Amilton Arruda

Practical Urban: The Urban Furniture and Its Relationship with the City

This article explains the concepts of city and urban practices—phenomena of urban activity—that directly influence the deployment of street furniture and, above all, the importance given to them by the population, with regard to its true functions, identity, meaning (symbology), uses and appropriations. It is vitally important for the study also understand the urban furniture relation to the design of cities, is to complement the public space, is the way interferes with the urban landscape. You have to understand how society is shown in front of herself and the world itself that surrounds it, and what are the devices that make city living when connect—through uses and customs—as this is the vital forces of individuals and community space practices created by the tactics of the inhabitants to allow its ambiance, wellness, safety and comfort, sensations often perceived by the set of elements that constitute the urban furniture of cities.

Processos colaborativos e identidade local: aplicando conceitos do design estratégico

In this paper, we intend to establish the debate about the importance of developing regional economies through their local products, which must be designed and communicated as tangible expressions of their own cultural identity. Therefore, we seek to reflect upon Strategic Design as a project approach for interpretation and dissemination of the region’s cultural values in the process of developing local products and consequently their territories. Thus, we understand that the co-appropriation of this approach by a community can trigger the discovery of new solutions to old problems and ways that can lead to processes of social innovation.

The Constructive Advantages of Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Domes and Their Relationship to the Built Environment Ergonomics

This article aims to make better known the advantages of geodesic domes, also highlighting ergonomic aspects of the built environment, such as thermal comfort, light and acoustic, accessibility and environmental perception of these structures; according to information provided by the Buckminster Fuller Institute and research and analysis done by companies specialized in this type of construction due to the spherical configuration, they accumulate innumerable advantages for the geometry, such as: structural strength, resistance, lightness, concentration of light and heat Improved airflow and ventilation in the interior, self-supporting cover, acoustic quality, modularity, more uniform temperature, aerodynamic design, material and energy saving, wide variety of materials available for construction, ease and quick assembly; some of which are directly related to the ergonomics of the built environment. Thus, there is a great potential and even adaptation of these structures to new uses, especially considering a scenario of more sustainable constructions.

Strategic Design: Enhancing Experiences and Developing Local Products

The contemporary world, marked by competitiveness, demands that companies and managers are increasingly able to understand the market and offer products and services that not only meet the needs, but also try to exceed expectations. In this context, emerges the idea that companies should design not only goods, but Product-Service Systems, which encompass, in addition to offers, communication, people and their experiences. In order to better shape the offerings, deliver value to the public and generate a sustainable development for the entire productive chain, Strategic Design and Branding emerge as theories with great potential, which present themselves as projetual and management approaches, respectively, capable of identifying and seizing opportunities. This paper intends to reflect on how Strategic Design and Branding have the potential to develop and promote solutions that enhance and value the user’s experience through a well-made product that brings recognition and revenue to its place of origin.

Biomimicry as Metodological Tool for Technical Emancipation of Peripheral Countries

The classical methods of design, based on linear sequences, logic, rigid and vertical, analogous to the exact sciences, aimed to justify and establish the traditional models of disseminated industrial production through technological hegemony of the central countries. This led to a special kind of development, it has proven unsustainable, because it imposes the logic of the market of production and consumption of their goods. Although this experience has provided a technology that meets the objectives for which it is applied, it does not meet the essential requirements set out in current methodologies, guided by the systematic and interdisciplinary approach. This paper presents the Natural Mimesis (Biomimicry) as a methodological alternative in the reform of the Common Development Model, orienting it towards the systemic sustainability and the generation of own technologies. From the critical review of the model conducted by the Center countries, proposes to reform its concepts and paradigms in the elaboration of specific technologies for the reality of the Peripheral countries aiming their technological emancipation. The use of natural mimesis is strategic for Innovation and perceived, in this context, as a cutting-edge alternative in the structuration of new model. Biomimicry is based on the principles of sustainability, economy and excellence of nature, from its forms and functions, to the systemic processes. Its application in projects allows to emulate the natural way of to produce and integrate it with the artificial, guiding the Design according to sustainable models as a fundamental principle. The biomimetic approach promotes a new way of to conceive the artificial and therefore, to provide the autonomy and the technological independence of the developing countries from their ideological bases.

How the Design Processes Add Innovative Capacity in Startup Companies

In recent years, innovation has been an important word in the business world, but in the universe of companies known as startups, innovation is a primary condition. Young entrepreneurs want their small businesses to win scale and agility in the consumer market with its creative and disruptive ideas. However, because they are different companies than traditional business, these small company need management models that understand their singularities and allow the establishment of a reality consistent with their limited resources, to continue innovative and competitive in Brazil, whose mortality rate is still high. From these reasons, this paper analyzed the four stages of the Porto Digital incubation process to explore the methodologies used by the cluster about design management, whose processes stimulate the development of innovative capacity of these youth organizations to implement an approach the strategy management of design, as a project and collaboratively as part of the identification of innovation opportunities in the current environment where startups are work in. Therefore, through a literature review using the latest lines of research that address design management, strategic design and innovation, as well as documentary research about the Porto Digital incubation process, the results show that design management area yet it is little explored, even in an environment conducive to fostering innovation and the efforts has a concentration on the stages of incubation processes aimed at product development, to the detriment to other business functions.

La relación entre el biomimetismo y la geodésica Buckminster Fuller en la planificación de edificios sostenibles

Since almost 60 years, uprising demographic density rates mainly in urban centers led to an increase of vertical building housing models, an established tendency since then. Nevertheless, this has brought deep changes in terms of landscape appearance, especially in cities without an efficient urbanistic planning. Such contructions have frequently progressively reduced private living areas, as a result of market especulation. Given this aforementioned Scenario, the authors find necessary to build up alternative, sustainable and innovative urban building spacial models, which favors the contact with soil and, consequently, with nature. A promissing example that fits to this proposal is the geodesical structure patented in 1954 by the prestigous architect and engineer Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983). Resumidly, it represents a mesh of triangles on a round shape. Such contructs have proved to be extremely light and resistant, despite of the few material employed, since the triangular structures bring significant crushing, bending and kinking resistance when compared to other geometric models, namely the retangular ones. Furthermore, Fuller’s structures can be made of fairly any material. Its spheric form brings more suitable and efficient inner atmosphere for human housing purposes, as they allow heating, cooling, as well as energy and air circulation to occur naturally. Its aerodynamics is less prone to climatic influence, allowing a larger interior with a smaller construction area. Despite of its extremely geometric forms, Gorman (2005) stated that Fuller found inspiration for his geometric domes in “radiolary microorganisms”, represented through the geometrization of the bone structutures of these tiny marine beings (microcosmos). Additionally, he took spheric form of planets also as portrait (macrocosmos). He believed that nature favored the most cost-effective geodesical designs and therefore, should be a result of the core universe structure. Therefrom emerges a concept, which would later be known as Fuller’s ideology, “making more with less”, based on the aforementioned cost-effective nature models. By that, one percieves that Fuller’s geodesic had already made a strong bond to biomimethical principles even before it was decribed, as it uses the nature’s expertise to solve complex problems of human quotidian (transport, housing, energy, water issues) with an efficient sustainable surplus. The aim of this article is to evaluate the relationship between Biomimicry and Fuller’s geodesic in order to highlight common sustainable alternatives to verticalization of urban spaces, as we believe in the potential that such structures may represent, eventually leading to an increase in the quality of life of the communities that make use of such alternatives.

Practical urban: The urbanity and its relationship with the contemporary city.

As the Industrial Revolution took place and steam driven machines emerged in the 18 th century, the Industrial Age began and cities became the core of industrial and populational growth. That phenomena occurred as the job opportunities and quality of life increasingly developed away from the countryside, with the arrival of electricity and inventions such as the light bulb, thanks to important people like Sir Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. The city, therefore, can be looked in two different ways: the urban space, occupied with tangible elements, and the social environment, filled with urban practices and cohabitation. An essential matter in many disciplines, the city is a recurrent topic for researchers who seek to understand this phenomenon of human activities. The history behind the rise of the cities show tell us about the creation of urban spaces and its manifestations, functions, transformations and the complexity inherent to the various typologies in cities all over the world. The city is a scenario full of overlapping messages that characterize the accessibility and urban communication. This is defined by Nojima (1999) as the result of the interaction between social representations and the scenario where they occur. It is through the interpretation of these messages that are manifested in the urban design accessible from cities (streets, buildings, gardens, squares, furnitures), that the individual defines the elements that identify their city. This paper discovery the concepts of city and their accessibility relationships with urban practices - design of urban activity - that directly influence the implementation of urban furniture and, above all, the importance given to them by the population, with regard to its true functions (adequacy, accessibility, ergonomics, identity and others) of their uses and appropriations. It is important for the study also understand the urban furniture relation with the project of cities - is to complement the public space or the way how interferes the urban landscape. It is need to understand how society is shown in front of herself and the world itself that surrounds and what are the affective devices that make city living when connected - through the use - therefore, this is the powerfull forces of individuals and community , space practices created by the tactics of the population to allow theirs ambiance, wellness, safety and comfort, sensations often perceived by the set of elements that constitute the urban furniture of cities. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/IFDP.2016.3291