By Catia Rebelo, Alessandro Vasta and Siri Pisters How do citizens’ initiatives shape sustainable places? This question guided a seminar lead by Elisabete Figueiredo and Sandra Valente at University of Aveiro last May. Some ESRs, namely Alessandro Vasta, Cátia Rebelo, Marta Romero and Siri Pisters had the opportunity to share their work with a … Read more
By Marta Nieto Romero (in collaboration with Alessandro Vasta) The other day I had an interesting conversation with my colleague Alessandro Vasta touching on the issue of Northern Europeans buying land in Portugal to set up sustainable projects. It made me think a lot on why am I suspicious about it, and we made interesting … Read more
Within the context of sustainable place-shaping, rural development and bottom-up initiatives, I went to follow a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) in a rural area in Southern Portugal. Permaculture is derived from ‘permanent agriculture’ and ‘permanent culture’ and is based on holistic design in order for people to live harmoniously in nature and provide all their … Read more
In a recent post, Sara Grenni shared her experiences of being involved in a consultancy in the context of a 3 month secondment. Like Sara, I also spend three months at Royal HaskoningDHV and I agree with her that it is a pleasure to get to know the consultancy world, the people working there and the many … Read more
The Call for Adventure Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far away… Actually in this galaxy. On this planet, in fact. Right over in a picturesque Dutch city called Utrecht… A gang of six intrepid wannabe earth warriors/ sustainability researchers*, gathered to learn how to wield a secret power (well, maybe not … Read more
Do you believe in the power of stories and images to communicate sustainability science? We are asking for help to realise a SUSPLACE children’s book for sustainable place-shaping! Einstein once said: “If you can’t explain something to a 6 year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” In the field of sustainability science, we often face … Read more
Last Sunday, Portugal was breathing smoke again. Travelling back from a weekend in Guimarães we saw the sun changing its colour. First we thought: beautiful! Then, we started crossing all these fires on our way back to Aveiro. With the ash, the smoke and a landscape full of flames, we could only think: how can this … Read more
By Anke de Vrieze and Diogo Soares da Silva In the past two months the city of Cardiff has been able to enjoy to the presence of no less than six SUSPLACE researchers. Besides the three researchers (Lorena Axinte, Malin Bäckman and Cátia Rebelo) that have their home base at Cardiff University’s Sustainable Places … Read more
By Alessandro Vasta I want you to remember a time when you were on holidays in a rural area and came across a local shop selling traditional hand-made products. Have you ever asked how it was made? Who made it and why it was made in this way? And what its impact on the community was? … Read more
“People make places”. With this sentence the journalist of Click, a Portuguese radio program from the national radio Antena 1, introduced and tried to summarize SUSPLACE and what we are doing regarding sustainable place-shaping practices, initiatives, values and local resources. During less than five minutes, Elisabete Figueiredo explained what SUSPLACE is about and highlighted the role of … Read more
Do you know what happened to historical commonlands in Europe? Before the 18th century many of our rural areas where managed directly by communities. Today, many of these historical commonlands have been taken by the state, are privatised or abandoned. To show what’s happening in a community in Galicia, Spain, I made a short video (above). … Read more
By Marta Nieto Romero On the 26th of November I attended a collective hike in Galicia (North West Spain). Organized by the Commons Study Program they invited members of Ergosfera, an association of architects, who guided us in an amazing trip throughout the rural space of Galicia under the lenses of: Commons, Feminism and Rurality. … Read more