Solar Cooking

Design and build a summer kitchen

We spent a week at Tabakalera’s Medialab in San Sebastián, Donostia, running hands-on, participatory workshops.

Mixing theory with lots of practice, we explored low-tech principles to co-design and build a nomadic kitchen—equipped with an evaporative cooler, a working surface, and a solar oven.

This sustainable, multifunctional kitchen will add new tools and possibilities to Tabakalera’s community space for creativity and experimentation.

Team. Paula Bustos (SlowLab MX), Valentina Piliego & Audrey Belliot (SlowLab BCN).

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.

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.