From this lab documentation log. I summarise: planning for a data commons that welcomes contributions from humans as well as non-human (more-than-human?) systems.

(...) in at least one occasion during the reuse city workshop in April, we have discussed ways to balance the diverse interests inv...

As you can see elsewhere in this blog, I’m used to start my texts from a very personal, individual perspective. There’s always a lot of “me” and “I” and “mine”. And often quite a bit of “you”. I was trying to find a way to describe in English how I feel about that in present times. In my mother tong...

Some weeks ago I had the opportunity to present my PhD research for the first time in Portuguese. I was invited by André Lemos, coordinator of Lab404 at the Federal University of Bahia, to one of their online meetings:

"Encontros do Lab404 debate sobre práticas sociais de reuso de matéria nos pr...

As OpenDoTT moves steadily towards the end of its second year, I feel my research changing into a different mode. Whilst in the first phase I have decided on a particular topic and explored ways to approach it, I am currently expanding my activities in two directions: prototyping with open hardw...

Smart cities, superficially understood as "using information technologies to make urban management more informed, efficient and easy", are a trend already being implemented in many parts of the world. Trying to persuade municipalities to use more IT is not something I feel my research would contribu...

Repair tech at MozFest

In one week I will conduct the first public activity of my research project in 2021. It will be an open discussion during the Mozilla Festival, called "Universal Registry of Things - promoting the reuse of materials and objects in smart cities". This year the Festival will...

Public Abundance is the Secret to the Green New Deal

The same principle need not be limited to food. “Repair cafés” could be places to meet and relax in every neighbourhood, and where you can also learn how to fix appliances and gadgets, mend clothes, or maintain bicycles. Community tool librari...

Soon after we moved to Berlin last September I had the chance to host a workshop called "Hacking waste management for the smart city" (originally "Reusing things in the smart city", but apparently that title did not attract many participants) at the Data Cities Conference organized by Disruption N...

As I worked further on concept ideas, I had the chance to get back to the people I have engaged with in my research studies and share with them the concepts. Participants were broadly supportive of the path my research was taking. Furthermore, through ongoing conversations with practitioners both...

As briefly mentioned in another post, last month I went through a process of research evaluation at the University. Northumbria calls it an "annual progression", which should take place, obviously, every year during the research period. In my case, it was delayed by about six months, due to the wh...

This is a slightly edited version of an email I sent some weeks ago to my supervisors (all four of them) and project management.

Update: the plans below may be outdated. Please refer to documentation in this GitHub repository.

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In February, we're having the IoT tech training with Officine...

I start typing these words as the sunlight reaches my window for the first time since I arrived back in Berlin, six days ago. I am isolating with my children at our place until the coming weekend, when our mandatory quarantine will be over. If you are reading this so far in the future that our curre...

After an unusual summer (wasn't it?), my second year at the O...

See also

• Repair Journey, my research study exploring individual/citizen perceptions, behaviour and decision-making around the reuse of things.
• An Ecosystem Mapping of reuse and repair.
• Concept ...

In the Repair Journey, I have asked a group of participants to choose an object they would like to repair or repurpose, and spend some weeks keeping a diary of how the repair (or attempt to repair) we...

For the Ecosystem Mapping, I have interviewed people who are related (either professionally or informally) with repair and reuse. The main idea was to understand how the value of discarded materials can...

Research Question 1 (RQ1): What prevents more widespread reuse of discarded materials in contemporary cities?

To address RQ1, I will i...

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this year's edition of Fixfest UK, originally planned to take place in Glasgow, moved to a series of online meetings. I had the chance to present my research and some of the things I am planning to do in next phases of the project.

Now, this move to a strictly onlin...

At the current stage - August 2020 - of the OpenDoTT project, I am working on design concepts that respond to data collected in this first year of work. The data comes from two design research studies; my explorations towards literature review; and reflection upon projects I have been involved w...

Head

In recent weeks I've been skimming through interview transcripts and my (copious) notes. It's a tiresome but rewarding phase of research. Things are starting to make sense, even if I feel it still is over my current grasp. As I work through, though, I find different forms of useful informatio...