Emily Carr University is one of the leading academic institutions with a main focus on Sustainable Development, Virtual Environments and Social Relations as creative strategies. My research as a Masters Degree student in Product Design uses these features and integrates them in design for development, with a focus area in designing cooking stoves, specifically for biomass briquettes as an economic alternative fuel solution in developing countries. With collaborative effort of several academics in these fields the infrastructure of the institution supports this research physically, theoretically and conceptually. In the summer of 2008 I received a president's fund to pursue my research in Aprovecho, Research Laboratory in Eugene, OR, USA, focused on cooking stoves development.
Contact Information
With the foundational research done with WWF Finland in Malawi and working with Richard Stanley (Legacy Foundation) as well as Aprovecho Research Lab in Eugene, OR, my aim is to coordinate new biomass briquette stove development (introducing side feed and gasification process) together with several internationally positioned centers engaged in briquette production and rather than imposing new designs, to help to adapt existing stove models according to the new combustion principle. Using social networking and collective creative practice this contribution would support spreading biomass briquette technology as an alternative fuel produced out of agricultural residues. At present, there are more than 30 active centers around the world. The new study on alternative briquette production and usage initiated in 2005 and continued with great findings in the Stoves Camp 2008 in Aprovecho, together with Larry Winiarski (Rocket Stove), continuing with several models collaboratively built with the help of virtual networks in Vancouver, BC, Canada; models are tested with primary testing methods but will be official in January 2009 in Aprovecho and simultaneously introduced to briquette centers around the globe using Biomass Briquette Google Group, Legacy Foundation and my own Stoves Weblog. The project is aimed at no/low income households, and environments with a critical deforestation problem. It has been part of my extensive research pursued for a Masters Degree in design, oriented around collective innovation - new horizon for design for development.
Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas
Sustaining social and cultural features of local environments extended with cross-cultural information transaction represent one of the key areas of my research. New networking (HEDON, Briquette Google Groups) represents the starting point of collaborative action on the level of micro-enterprising, small NGOs, or other locally initiated entrepreneurs. As an individual researcher positioned within virtual networks and with the help of our institution (strongly engaged in virtual education models development) we want to bring innovations only as features of sustainable and health-beneficial solutions and not final designs(!). With design as a service of collaborative production, the innovation is addressed and adapted to each specific problem locally.
The current project development is using an existing infrastructure of biomass briquette centers (Legacy Foundation). The network is spreading with new centers emerging and more diverse cultural exchange as a grounding for a more resilient market models. Innovation dissemination is based on a not-for-profit model of Creative Commons, where the fundamental feature is information exchange further extended to collective innovation as an open-source method, where the market is simultaneously engaged in the production itself feeding back the database.
The fundamental technologies under the scope of this project are biomass briquette burning (studied by Joel Chaney), gasification (Paul Anderson), the rocket stove (Larry Winiarsky). They are all significant contributors to the new development of the Rocket stove with briquette side-feed and gasification properties based on cost-free Do-It-Yourself production methods with simple molds, like Mdula Stove (Rok Oblak for WWF, 2004). The models are functioning under the license of Creative Commons (limited protection with primary focus on sharing information). The bottom line benefits of this new cooking principle are using waste/agricultural residue material as an economic alternative fuel, smoke-less burning and economic stove production for extreme low-income households.
I have experiences with WWF in Malawi based on visual anthropology methods, Aprovecho Research Lab and their superior techniques including the new portable emission tester I was wearing during 2008 stoves camp to test emissions on various stoves. My research is focused on biomass briquettes and critical CO emmisions as waste material has difficult material properties regarding this. Introducing the new side-feed (improved draft) and gasification process can improve the situation significantly and my aim is to pursue this research direction in the future with more research done in Aprovecho and on specific sites of briquette centers.
Relevant Publications or Studies
Creative Practice in Third World Countries, KLIK, Architecture, Design & New Media, 2006 Mdula - A Sustainable Cooking Stove for Malawi; Gold Medal Award, BIO19, Internatioanl Biennial Of Industrial Design, Ljubljana, Slovenia, EU Design for Development, Preseren Award for special accomplishments, Ljubljana, Slovenia Visual Anthropology; Social Production; Collective Innovation; Lo-tech Production Methods; Cultural Sustainability, Virtual networks Briquetting Google Group (Legacy Foundation) HEDON network
Our Contribution to the Partnership
As part of the further academic practice, I would participate with publishing the findings regarding future research in biomass briquettes; briquette dimensions, production methods, international cultural/social adaptation, stove design/construction, the value of collective innovation and social production.
