Redesigning Design Weeks: CIVICITYRedesigning Design Weeks: CIVICITY

Pete Fung is a researcher, teacher and social designer who works with local communities, focusing on social contexts that help citizens realise how impactful small, everyday actions can be. Experimenting with different outputs, Pete Fung layers these experiences into a critical and reflective design.

Studio-Method is a research-based architecture and design practice, founded by Riel Bessai and Pedro Daniel Pantalone, that aims to create sustainable environments in response to urgent environmental crises. With a working methodology of ‘contingent design’ (that challenges existing systems of power) and a hands-on mentality, Studio-Method’s work fits the profile of the CIVICITY project.

Nuria Ribas Costa is a journalist and lawyer based between Rotterdam and Ibiza, where she is originally from. Formerly a member of the public relations team at OMA, she now works as an independent researcher and policy analyst in urbanism and culture. Nuria manages the communications of the urbanism agency Humankind and works closely with the applied research team Vigla and the Center for Music Ecosystems. She is also an editor at De Dépendance and writes for independent magazines. She is a member and co-programmer of the listening space KODA (Schiedam) and a broadcaster on Operator Radio.

cheFare is a cultural transformation agency founded in 2012. Its first project was the cheFare prize, the first Italian grant for cultural-based social innovation practices. In its three editions (2012-2015), the prize collected 1,800 proposals from all over Italy, awarding a total of €350,000 to five winners. Currently, cheFare works to map, connect and support cultural innovative experiences in Italy and abroad. cheFare works nationally and internationally with public and private actors, policymakers, researchers, cultural institutions and grassroot organisations. It makes collaborative processes possible, producing live gatherings of practitioners in the social and cultural fields and editorially curating the national debate on culture, innovation and policies. The agency’s ongoing activity bridges different audiences on complex issues, developing strategic tools for the public administration and cultural organisations.

Collective Works is a collaborative design studio based in The Hague, the Netherlands, founded by designers Karin Mientjes and Peter Zuiderwijk. The studio’s practice focuses on engaging with communities and environments to address socio-spatial questions through collaborative projects. Its work takes various forms, including activist campaigns, spatial support structures, participatory design and institutional programming. It is also part of the transdisciplinary design-build network Constructlab, which focuses on innovative and socially engaged projects across Europe.