca Association, in the planning of activities with young people in a situation of inequality in La Punta neighbourhood.
EPPPS has also promoted other projects in collaboration with public entities such as Las Naves innovation centre, or with social economy enterprises such as Fent Estudi or the El Trenet nursery, opened up participation processes to people with different profiles, knowledge, interests and ages.
IMPACTS
EPPPS is a space to build new links and networks, and becomes a medium to facilitate mutual and active learning, collaboration and the building of human and social capital, even promoting a sense of community, by facilitating interpersonal relationships around the achievement of a common goal.
The dynamics of co-creation and collaborative design that take place in EPPPS offer a practical method of individual and collective empowerment, and a mechanism for social consciousness and environmental awareness.
In its 6 months of existence, several stakeholders have already been involved in EPPPS project, also based on Makea’s network:
1. LOCAL AND REGIONAL
EPPPS has already linked to local organizations, companies and institutions, to become an open service for the local community of the surroundings and of the regional area.
— Educational and cultural centres, libraries, neighbourhood organisations, neighbours of La Punta(El Arca among others)
— Professionals and small businesses, artists, electricians, welders etc
— Material supply companies, buying dead stock and production failures materials.
— Schools and colleges (Institut del Carme, Valencia)
— Higher education and universities (EASD Escuela Superior de Diseño de Valencia)
— Public institutions (Las Naves innovation center, Valencia’s Entrepreneurship and Employment, Urban Renewal and Housing, Urban Ecology and Energy Transition, Culture and the Arts, Participation, Welfare and Social Rights departments)
— Design and Arch. studios (Fent Estudi, Carpe, etc.)
— Professional associations (ADCV, Designers' Association of the Valencian Community)
2. NATIONAL
EPPPS have an extensive network throughout Spain: Medialab Prado (Madrid), Medialab Tabakalera (San Sebastián), Red de Ateneos de Fabricación (Barcelona), Citilab (Cornellà) and Maker Convent (Barcelona), MACBA, CCCB, the Museu del Disseny in Barcelona, and the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid.
Makea is also part of the Arquitecturas Colectivas network, often collaborating with: LaFábrika detodalavida (Los Santos de Maimona), Straddle3 (Barcelona), Todo por la Praxis (Madrid) or Recetas Urbanas (Seville).
As a makerspace, EPPPS is naturally conceived as a place as you can combine disciplines that have traditionally different paths of learning:
— Ecology and sustainability
— Citizen innovation
— Circular economy
— Health and care
— New models of production and consumption
— Knowledge and open source
A practical and clear example of this mixture is the «Workshop for the co-creation and prototyping of open-code furniture for the Ciuta·lab» that Makea coordinated in EPPPS on december 2022 , was aimed at designing and prototyping an open source furniture system to equip the new Ciuta-lab citizen laboratory facilities, recently promoted by Valencia City Council.
Through an open call for participation, a diverse and intergenerational group of 25 citizens interested in participating was generated. Guided by Makea’s experience in this type of process, the group collectively developed all the phases of the furnitures design process:
— Contextualisation of the city laboratories;
— Observation and analysis of the building;
— A small investigation of cases and related references;
— Generation of ideas, sketches and proposals to finally materialise 5 furniture designs;
— Elaboration of models;
— Prototyping with different digital and conventional manufacturing tools.
The wood used for the manufacture of the prototypes was acquired from a local company, and was combined with reused wood from EPPPS recycling materials warehouse.
A workshop in which participants were not only trained in the use of manufacturing tools, but also in design processes and collaborative work, while experimenting with new production models based on the use of sustainable materials and processes. In addition, in an open design exercise, the entire process and results were documented and published under the Creative Commons licence so that the designs can be replicated in the future.
We could call it a “meanwhile space” for inclusive urban regeneration.
EPPPS is located in an industrial building of a former wood trading company in the neighbourhood of La Punta, in the heart of the agricultural park of Valencia. Haunted by the construction of large infrastructures and the growth of the city, this area of vegetable gardens has been declared an area of special protection by the city's current master plan. The complex aspects of the urban regeneration process of this area, have created a negative context of inoperability of any economic activities without a clear solution from the local government.
EPPPS works in the interstices of the Masterplan, intending a meanwhile use of the space, by unlocking an underused space and bringing it into productive use for the benefit of community cohesion, placemaking and enterprise.
EPPPS is a window of opportunity to collaboratively experiment and prototype positive solutions, together with the community, to propose new uses of the territory, towards higher ambitions of sustainable, inclusive and thriving urban regeneration.
It’s based on an alternative model of production / consumption.
Either by improving the skills to build and repair of their user communities, or by favouring the generation of their own responses to real needs, as opposed to satisfaction through passive consumption. Also giving priority to a kind of production through local networks rather than in long, transport-intensive, high-volume supply chains.
EPPPS is more than a makerspace, it is an urban regeneration strategy that is articulated around a portable workspace, equipped with tools and machines for making, as well as staff with expertise in manufacturing techniques, co-creation methodologies, open design and sustainable practices:
MOVE. This mobile unit of EPPPS is available to move, to offer support to communities who want to promote innovative projects.
INSTALLATE. Just as it is now installed in the industrial building in the La Punta neighbourhood of Valencia, the EPPPS mobile unit has the aim to be located next to every community.
DEPLOY. In a collaborative way, a mapping of local resources (material and immaterial) is carried out, alliances are established and the process of design and collective construction of the project begins, based on a model of local, sustainable, collaborative and open production.
ACTIVATE. A transfer of knowledge is developed, that individually and collectively enriches and empowers all participants. Once the project is able to function autonomously, the EPPPS mobile unit folds up and becomes available for new interventions.
Thus, EPPPS project is designed to be replicated in different contexts, deploying its resources and adapting to the needs and characteristics of each community.
Moreover, it is replicable and scalable because EPPPS supports open standards, open access, and open source technology wherever possible in order to maximize distribution and to encourage broad participation. It also documents the processes and projects it develops, sharing them on platforms and web repositories so that others can learn about them, and encouraging the entire EPPPS community to do the same with their projects.
Behind EPPPS is the Makea collective, a non-profit cooperative in service of ecological transition and empowerment of individuals and local communities.
With the focus on social issues and education, we encourage open design and knowledge-sharing, and we apply these principles to a range of upcycling projects in various contexts.
Since 2008 we have specialised in the development of design dynamics of collective creation that encourage citizens to actively participate in shaping their environment.
Our work is based on repurposing as a technique and open design as a tool.
Our practice focuses on creating activities, strategies and prototypes that help us thinking about the transformative possibilities of design and contribute to build a more socially and environmentally responsible society.
EPPPS is a space but also a strategy, to transfer our extensive experience of working in/with manufacturing spaces such as industrial workshops, fablabs, medialabs, or maker spaces, and our passion for facilitating and accompanying collective design and construction processes based on the methodology of learning by doing. Processes that encourage the active participation of people in the definition of their immediate environment, that involve a learning and training process for the participants, and that prototype equipment and furniture for common use under parameters of sustainability and open design.
The methodology used for the start-up and implementation of EPPPS follows the common steps of the projects developed by Makea:
—Collective mapping of resources (tangible and intangible) of the territory
—Contact with all involved stakeholders
—Observation for the detection of needs and wishes
—Co-design process of the proposals
—Collective construction of the prototypes
—Training in the use of fabrication tools
—Sharing the designs in open source (Creative Commons)
—Testing of the proposals for their evolution in future phases.
1. Circularity for climate emergency. The way we produce and consume is one of the urgent challenges we must address to tackle the current climate emergency. In EPPPS, design is considered as a circular process, from the start: a continuous cycle of creation and recreation, use and reuse. In this way, the methodology we develop is based on thinking in flows, to connect non-linked systems and to establish new relationships in a territory.
2. Relationship with nature in urban environments.
Urban nature is a key topic for many cities in tackling the climate emergency and restraining biodiversity loss; people need green areas as socialisation spaces, and to be in contact with nature. As EPPPS is located in a unique industrial space in the agricultural green belt area of the city of Valencia, this situation could be key to work on green/blue ecosystems and agricultural knowledge transmission.
3. Wellbeing & happiness.
Focusing on wellbeing validates approaches that contrast isolation and create conditions for lifelong, diverse social ties. EPPPS promotes experiential social ties through practical workshops to collectively solve community problems, for instance about green and public spaces.
4. Build the city for everyone.
EPPPS is a place that generates urban co-production dynamics through the activities of its residents, where different stakeholders jointly develop solutions for the coexistence in the city. Fostering collaborative practical activities based on mutual learning, preventing technological inequality and develop social bonds.
5. New production and consumption models.
Dynamics brought about by technological and digital developments pertain not only to products and production, but more and more to social and urban structures. In EPPPS, it is a matter of concern of how makers, artists, creatives can stimulate job creation and new modes of enterprise, connecting traditional and digital crafts, diverse communities and generations.
EPPPS achievements since the start of the project in June 2022:
— Activation of a 1600 m² space in an unused industrial unit. Rental contract agreement. Cleaning and adaptation of the space. Electricity, water and internet connection.
— First contacts and agreements with local stakeholders.
— First activities focused in circular and sustainable design, involving 13 organisations/institutions and 134 participants. 1.2 tonnes of reused material.
— Fully equipped workspace with manufacturing technologies.
— Workspace arrangement for a circular flow of resources: Area for Classification and Organisation of Materials for Reuse, and a connection node of GRRR.tools platform.
— A portable makerspace equipped with tools for making, as well as staff with expertise in manufacturing techniques, co-creation methodologies, open design and sustainable practices.
— Public recognition with the «Best Innovation Project for a Prosperous and Enterprising City» in Missions Valencia 2030 Innovation Awards.
2023 will benefit from upcoming local activities planned for the next months, and new challenges for EPPPS and Makea:
— Programming a curated collection of workshops, courses and exhibitions, in order to map local resources, ecosystems and stakeholders, to manufacture processes, and to use free software for manufacturing.
— Collective building process of EPPPS through «JUEVEPPPS of self-construction», a weekly open workshop for the upgrading of the space.
— Further boost to synergies with local and national projects, initiatives and organizations, with the focus on:
a) cultural and educational institutions,
b) neighborhood associations and environmental organizations for the protection of the Agricultural Park of Valencia, where EPPPS is located.
— Design and activation of the program of temporary residencies for makers and collectives.
— Increase the spreading of EPPPS project through website users, newsletter subscribers and social media.
The ultimate goal of EPPPS is to generate a collaborative working environment capable of expanding the knowledge and skills of the ecosystem of people interacting with it, transforming also their everyday attitudes, for exploring and prototyping sustainable and inclusive solutions to the urgent challenges of the present.
1. Provide educators with opportunities to learn about the climate crisis and sustainability.
Establishing partnerships and collaborations with formal education institutions (such as the partnerships already established with a local highschool and a design school) and non-formal education (like with El Arca association and ISCOD Foundation), EPPPS contributes to equip with the knowledge to educators and help them to integrate sustainability into teaching and learning across different aspects of their operations.
2. Learning environments for sustainability.
The experiences of design and collective construction, based on the reuse of materials, are a true supportive learning environments for sustainability.
Where diverse and intergenerational groups of people explore new teaching and learning models focused on hands-on, interdisciplinary and relevant to local context activities.
