Low Tech

Solar Community Radio

What happens when the power goes out?

Last year’s electricity cut in Spain reminded us how fragile our cities can be, and that resilience isn’t just about infrastructure, it’s also about community and shared tools.

We invited a group of students from IED to think about this question: What can we build, with limited means, to stay connected during a power cut?

The result is this mobile, solar-powered, off-grid community radio, co-designed and built during a short workshop: a place to charge devices when the sun is out, stay informed, and gather.

Slow Kitchen Communities

What would our kitchens and cooking habits look like without unlimited and cheap access to energy? What if we could rely only on locally available resources?

By the end of the workshop, students had designed and prototyped a collection of low-tech kitchen tools to preserve, cool, or cook food. Beyond creating “new tools,” participants also imagined the new rituals and cultural habits that could emerge around them.

Throughout the workshop—combining theory, inspiration, and hands-on practice—participants discovered slow cooking techniques and reflected on their impact on food rituals and on the habitats beyond the physical space of the kitchen.

Gentler Futures Festival 2024

What would a fossil-fuel free society look like?

In May we spent 10 days in residence in Lisbon, with the design studio By the End of May in Mouraria Creative Hub. In collaboration with Marie Verdeil, we build a collection of low-tech tools to create a summer low-tech kitchen including:

• box solar ovens (some of them being transformed fireless cookers built in a previous workshop),
• a parabolic solar cooker with a second hand parabolic antena,
• a bike generator repurposing a home exercice bike.
• and a solar charging station / chair with a solar panel roof creating shade and producing electricity, inspired by the Red and Blue Chair by designer Gerrit Rietveld.

We shared and used these prototypes during Gentler Futures Festival, an event focused on Urban Self-sufficiency organized by By the End of May studio during which we hosted a solar cooking workshop and a solar brunch.

Community kiosk

How to activate the neighborhood with solar and human power?

Between August and December 2023, we held a series of 7 collaborative workshops in the La Florida neighborhood of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

During this program, we involved the local community to co-design and co-create low-tech artifacts such as a solar oven, a solar-powered music station, and a bike generator, as well as a mobile device to activate the neighborhood.

Design and construction by the SlowLab collective and the cooperative aquí. In collaboration with the Contorno Urbano foundation, the social club Relaciona’t, and the JAPI association.

Fira de Consum Responsable

We built a human-powered music station for the Espai Consum Responsable station at the Fira de Consum Responsable i d’Economia Social i Solidària.

Visitors were invited to pedal to simultaneously power the music system, the turntable, the lights, and a phone charging station.

Along with the installation, we also prepared a card game that helped people become aware of how much energy they consume by calculating how many hours they would need to pedal to power their everyday devices.

Solar Brunch

The solar brunch is an event concept we launched in 2022. The idea was to create a social event focused on ways to be less dependent on electrical energy and promote the use of solar energy in a fun way: cooking with the sun and music powered by the sun. If the sun goes away, the event can continue powered by pedal-powered bikes.

The event is an opportunity to start conversations around natural systems and the alternatives we can use in some of our daily activities, such as cooking. Taking into account the slow part of the process, where things are not so immediate and making it more of a ritual and an enjoyable group activity.