ecoLAB presents its Sustainability Project for Patio Sur at the Centro de Arte this Saturday
A new session of the ‘Art and Landscape’ series of debates takes place with the participation of Manuel Carrero de Roa, starting at 5 pm
Working at the South Courtyard in the ecoLAB Programme. Photo: LABoral
This coming Saturday 26th May, LABoral will hold a new session of ecoLAB, the art and ecology programme at Gijón’s Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, in which a general outline of the Sustainability Project on natural self-construction and eco-design will be presented. In addition, and as part of the “Art and Landscape” series of debates, the architect expert in urban planning Manuel Carrero invites reflection on how art and contemporary visual creation can contribute to landscape construction and regional development.
ecoLAB is a laboratory for experimentation in ecology, art and open electronics, driven by LABoral. It aims to help create subjectivities and relationship dynamics with the biosphere and its ecosystems through the implementation of eco-technologies (high-tech and low-tech). It operates as a node of knowledge generating education, research and production areas which concentrate on the ecological, social and technological challenges facing today’s society.
ecoLAB holds a monthly session every last Saturday of the month, and this coming 26th, starting at 11 am, the work group will focus its activity on Patio Sur [South Yard], where the ventilation of the composter will take place, the space will be arranged and the plots cleaned. For lunch, Arabic aromas and flavours will combine with the classic Moroccan dish - couscous- prepared by Melania Fraga.
From 4 pm onwards, the general outline and the schedule for the Sustainability Project will be presented. During the session, a brief review of the different sustainable construction systems will be made and the needs and functionalities planned for Patio Sur -the ecoLAB work space- will be analysed, showing examples of similar projects and initiatives. Also, the design and construction of a stall will be proposed, as well as the production of basic furniture by the participating work groups in the ecoLAB meetings, which are open to anyone interested in taking part in the process. The design and building of the structure will be carried out by Rens Willet, a Dutch engineer, naval carpenter and self-constructor specialised in natural construction systems and low impact, who will coordinate the self-construction workshop taking place in the month of June in collaboration with the Zoohaus collective.
At 5 pm, Manuel Carrero de Roa will speak about some urban sustainability paradigms, the changes in the peri-urban settings of the metropolitan areas in Asturias and new forms of residential development, as well as their implication in agricultural and landscaping management. This talk is part of the Art and Landscape series of debates.
Manuel Carrero de Roa (Madrid, 1964) is an architect specialised in urban planning from the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (1990) and in regional planning from the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (1992). A civil servant in the Principality of Asturias government since 1993, he has been a member of the work group “La ciudad socialmente sostenible” [The Socially Sustainable City] of the Congreso Nacional de Medio Ambiente (CONAMA) [National Environment Congress] and has taken part in inter-regional cooperation projects on sustainable development and in the First Action Programme for the implementation of the European Union Territorial Agenda. As a teacher, he has been involved in a wide range of educational courses, which include the Urban Management and Regional Development Master’s at the Centre for Cooperation and Territorial Development (CeCodet) at the Universidad de Oviedo between 2007 and 2008. His doctoral thesis is entitled: “La sostenibilidad del crecimiento residencial en baja densidad. El caso del Área Metropolitana de Asturias" [The Sustainability of Low Density Residential Growth. The Case of the Metropolitan Area in Asturias] and was completed in the Oviedo University Geography Department.
As a follow-up to this activity, ecoLAB proposes a field trip in the near future to a complex urban segment in the city Oviedo-San Julián de los Prados, in collaboration with Grupo de Medio Ambiente y Urbanismo del 15M [the 15M Environment and Urban Planning Group] and Centro Cultural La Madreña, Oviedo.
