VOLUMES podcast

Volumes

The search for words of alternative economies in the making. Domenico Di Siena speaks with creators and users of fablabs, coworking spaces, collaborative farms or hybrid art and craft centers throughout Europe... About the alternatives they are offering to our everyday practices, in every aspect of our life. Sharing their personal journey, struggle and research, they take time to reflect and try to find the expressions that define an alternative culture in the making.

  1. 09/13/2022

    Fab City Hub Voices | Zagreb Pilot

    Meet the founders of the firsts Fab City Hubs on-the-making in Europe! Fab City Hub Voices is a series of webinars to learn about the challenges involved in activating productive and creative hubs, but also to understand all the opportunities they open up for the local innovation ecosystem. After getting to know some of the references in Europe, we continue with new sessions with which we aim to improve understanding of what a Fab City Hub is, and how it could be implemented. To do this we will talk directly with the protagonists of the nine pilot projects being implemented in nine cities as part of the European consortium CENTRINNO. Through these meetings we aim to highlight the difficulties and challenges faced by the promoters of these spaces, but also the progress they propose for the territorial ecosystem along 5 main lines: Circular Economy, Social Inclusion, Vocational Training and Heritage. Roberto Vdovic is an architect, researcher, educator and entrepreneur. He holds a Master’s degree in Architecture and a Master’s degree in Computer Visualization from the University of Zagreb. His research fields are in interactive multimedia design, parametric and generative design, and the integration of building information modeling with digital fabrication. He is one of the founders and president of FabLab Croatia, one of the first in the SEE. He has been project leader of STEAM week since 2018 and producer of the first Zagreb Maker Faire since 2019. In 2019 he started Adriatic GreenLab, an initiative to create a center where makers can contribute responsibly with accessible and inclusive solutions to real-life problems in remote areas.

    Fab City Hub Voices | Zagreb Pilot
  2. 09/06/2022

    Fab City Hub Voices | Copenhagen Pilot

    Meet the founders of the firsts Fab City Hubs on-the-making in Europe! Fab City Hub Voices is a series of webinars to learn about the challenges involved in activating productive and creative hubs, but also to understand all the opportunities they open up for the local innovation ecosystem. After getting to know some of the references in Europe, we continue with new sessions with which we aim to improve understanding of what a Fab City Hub is, and how it could be implemented. To do this we will talk directly with the protagonists of the nine pilot projects being implemented in nine cities as part of the European consortium CENTRINNO. Through these meetings we aim to highlight the difficulties and challenges faced by the promoters of these spaces, but also the progress they propose for the territorial ecosystem along 5 main lines: Circular Economy, Social Inclusion, Vocational Training and Heritage. The Copenhagen pilot is a mixed residential and business area located in the north western part of Copenhagen. It used to hold medium sized industries, including garages, but has over the last 20 years experienced a transition with former industrial buildings being replaced with new and modern residential buildings. However the area still contains visual sights of the industrial history and now contains a good amount of small and medium sized creative businesses especially food and wood/crafting industries, who are attracted by low prices, the facilities and local atmosphere. With CENTRINNO the pilot wants to develop and test models or concepts for a distributed hub that is scalable to other areas in Copenhagen. Meet the founders of the firsts Fab City Hubs on-the-making in Europe! Fab City Hub Voices is a series of webinars to learn about the challenges involved in activating productive and creative hubs, but also to understand all the opportunities they open up for the local innovation ecosystem. After getting to know some of the references in Europe, we continue with new sessions with which we aim to improve understanding of what a Fab City Hub is, and how it could be implemented. To do this we will talk directly with the protagonists of the nine pilot projects being implemented in nine cities as part of the European consortium CENTRINNO. Through these meetings we aim to highlight the difficulties and challenges faced by the promoters of these spaces, but also the progress they propose for the territorial ecosystem along 5 main lines: Circular Economy, Social Inclusion, Vocational Training and Heritage. The Copenhagen pilot is a mixed residential and business area located in the north western part of Copenhagen. It used to hold medium sized industries, including garages, but has over the last 20 years experienced a transition with former industrial buildings being replaced with new and modern residential buildings. However the area still contains visual sights of the industrial history and now contains a good amount of small and medium sized creative businesses especially food and wood/crafting industries, who are attracted by low prices, the facilities and local atmosphere. With CENTRINNO the pilot wants to develop and test models or concepts for a distributed hub that is scalable to other areas in Copenhagen.

    Fab City Hub Voices | Copenhagen Pilot
  3. 09/06/2022

    Are rural and remote areas the future of Europe?

    Europe is full of heritage sites that silently claim a new life, especially in rural and remote areas. Who does not know at least one of those? It could be that castle in the middle of nowhere or that ancient mansion in the village where you were born.   It is common to dream about what they could become if revitalised, but often the dream quickly crashes with a lack of vision, maybe a poor community engagement, or simply because “this is not in a big city so nobody cares”.   But what if those remote, rural locations had the potential to become the cradle to grow solutions to our most important challenges as humanity? What if we needed to step back from the chaos of our cities to reinvent the way we live?    In this webinar, you will discover the incredible story of Villa Buonaccorsi, a neglected 5 hectares Villa of the XVI century with one of the most important baroque gardens in Italy, located in an underrated rural region of central Italy.   In a roundtable format, local citizens and international experts will debate the Villa Buonaccorsi case, trying to answer the following questions:   What are the secret ingredients behind the unique story of the Villa? Why did the citizen mobilization succeed in such a difficult challenge? Why and how local and global communities should claim cultural heritage as a fundamental human right? How this experience could serve the replication of similar cases, in other remote areas of Europe, and potentially sketch out a network of similar initiatives?   Volumes want to thank all the invited guest who took part to the Villa Viva webinar: Maria Tomé (@_MariaTome - @OFIC_coop - @civicwise - https://ofic.coop/) from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain H.Cenk Dereli (@hcenkdereli -  NOBON Architecture - https://www.nobon.net/) from Izmir, Turkey Francesco Calzolaio (Faro Italian Platform - https://faroitaliaplatform.it/) from Macerata, Italy   Villa Viva webinar has been facilitated by Domenico Di Siena and Francesco Cingolani of Volumes. We would like to give special thanks to Nassia Panagiotidi (@nassipicreativegr - https://www.instagram.com/nassipicreativegr) for his contribution to the Graphic Recording of the webinar.

    Are rural and remote areas the future of Europe?
  4. 08/26/2022

    Fab City Hub Voices | Vincent Guimas from Fab City Paris

    Fab City Hub Voices is a series of webinars to learn about the challenges involved in activating productive and creative hubs, but also to understand all the opportunities they open up for the local innovation ecosystem. After getting to know some of the references in Europe, we continue with new sessions with which we aim to improve understanding of what a Fab City Hub is, and how it could be implemented. To do this we will talk directly with the protagonists of the nine pilot projects being implemented in nine cities as part of the European consortium CENTRINNO. Through these meetings we aim to highlight the difficulties and challenges faced by the promoters of these spaces, but also the progress they propose for the territorial ecosystem along 5 main lines: Circular Economy, Social Inclusion, Vocational Training and Heritage. Speaker: Vincent Guimas Vincent Guimas is an urban designer and maker, specializing in manufacturing environments. Director of the design agency Ars Longa, he is also a teacher at the Alliance ARTEM campus in Nancy, at the crossroads of technology (Ecole des Mines), creation (Ecole Nationale de Design) and management (ICN Business School). His expertise links the subjects of urban transformation, local (re)manufacturing, microfactories and/or factories 4.0 in a strong dialectic with the challenges of ecological transition. He is co-founder of the Fab City Grand Paris network and representative of the international Fab City Global Initiative. This episode is produced by Volumes within the European Project CENTRINNO.

    Fab City Hub Voices | Vincent Guimas from Fab City Paris
  5. 06/02/2022

    Fab City Hub Voices | Zoe Romano from Fab City Milan

    Meet the founders and protagonists of the most remarkable Creative and Productive Hubs in Europe. A series of webinars to learn about the challenges involved in activating such projects, but also to understand all the opportunities they open up for the local innovation ecosystem. This episode is produced by Volumes within the European Project CENTRINNO. In Milan, there is one of nine pilot projects being developed by the Centrinno consortium. The Milan pilot is establishing an open manufacturing programme that will increase the cross-fertilization between makers, designers, artisans, SMEs and institutions with the objective to support digital innovation processes. The idea behind the pilot is to create a new culture of manufacturing focused on shorter product cycles, as well as providing new assets, resources and circular economy networks mainly in the area of fashion and design. Special Guest: Zoe Romano, a craftivist, digital strategist and lecturer focused on social innovation, smart textiles and open design. She graduated in Philosophy at the University of Milan. She worked for Arduino and then co-founded WeMake Makerspace in 2014. She’s now busy on the EU-funded project CENTRINNO in collaboration with Nema and the municipality of Milan for the development of a local Fab City Hub. Other guests: Mattia Ciurnelli: designer and digital fabrication specialist. He is the CEO of SuperForma, a digital manufacturing and design lab. Vicente Varella: industrial designer who makes products out of recycled plastic. He likes to challenge how we perceive plastic waste in society by designing accessible and open source products that reflect the real value of these materials.

  6. 05/04/2022

    It Speaks Volumes | What is a Hub?

    What is a hub? #tierslieux So here we are, everyone talks about hubs. Especially in France, but not only, everyone is talking about hubs using the expression tiers-lieux (third places). Institutions, companies, and real estate operators use those words to convey a message of social progress, inclusivity, collaboration, reuse of materials, sharing of resources, resilient models of governance, etc... To make some order and bring some clarity, for the first cycle of the podcast It speaks VOLUMES, we met real people behind such hubs, and shared their real stories. During 3 months, Domenico Di Siena, trained architect and civic designer, co-founder of Volumes, met and discussed with creative and productive hubs people, and unravelled how difficult it is to actually find a place to make a hub come to life, how challenging it is sometimes to convince investors or landlords, but also observed how central is the community behind the project to make it happen! This podcast is a curated selection of the best quotes, advice and inspirations from these conversations to support the creation of new alternatives to existing models. Our amazing guests for the first cycle of the podcast are: Julia Varela, a lawyer who is currently co-designing the strategy for the new Daniel & Nina Carasso foundation - a philanthropic organization to empower projects related to sustainable food production and arts, pedagogy, and education. H. Cenk Dereli (Architect PhD) designs architectural environments and organises gathering events for creative communities. While he runs his architecture practice NOBON, he also provides consultancy for municipalities on communities, creative cities and cultural heritage. Francesco Cingolani is an architect "interested in creating social places through communities and technology". Co-founder and Director of Volumes laboratory, he has recently initiated VILLAE NGO, a nonprofit organization to convert a neglected baroque Villa in rural Italy into a creative and productive hub for the future of Europe. Silvia Tagliazzucchi is a researcher, architect, civic designer, project and community manager. PhD in Urban Morphology, member of Amigdala art collective and the CivicWise network, she is currently involved in the Civic Factory called OvestLab in Modena (Italy). Discover what our guests are inspired by. Tim Ferris Podcast Pecha Kucha Susan Romain (linguistics) “Communicating Gender” Deforme Semanal podcast On Collaboration podcast Farm Cultural Park in Sicily Credits: Sound and graphic design by Natasa Lekkou. Script by Yéléna Uzan.   Hosted by Domenico Di Siena.   All soundtrack used for this podcast is free from copyright.

About

The search for words of alternative economies in the making. Domenico Di Siena speaks with creators and users of fablabs, coworking spaces, collaborative farms or hybrid art and craft centers throughout Europe... About the alternatives they are offering to our everyday practices, in every aspect of our life. Sharing their personal journey, struggle and research, they take time to reflect and try to find the expressions that define an alternative culture in the making.