Workshop 5 x 5
The Royal Danish Academy 2010
In 2006 I met the Catalan architect Ignasi Perez Arnal in Sardinia. We started to work in Humanitarian Emergencies in La Barceloneta. In that context we created the concept of the Workshop 5×5 (Barcelona 2006). The participants of this academic workshop, study 5 humanitarian emergencies in 5 different places and cultures around the world. We develop strategical solutions that will give the participants a wide perspective of the global challenges that our modern society faces today.
The 5 cases are according to the international classification of humanitarian emergencies: Natural Disasters (earthquake, flood, hurricane, etc.); Man-Made Emergencies (civil wars, social conflicts, slums, etc.), Climate Crisis, and Pandemic.
Workshop 1+1=11
Fertilia, Italy 2017
The concept of this Workshop was created in Chiloé, the Chilean Patagonia, during the 1980s and 1990s when I started my professional life, and we co-build, together to the local community, several wooden building for social purpose with this method; fisherman house (1985), House, Girls & Disability (1988-89), Elderly House in Maullin (1996-97), etc.
However, the final name of this workshop, which characterize the system, only appeared in the winter of 2010-2011 when with the architect Ricardo Labarca visited a Pakistani client in Copenhagen. He explained us the idea behind of a traditional Pakistani quote “1+1=11”, One person plus another person are equal to eleven persons.
text by Jorge Lobos