Parlamento Diplomacy

Venice Biennale 2021

Parlamento is a Forum of the larger research project

Design Diplomacy: The Transmission of Autochthonous Practices & Customs.

Within the Virtual Italian Pavilion at the 2021 Venice Biennale, a forum will be held with International participants to expose, discuss and extend the ethical philosophy of the Design Diplomacy approach.
@ Design Diplomacy
is a design research platform
established by
Alban Mannisi & Charles Anderson

The rampant anthropisation of our telluric biosphere, is no longer fuelled by our ecological transformations and transitions or the quest for the absolute in the heart of unknown counterparts, but by the seemingly trivial but powerful and ongoing processes of economic extraction, speculation, and growth. In response to this, the significant resurgence of situated ecological knowledge(s) resulting from slow and cumulative maturation of environmental awareness, often denigrated by colonial powers and 20th Century autocratic engineering, reveals abysses of uncertainty.

Parlamento Diplomacy is a forum to be convened within the Virtual Italian Pavilion of the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale to discuss this issue and the ethical philosophy deployed through the Design Diplomacy inquiry.

Accompanied by a team of built environment practitioners and researchers encountered at the previously held Hokkien Mee and ReciprocUdad International Seminars, @ Design Diplomacy invites environmental ambassadors to present and discuss the dynamics and interests of possible in-situ investigations and actions.

Parlamento Diplomacy have the pleasure to showcase a worldwide panorama of autochthonous practices and customs revitalisation from:

Australia, Brazil (South & North region),

Cameroon, Japan,

Netherland, Oman,

Colombia, Ireland,

Italy, Thailand,

Panama, Belgium

Demystifying Oman

Life in Omani traditional settlements of the interior region

Environmental ambassador:
Dr. Naima Benkari
Sultan Qaboos University. Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Muscat, Oman
Localization:
Interior (a-Dakhiliya) and Northern coastal (Al Batinah) regions of Oman
Topic:
Life in Omani traditional settlements of the interior region
Stakeholders:
Wakeel al falaj - the imam (Scholar) – housewife – tribe leader – community representatives
Link:
n/a
Contact:
nbenkari@squ.edu.om
Oman is a country characterized by a hot-arid climate, and a lunar natural landscape. The mountains of different colors and shapes divide the territory into coast of AL Batiah and the interior (a-Dakhiliya). Although it has lost a lot of its power, the tribal organization is still alive in Oman. The important tribes still have large territories of lands under their control, especially in their diyar (capital). But the most prominent trait of the Omanis is their peaceful temperament. A trait that imbibed their interior and foreign policy alike. Changes are made progressively and with the consent of the majority at least. Peace is leitmotiv at all levels of the society. Modesty, reserve and humbleness are other prominent traits that distinguish the Omanis from other peoples in the Gulf or in the Arab region. Peace and modesty are also the characters of the traditional architecture and settlements in Oman. This peculiar built environment adapts to the geo-climatic conditions, but, it is also managed through rigorous laws emanating from the Ibadi rite that is followed by a large majority of Omanis, especially in the interior region. This rite added another value to the innate peaceful and reserved character of the Omanis: Equity, and consolidated an already existing one: inclusiveness. The Ibadi community is indeed known for its profound attachment to the principles of equity, modesty and community. I argue that these values are behind the distinctive character to the traditional architecture and settlements in Oman, and this presentation aims to read this built environment through this mode of interpretation.
-The settlement and its components:
The settlement is always defined with its oasis: at the limit of the oasis (Al Hamra) or surrounded by it (Al Hawashim) or intertwined with it (Al Aqor Nizwa). Equity and inclusiveness is in the distribution of lands, the appearance of houses, it is in As-Sabla, At-Tanur and the mosque.
-Water in the settlement and the oasis:
Water is the life of both the oasis and the settlement. The falaj comes first, then the oasis, then the buildings. Equity and inclusiveness reflect also in the water management system and how it is controlled since centuries. Water is counted in time, because time governs life in the settlement and in the oasis: daily, weekly, seasonally and yearly. Time for wakeel al falaj, time for the imam, time for the housewives, time for men, and time for the whole community.
-Life then and now: through interviews with main Stakeholders: Wakeel al falaj - the imam (Scholar) – housewife – tribe leader – community representatives.
Coranderrk is now a 200 acre property on Wurundjeri Country, 60 kms east of Melbourne in South East Australia. At the time its establishment in 1863, Coranderrk covered almost 5,000 acres and was home to many Aboriginal people displaced by the expansion of European settlers following the settling of Melbourne in the 1830’s. It is the home of Australia’s first land rights and self-determination campaigns.
Among many serious economic, agricultural and social challenges, Australia is having particular difficulty adapting to climate change and (re)conciliation with our First Nations people. Slowly people are beginning to realise that Australia’s Aboriginal people can help us, can teach us a lot.
Reflecting the philosophy that people and the land are indivisible, at Coranderrk we see nature – the land, the water, the trees, shrubs and grasses, the birds, the insects etc as partners to work with so that we leave the world a better place for our grandchildren’s children.
For us, the first step is to learn, to observe, to understand the seasonal changes in nature at Coranderrk. Our contribution is our willingness to share this experience and learnings. We see Coranderrk as a demonstration place, a safe place for people to connect or reconnect to the land, to each other and to themselves. Coranderrk is a resource where friends and partner organisations that share our values come together to take small practical steps to meet these challenges.
Some key projects:
Growing (traditional) bush foods. There are many dimensions. Growing traditional foods provides a wonderful opportunity for people to learn about, to understand and to respect indigenous people for have lived with and nurtured this land for tens of thousands of years. Growing traditional foods provides an opportunity and a vehicle for people to engage with a practically adapt to climate change, ie the opportunity to move past recognising we need to adapt into how we can adapt.
Cultural Burn. Bush fires are an increasingly serious problem in Australia. So also is the way we prepare for the fire season. What are the lessons to be learned from Aboriginal people who observed and understood the land and used fire to manage the land? There is a growing recognition that cultural burning can make a major contribution.
Caring for country. Taking only what the land will give us. Learning from our ancestors. At Coranderrk, we recognise, accept and embrace the idea that humans are just one of mother earth’s partners. In practice this means restricting the land used for agriculture, creating and expanding the habitat for endangered species from this area, understanding our parcel of land and then selecting appropriate trees, shrubs and grasses that suit this particular location

Coranderrk
Give us this land

We will show the country

Environmental ambassador:
Brooke Wandin, Jacqui Wandin, Dave Wandin
Wurundjeri Educators
Localization:
Coranderrk, Victoria, Australia
Topic:
Indigenous Environmental Engineering
Stakeholders:
Coranderrk Community
Link:
n/a
Contact:
coranderrkfestival@hotmail.com
Cultural density in the urban environment should be understood as a cornerstone to a more equitable city. With more than 85.000 inhabitants, Paraisópolis, one of the two largest communities (slums) in the city of São Paulo, may be characterized by the strength of its social organizations and population built upon the training of residents to support the transdisciplinary emergency networks that have been created - transdisciplinary not merely as a consequence of a theme or a context, but as a result of direct participation of community members in the development of critical and purposeful actions. São Paulo shows its own mix/fix of enclosure, greenwashing, developer–oriented policies of entrepreneurial nature – many times helped by ad hoc regulatory framework. São Paulo’s precarious territories, like Paraisópolis, present a set of autochthonous cultural and social practices where multiscale adjustments continuously promote landscape transformations. São Paulo, a city where urban territorial heterogeneity is increasingly present in different scenarios, characterizing different processes of a socio-cultural landscape representative of socio-spatial segregation of an evergrowing replacement process: from "city-work-politics" to "city-management-business”. Territory means practices, socio-human relationships, collective actions disputing the use of space; a core (material and symbolic) that produces domain (values, ideologies, narratives), and legitimates any material/factual/technical/social action throughout a geographical extension (jurisdiction). Human action is regulated and ruled by the ontological hierarchy of the core, from which sense emerges.

Paraisópolis

A Seed of Hope

Environmental ambassador:
Alves, Manoel Rodrigues Alves
Camargo, Camila Moreno
Fantin, Marcel
Institute of Architecture and Urbanism / University of São Paulo
Localization:
Paraisópolis and other precarious territories – São Paulo,Brazil
Topic:
Territorial restructuring processes and transformations in urban socio-spatial practices
Stakeholders:
Members of LEAUC Research Group: Camila, Manoel and Marcel – practitioners, educators and social scientists – graduate and undergraduate students - community leaders (Chiquinho, Claudia and others)– residents of Paraisópolis.
Link:
aprender na comunidade
Contact:
Manoel Rodrigues Alves: mra@sc.usp.br
Camila Moreno de Camargo: cmcamargo@usp.br Marcel Fantin: mfantin@sc.usp.br
The core may be legal or not, explicit or not, but powerful enough to rule the geographical extension and try to produce stability; it is neither one (hierarchy of the identity, of the integrity), nor essential (origin), but multiple (Deleuze´s sense), scattered in social practices – according to Derrida´s concept of loss of structurality of the structure. This notion of territory is relative, uncertain, heterodox, compatible with metaphors used to explain nowadays cities, societies, milieu. In the city, this concept is visible wherever limits and borders (urbs) are recognizable, in integrated or marginal urban fabrics (civitas), and also in symbolic systems, narratives, representations grounded in the need for expressing that core: value of the civic/public life, the legal, the allowed, the forbidden (polis). Urban territoriality oscillates between two notions, namely de jure territory and de fact territory. Territory always involves both concepts, i.e., a political issue in a concrete space and time, more strategic or more tactic. In both cases, it is likewise an arena of struggle, where processes, actors, discourses, and expressions are different. It is under this theoretical framework that questions related to urban equity are addressed. Therefore, exploring socio- cultural dynamics of particular São Paulo’s ‘precarious territories’, this presentation – through interviews with Paraisópolis’ community leaders and residents, as well as iconic representations that explore dynamics and tensions of particular territories - aims to portray community actions of environmental knowledge that mitigate inequalities and vulnerabilities inherent to processes of constitution of popular territories.

Ndanifor Bafut Ecovillage

Strengthening Research and Development towards Regenerative Education

Environmental ambassador:
Konkankoh Joshua
Founder of Bafut Ecovillage and CEO of Better World Cameroon (NGO)
Localization:
Bafut Ecovillage, North-West Region, Cameroon
Topic:
African Agricultural Research
Stakeholders:
Bafut Council, Bafut Palace, refugees, internally displaced youth, and Ndanifor Garden's UK Trust
Link:
betterworld-cameroon
Contact:
foundation@betterworld-cameroon.com
The main objective of NBE is hands-on training of trainers that provides a platform for key war victims of the liberation struggle in Cameroon, researchers, practicing sustainability practitioners, and climate adaptation mechanisms.
NBE builds the capacity of participants (youth/women) to think through replication of its model, and how to strengthen African communities to engineer a repositioning of youth/women entrepreneurship for the attainment of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement within the UN Agenda 2030 and African Agenda 2063. NBE provides trainees with enterprise and personal development training of trainers and promotes the benefit of sustainable regenerative education to climate and environment. NBE is a fascinating story of reconnecting youth and women to their natural heritage using the model of ecovillages to promote climate change adaptation and sustainable development. NBE holds a special place in the Global Ecovillage Network GEN Africa as a catalytic hub for transitioning African villages to resilience. NBE steps up traditional education and gives voice to women and the youth to share their voices on peace and sustainable development, boosting new careers in the green local economy by:
-increasing the quality of life through innovative volunteerism
-community revitalization and rebuilding Ndanifor Bafut Ecovillage Demonstration site burnt down by French Cameroon militia.
NBE builds relations with successful intentional communities in Global Ecovillage Network and cohousing with low-cost natural materials in semi-urban and rural areas.
NBE integrates traditional values of respect for the land with modern organic farming methods and entrepreneurial skills. Respect for culture and biological diversity is NBE's basic tenet. The ecovillage is a resource for environmental education, food production, and job training. The ecovillage hosts an organic demonstration farm, a technical training workshop, three women and youth clubs, and local cultural events. The ecovillage produces over 20,000 new trees constituted as food forests and herbs each year. NBE has become a popular destination for locals and ecotourists alike. NBE is a call to action in the quest of an equitable and reasonable balance within a road map for displaced youth in Cameroon and the green policies of Better World Cameroon related to conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity that is constant for seeking the achievement of targets underlined in the UNSDGs within a war context.
Following the war, NBE has become the peacebuilding and conflict resolution platform co-creating ideas and solutions with sustainability movements around the world to deal with the rising refugee and migration problems in the world. NBE is a model demonstration center of High-Value Agricultural Products for Refugees HVAP4R for knowledge sharing and exchange NBE promotes shared values on social entrepreneurship through Training of Trainers and Equity-based Innovative Volunteer placement.

In A Manner of Seeding

Environmental ambassador:
Michelle Lai,
Independent Researcher, Plant Fictions
Localization:
Netherlands (Particularly North Holland Province)
Topic:
Intimacies between Plants and Humans (Within the Potato Seed (Trade)
Stakeholders:
Farmers, potato breeders, market vendors, scientists, within the potato seed industry, hobbyist gardeners
Link:
n/a
Contact:
hello@mljm.org
'In A Manner of Seeding' considers a critical view of the infrastructures surrounding seeds, and the eventual dispossession humans have come to have with seeds, particularly in urban environments. The movie will showcase interactions between human and plants, featuring gardeners based in Berlin, Germany, and potato breeders and farmers in North Holland, Netherlands; articulating forms of intimacy within the context of the urban environment.
(A) Plant - Human Trajectories and Gradual Dispossessions
This is viewed from the lens of the potato seed industry in the Netherlands, and hobbyist gardeners in Berlin, Germany, from which I look into the trajectories of the potato from the Andean highlands, and how it has since taken root to become a beloved crop of the Dutch. I surface the intertwined relations between human and plants since time immemorial, and how attempts at articulations of intimacy serve to bridge plant - human interactions through working with the land. The proposal includes conversations with selected interlocutors, particularly angled towards understanding their individual interactions with the potato (plant), and video surveys of their actions with the land. The key interlocutors are Jan Eric Geersing of Geersing Potato Specialist, and community gardeners at Princess Garden, Berlin, Germany.
(B) Infrastructures of Intimacy
Through the compilation of edited footage and conversations, performative gestures, and agricultural labour - I propose these notions as resilience building exercises for the post- plantationocene. The proposal attempts to cultivate human and non- human kinship across locales and geographies, and encourage forms of collective knowledge production across species.
Community Design is progressing in many places throughout Japan. These practices are being implemented by participants/volunteers with various types of themes. As these practices progress, many of the participants are interested in finding out how certain problems are being solved by people in other regions of Japan. One such project in Kanonji City, (Kagawa Prefecture) has played a central role in conducting meetings called the “Koyoi Summit”, to exchange information about their practices. Participants from 10 regions participated in the first Koyoi Summit held in 2013. The people involved in doing something for the community often raise the same or similar concerns.
At the Koyoi Summit participants are able to share these concerns along with their thoughts and feelings regarding problems that have arisen. As a result, they have learned a great deal about each other's practices. So much so that many have managed to utilise what they learnt and introduced some of these practices into their own local community. Since then, the Koyoi Summit has been held each year in different regions across Japan. Foundation of Koyoi Summit is based on where people live and what they have archived there. Some practices may work for other part of region, but some don’t. It is hard to imagine what they learnt from their experiences to disappear but if the local community stop practicing then it would disappear, and the new issues will arise.
However, people know that if they do not enjoy what they are doing they should stop or pause. They also know that it is important to create the environment where anyone can talk and start something for their community. In the last summit there was a new participant from Amami Island. They have just started participatory plan making and didn’t know what to expect to work with local residents. The participants of summit have abundance of experiences in what they do and they passed those knowledge to participants from Amami. After the summit participants from Amami told us that that helped them understand how they should be prepared for future.
Due to COVID-19, the 2020 Koyoi Summit was held online. Participants sent their local specialities to each other in advance of the meeting and introduced their local practices while eating and drinking on the day. The participants enjoyed the online summit and took full advantage of the opportunities to interact with one another during this difficult unprecedented time.
The next town to hold Koyoi Summit is at Amami Island. If @Design Diplomacy visit Japan, we could come and visit or attend Koyoi Summit online. It depends on COVID-19 situation. If you are to hold Design Diplomacy in Japan, it would be great to have Koyoi Summit with people from other countries.

Community Learning “Koyoi Summit”

Hands-on learning gathering

Environmental ambassador:
Noriko Deno
Community Designer Studio L, Japan
Localization:
Kanonji City, Kagawa Prefecture, Japan
Topic:
Community Learning / Community Design
Stakeholders:
Participants from 10 regions participated in the first Koyoi Summit held in 2013
Link:
https://www.studio-l.org/
Contact:
deno@studio-l.org
The landscape in this work is seen as fundamental to think about the territory's contemporary challenges, especially in times of Anthropocene and Pandemic – more recently. A new approach that intends to look at the landscape of Goiania - a metropolis in the Brazilian Cerrado - with a special interest for marginal landscapes, not on its geographical concept as the periphery of the city, but away from this dichotomous concept of city the margin is a place of the social and cultural processes, of material and symbolic production of its socially and culturally vulnerable populations. It is a space where the working class integrates with the city. The marginal landscape in this approach is placed in the center, and no longer a part of the Landscape planning and design of the territory.
Even though Brazil is a welcoming country for refugees, their community awareness is not even considered as a base to rethink the landscape in a lot of approaches, especially regarding the central landscapes. They end up occupying the margins of the city, usually areas of environmental protection and/or without infrastructure. The contribution of the marginal landscape as a complex expression of the relationship between refugee and nature becomes, under new perspectives and techniques, a way of structuring a proposal to valorize and promote the green socio-cultural and ecological network, assuring the resilience necessary to climate change, but also ensuring social inclusion of the refugees in Brazil that reverses the direction of traditional planning.

Goiânia Landscape Observatory

A Conversation with Refugees and their Landscape

Environmental ambassador:
Camila Gomes Sant’ Anna - Suzete Bessa
Course of Architecture and Urbanism- Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Goiânia (Goiás)
Localization:
Goiânia (Goiás) - Brazil
Topic:
Refugee and the right of the landscape at Goiânia
Stakeholders:
Brazilian members of the marginal landscape community, refugees in Goiânia, a leader at The NGO “Missão Amar sem fronteiras” and a leader at Cátedra Sérgio Vieira de Mello (CSVM) at Federal University of Goiás
Link:
n/a
Contact:
cgomessantanna@ufg.br
suzete_bessa@ufg.br
Goiânia is a metropolitan city (1,536 million inhabitants) in Brazil, with the majority of refugees from Venezuela and Haiti. Its landscape is characterized by the Cerrado Biome (Brazilian Savanna), which is currently managed by a system that cannot integrate planning and execution. The Cerrado Biome occupies part of several Central Western states and has multiple particularities, as well as the principal Brazilian watersheds, having an important role in guaranteeing climate change adaptation, sustainability, biodiversity, but mainly food security. However, Cerrado is one of the most deforested biomes. Thus, the Landscape planning and design must consider promoting for the refugees a feeling of belonging to their landscape. Not to mention the importance of sensitizing the role of the Cerrado community’s culture in this Landscape.
This project aims to identify based on the mode of interpretation and mobility of the refugees what they think and what they want of their landscape.
a- The Cerrado marginal landscape in Goiânia and its elements;
b- The cartography of refugees occupation of Goiânia Marginal Landscape;
c- The Marginal Landscape as a projection of refugee desires (interviewing the stakeholders). It seeks to bring together stakeholders, including refugees who are actively involved in the debate about the future of these landscapes, using interviews.
Sukhothai is located in the Lower Northern Region of Thailand which is about 427 km from Bangkok. The geography of Sukhothai can be divided into two parts; the central of the city is mainly laid by the Yom River basin while the north and the south are shaped by mountainous and plateau areas. The name of the city refers to the dawn of happiness. Sukhothai was not only the former capital of the first Kingdom of Siam for 140 years (1238-1438); more importantly, its outstanding universal value of Sukhothai and Associated Historic Towns has been designated as the UNESCO World Heritage Historical Park since 1991. Sukhothai Ancient Town and its Associated Historic Towns (Sukhothai, Si Satchanalai, and Kamphaeng Phet) represent first unique town planning and water management system.
Distinctive hydraulic system consists of extensive water reservoirs, networks of canals and roads which were linked the three historic towns together. Making Sukhothai a glory city of political, economic, cultural hubs at that time. Sukhothai was famous centre for exporting ceramic industry where Mae Ram Pan Canal functioned as traditional logistics route connecting with the Yom River to transport Sangkhalok - a unique Sukhothai ceramicware- in and around this region. Unfortunately, this sophisticated waterway system no longer functions due to a combination of land-use change, inefficient water retaining during the wet season, and shortage of water during the dry season. Mae Ram Pan Canal has become obviously drought and made local communities living by more difficult in access to water resulting in low farming productivity. Therefore, adaptations for climate change are imperative for preserving this historic canal in more sustainable future.

Klong Mae Ram Pan Climate Change Adaptation

A challenge for the 700-years Historical Canal in Sukhothai World Heritage Site in Thailand

Environmental ambassador:
Witiya Pittungnapoo
Assoc. Prof. Faculty of Architecture, Art and Design, Naresuan University, Thailand
Localization:
Mae Ram Pan Canal, Sukhothai Historic Town, Sukhothai Province, Thailand
Topic:
Climate Change Adaptation
Stakeholders:
12 Communities living by Mae Ram Pan Canal in Sukhothai
Link:
n/a
Contact:
witiyap@nu.ac.th
The project will use the Liminaria residency programme to test out a hybrid form of self-reflexive “joint curatorship”, in order to share the research process with the communities (human and non-human), in close contact with each location, in the here and now of the residency. In this way, energy producers of Appennino Reggiano and Campagnia - reveal themselves as sites of potentiality: an intangible landscape of resonance and dissonance, comprising a complex assemblage of visible and invisible forces to challenge concepts of “place”, “sustainability” “rurality” and “ecology”. Liminaria will programmatically focus on the concept of coexistence in which different (human and non-human) life forms exist and occupy a territory. Using sound recording and composition as a method of interrogation, inherited notions of “environment”, “nature”, and “ecology” will be challenged by registering the dissonance between human action, landscape ecology and industrial processes.

Energy Fields

Mapping the eco-acoustics of renewable energy in Southern Italy

Environmental ambassador:
Philip Samartzis, Sound Artist, Professor RMIT, Australia
Leandro Pisano, Curator, Liminaria, Italy
Localization:
Emilia Romagna, Campagnia – Italy
Topic:
Eco-acoustics of renewable energy production by recording various technological processes and their impact on regional communities, bioacoustics and landscape ecology
Stakeholders:
Liminaria residency programme
Link:
n/a
Contact:
philip.samartzis@rmit.edu.au
The focus of the project is to analyse and re-narrate the regional character of Appennino Reggiano and Campangnia by investigating the complex dynamics of energy production through the knowledge and mutual exchange with local communities. The Liminaria Residency program will be used as a mechanism to develop and test collaborative approaches to the representation of power production in the two regions by using critical listening and recording practices as a way of expanding the representation and experience of renewable energy systems and usages. The residency will also seek to address broader issues that concern the local community including identity, remoteness and the impact of technologies on landscape ecology to render a larger social study of these regional communities. By registering the impact of industrialisation through a social perspective we anticipate a breath of themes to emerge around the way identity is constructed through different intercultural relations and translations of marginalised places. Listening practices can be deployed to critically traverse the ‘border territories’ and can investigate invisible forces that impact and transform place and community. This project will explore expanded listening, making audible that which is absent or intangible and allowing residual elements to emerge. Work will be undertaken collaboratively with local communities and joint activities will encourage listening critically to changing soundscapes “that evidence complex, long-range durational and geographical shifts, which occur across species, ideological, infrastructural, and biotic ecosystems” (Kanngieser 2015).
With around 184 nationalities and 1,2 M population Brussels is known to be one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. Bringing together and sharing such rich cultural diversity implies that the city is a potential hotspot of health knowledge and practices, including plant-based self-care (also brought from other parts of the world and safeguarded by the descendants of indigenous and native cultures).
Brussels Health Gardens collective was born in 2019 as a co-creation research project to experiment radical urban transformation through social-cultural practices of self-care, nature medicine and moving away from high dependence on the conventional western-based medical providing system, where knowledge about health is guarded by an expertocracy. In our co-creation research community, we are exploring collectively how we can reinforce urban resilience, by re-introducing traditional (or folk, or common) health and nature knowledge in Brussels outside the capitalist system. Brussels Health Gardens collective travels around the city of Brussels, learns in diverse urban locations (collective and private gardens, urban farms, libraries, hospitals, museums, associations, educational institutions and local community gathering places) and explores diverse nature relationships that support health and life.
We consider the (urban) environment as a whole, full of diversity of life: visible and non-visible. Our collective view is all organisms deserve equal access to this space and to life. Therefore, we need to co-exist in harmony. One of the aims of our project is to explore how to give a voice to the large number of neighbours with whom we cohabit. In collaboration with other collectives (Common Dreams School, curator Maria Lucia Cruz Correia, Baltan Laboratories, and local communities exploring nature-based health knowledge and practices) we explore the eco-centric direction of Gaia, in which we see ourselves as an integral part of the natural ecosystem.
Noticing what place, humans and other species are telling us and connecting to local ecosystems is a central part of this collective journey. Our core activities cover gathering of existing, almost forgotten or rediscovered local knowledge about proximity to and/or use of plants as medicine, finding ways to preserve, transfer and share this knowledge (as common natural and cultural heritage), identifying barriers to reintroducing this knowledge into the diverse urban communities in Brussels and advocating for conservation and expansion of the life supporting ecosystems which are needed to perform these social-cultural practices. It goes beyond just foraging or cultivating plants for harvesting, it also explores other healing relationships with local plants, animals and ecosystems at large, via rituals, stories, listening to all voices and creating spaces for their representation in our circles.The challenge remains to explore how green spaces in Brussels, become accessible and adapted to nature-based health practices, which are considered as commons and can host practices of cultivation and use of natural medicines in its all diversity.

Brussels Health Gardens

To re-introduce Traditional Nature-based Health Knowledge and Practices in Brussels

Environmental ambassador:
Thierry Kandjee, Faculty of architecture La Cambre Horta ULB Brussels, co founder taktyk
Vitalija Povilaityte-Petri, pharmacist, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy University of Mons
Sugir Seliah, Co-researcher Health Gardens, Brussels
Localization:
Brussels-Capital Region (collective and private gardens, urban farms, libraries, hospitals, museums, associations, educational institutions and local community gathering places)
Topic:
Social-cultural nature-based health practices for self-care
Stakeholders:
Brussels Health Gardens Community, Common Dreams School, Baltan Laboratories, and local communities exploring nature-based health knowledge and practices
Link:
medicinal plants in belgium
Contact:
thierry.kandjee@ulb.be
Vitalija.Povilaityte-Petri@umons.ac.be
These traditional settlements are distributed through villages or pueblos that occupy the lowlands of the Panamanian Pacific and were built over indigenous settlements. When the Spaniards arrived, they adapted these settlements to colonial urbanism using the new conditions of the landscape and developed traditional urbanism. The traditional architecture of these pueblos is the construction technique called quincha. Like the urbanism, the architecture was adapted to a system that builds walls from a structure of wooden rods or strips placed horizontally on a frame and plastered with mud on both sides through a cooperative process called junta de embarre (similar to a mud meeting).

The Junta de Embarre of a Quincha Dwelling

A Cooperative Process

Environmental ambassador:
Silvia Arroyo Duarte, Professor and researcher
Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño, Universidad de Panamá Sistema Nacional de Investigación
Localization:
Azuero Region, Panama
Topic:
Traditional urbanism and architecture, sustainability, multiculturality, know-how
Stakeholders:
Orlando Barcasnegras (folklore expert in the Region); Martha Kimmel (Cámara de Turismo Provincia de Los Santos, CAMTUR Los Santos)
Link:
n/a
Contact:
silvia.arroyo@up.ac.pa
When a quincha dwelling or house is built, the master builder with the traditional knowledge -transferred from the parents to their children or the teacher to the disciple- starts with the construction of the wooden structure. Then, all the neighbourhood and nearby communities participate in the junta de embarre. Unfortunately, every year less traditional houses are being built. Documentation and interviews show that approximately 60 years ago, 20 juntas de embarre were celebrated during the Panamanian dry season (from December to April), but around 30 years ago the numbers started to decrease as low as one junta de embarre per year.
This proposal will help to create conscience about this traditional knowledge and enhance its characteristics. For example, the intangible aspects, such as the know-how or savoir-faire, that transmits the knowledge of how and when to cut the wood, or when the mud plaster is ready for use. There are also the tangible aspects involved, like the construction technique, made with natural and perishable materials and developed through multiple influences: the indigenous, the Spanish that brought to America the Islamic and Roman details, and probably some African influence. The whole process is sustainable, adaptable, and resilient, and the design is made especially for the Panamanian environment. It is important to look at our past and our heritage and, without imitating or copying, have as a reference the know-how or savoir-faire of our ancestors to solve current problems.

Threefold Community Action Trust

Nimble Spaces & Inclusive Neighbourhoods

Environmental ambassador:
Arthur Duff,
Member of TCAT Board of Advisors, Callan, Co. Kilkenny.
DEWI WILLIAMS, TCAT director
Localization:
Callan in County Kilkenny, Ireland
Topic:
Developing systems of land and resource ownership and management not based on personal ownership for the particular benefit of people with varying abilities in response to the current destructive vortex of extraction, speculation and growth
Stakeholders:
For over 40 years the town of Callan has hosted a number of Camphill communities which are the inspiration for the development of TCAT and Nimble Spaces.
Link:
n/a
Contact:
threefoldCAT@gmail.com
TCAT [ Threefold Community Action Trust ] has recently been established to build a land and resource “bank” that will enable agencies such as Nimble Spaces to realise radical new models of habitation embedded within existing urban frameworks. . The membership of the Trust reflects a wide spectrum of skills, passion and commitment to living life to its full potential. The ambition is to move beyond the limits and burden of ownership. The current so-called "housing crisis" in Ireland is the result of a market-driven system of control and exploitation that serves the interests of the banks and the developers and enslaves the home owners for most of their productive lives. Thanks to lobbying at the Government level A very positive recent development has been the inclusion of reference to community-led housing, housing co-operatives and community land trusts in the Affordable Housing Bill which has just been passed in our Dail [ Parliament ] The model we are working to develop is based on Community Land Trust which exists elsewhere in Europe but is still being explored in Ireland. Our interest is not just in housing but also in the use and management of land and resources for the good of all.
Bucaramanga is a city localized on the Andes Mountains, on a large plateau that used to be crossed by natural elements such as rivers and native forests. The original inhabitants of the area, the Guane and Chibcha tribes, had a local knowledge to understand the cycles of rain and dry periods and manage to live in a harmonious way until they were evicted from their land during the Spanish colonization period. The traditional farmers descending from this tribes and located around the current urban area of Bucaramanga have preserved some of this local knowledge and apply it to their farming and settlements, living in a better relationship with nature and reducing the impacts of changes in rain cycles such as floods and droughts.
This project seeks to recover this ancestral knowledge about water cycles from the traditional communities and integrate it in a strategy to codesign with them the public spaces in which they interact and used as meeting places, places for children to ply and places to interchange locally produce goods. Our aim is to promote a healthier environment for the community and at the same time promote a culturally important knowledge of the land and its water cycles and use it in other interventions with similar conditions.

Rediscovering ancient traditions from local communities on water management

Bucaramanga, Colombia

Environmental ambassador:
Raul Marino-Zamudio
Faculty of International, Political and Urban Studies - Universidad del Rosario
Localization:
Colombia, Santander Region, Bucaramanga City, settlements in Surata and Rio de Oro rivers
Topic:
Recovery of traditional knowledge on water management and risk reduction
Stakeholders:
Communities of informal settlements in the Surata area of Bucaramanga, community leaders, local environmental ONGs (Revivir ONG) and City Administration
Link:
n/a
Contact:
raul.marino@urosario.edu.co
a. The area and its characteristics:
The settlements are located in the valleys of the rivers Surata and Rio de Oro, which had a great significance during colonial times as sources of gold exploitation. Nowadays, there is no more gold in its waters, but the rivers still have a strong ecological significance to their inhabitants, and to the communities living downstream. The rivers crossed a mountain area which is part of Los Andes mountains, crossing Latin-American and Colombia from south to north, and have a great biodiversity of local fauna and flora.
b. Traditional knowledge recovery and integration with codesign practices of public spaces:
The project involved the communities from the early stages of the development, integrating them and their ancestral knowledge into the design of new spaces needed by the community to be able to have a better quality of life. The empowerment of these normally marginalized groups is one the main goals of the project, supporting their aspirations to become more friendly with their environment and provide a better place to live to their families and future generations.
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