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Studiomobile is a design office established by Antonio Girardi and Cristiana Favretto in 2007. It conceives the design as a holistic field where blending architecture, art, technology and urban ecology. It is mobile because it shifts among different disciplines involving mixes of software, creative thinking, handicraft, lab-activities, cultural and social research and whatever else is necessary to create multifunctional solutions and innovative imaginaries.
Cristiana Favretto was born in Italy near Venice. She has an architectonic and artistic background. She took a degree in Architecture at the University IUAV of Venice. She worked as a designer in Spain and Italy for international offices. She has been working on various site specific and art installations combining nature and technology in “organic machines”. Her work was presented at Venice Biennale 2012. She gave lectures in various Universities in Europe and organized workshops in collaboration with galleries and public institutions. At present she's a researcher at the University of Florence.
Antonio Girardi was born in Italy near Venice. He studied in Spain and in Italy. He graduated with full marks in a five years university course with a degree in Architecture at the University IUAV of Venice, where he has been working since 2006 as an assistant and lecturer in the degree program Building Production and in the degree program Sustainable Design. Since 2011 he has been awarded with a research grant for the PhD degree in Technology of Architecture concerning seawater as a valuable resource.
For the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012, we explores a future scenario where men are forced to live in an unusual landscape shaped by environmental changes. Today, more than half the world's population lives and works in a coastal strip 200 kilometres wide, and in the near future sea is expected to characterize even more urban settlements. But not only adaptation is required. Next strategy will be assimilation, an approach characterized by embracing the changing conditions and taking advantage of the resulting opportunities. We imagine new communities based on movement, living in flexible, self-sufficient, and nomadic structures. The ecosystem Networking Nature lives off seawater. Within a glass tank filled with salt water, some solar stills extract fresh water by exploiting the heat produced by small lamps. Seawater evaporates and the steam condenses into fresh water, which is collected in tanks and then supplied. However, water is not produced in isolated systems under central control. The new model provides for a large ecological infrastructure as well as small local production units connected to a network able to integrate the production of fresh water and to supply it where needed. It's a Smart Water Network (SWN) controlled by sensors that read the local lack of water and, through an Arduino board, activate the pumps providing the water where there is a peak of demand. The SMN will be a layer of the ecological network as well as the Smart Power Grid and the communications network. This strategy gives response to the preservation of the environment and also is a radically new model that ensures a democratic access to the resources to everybody.
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