Architectural toys: Future + Toy Design Workshop at UABB - Urbanism\Architecture Bi-city Biennale Shenzhen

Conference poster

In June I have been in Shenzhen working on an agreement between the FAUP and A+E Design, a local architectural office. The main idea was creating traineeships program for FAUP students who could travel to China and spend six mouths working in very different professional framework.

The agreement is almost done, the first group of students will travel to Shenzhen in March 2016 and I must confess that I'm very proud because I consider this agreement as a big step for new relationships between the Faculty of Architecture of Porto and other foreign institutions putting the FAUP in the leading world framework of schools.

Meanwhile I was there, during a meeting at the Shenzhen Center for Design, they invited me to organize a toy design workshop during the opening week of UABB (Urbanism\Architecture Bi-city Biennale Shenzhen). When I got back to Porto I soon start working on this idea and I thought that it would be better to deeply involve the Faculty in the UABB. So from September to December I organized the FAUP participation to the Biennale and 2 conferences besides the toy design workshop (here the link to the course presentation)... three really crazy months, for sure, but finally everything was done!

The chinese experience was absolutely amazing, from every point of view. Professionally, for sure, it is always a great experience because when we lecture in a different cultural environment, we really learn a lot. But also from the personal point of view it was highly enriching because I met good friends in a fantastic human ambiance.

Starting with a "long" lecture in order to introduce the students to the main aspects of toy design, the course continued during five days. During this week participants developed their own prototypes and, on Wednesday, we organized a visit to two spaces: a wooden workshop and a toy factory near Shenzhen (near Shenzhen means something like 2,5 hours by car...). A very good experience for the students that finally realized how dolls are made.