Operation Nickel

Workshop In Campo Abierto

The first edition of Festival de la Madera, organized by CampoAbierto in Rivera, Uruguay, clearly had two objectives: on one side, the development of a workshop so that a heterogeneous group of people with different backgrounds could design a seedlings greenhouse in a collaborative way, making all members define both the design process and the construction.

On the other side, experimentation with remnants of eucalyptus wood, very accessible in the area, in order to generate new constructive solutions to be replicated and developed in this typology and in others.

Our work focused on generating the necessary conditions for the synthesis of an effective group that would resolve the design and construction of the greenhouse in an autonomous way.

The emergent is about how a group without apparent coordination and without relevant individual knowledge can give intelligent answers and solve complex problems, relying on ascending information systems and with a capacity for greater adaptability that rigid hierarchies.

We believe that the construction of the emergent is synthesized as interactions between members are generated, starting by coordinating assembly work to solve complex technical problems or organize a large group to undertake the different tasks.

The protocol focused on building this capacity for self-management by releasing the decision-making throughout the process until a complete automaton operation is achieved, leaving in the first instance in the group the decision of questions such as the measurements of the frames, reaching the capacity to manage any unexpected events and to resolve those predicted.

As a final result, in addition to having reached constructive details and optimal technologies, we have had the determination to leave the process open, collecting all the learnings, from constructive details to social technology, in an open-source manual.

With free access to this information to anyone who wants to reproduce, replicate or develop the model, we intend to contribute to the popular wisdom and engage ourselves with the collective intelligence of the place.