OpenDoTT (Open Design of Trusted Things) was "a PhD programme to explore how to build a more open, secure, and trustworthy Internet of Things". I have moved in 2019 to Dundee to work at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, and relocated later to Berlin to work at the Mozilla Foundation. The academic side of the project has migrated from the University of Dundee to Northumbria University in June 2020.
The title of my thesis is Generous cities – weaving commons-oriented systems for the reuse of excess materials in urban contexts.
I am gradually moving relevant documentation to a public wiki. I maintain a list of links with the tag opendott in my infinite bookmark collection.
I have used this blog to document what I read, learnt and discovered as I went deeper into my research. Earlier outputs can be seen in this set of concept ideas(2020) and this repository with second year deliverables (2021).
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 813508.
0.2. This is a snapshot of the working version of a text I wrote for the OpenDoTT blog, as part of our training on Internet Health and Open Leadership. It feeds from and interacts with other materials kept in this repository.
After an unusual summer (wasn't it?), my second year at the O...
This post is a work in progress. This warning will be removed once I'm done editing it.
In the Repair Journey, I have asked a group of participants to choose an object they would like to repair or repurpose, and spend some weeks keeping a diary of how the repair (or attempt to repair) we...
This post is a work in progress. This warning will be removed once I'm done editing it.
See also
- Repair Journey, my research study exploring individual/citizen perceptions, behaviour and decision-making around the reuse of things.
- An Ecosystem Mapping of reuse and repair.
- Concept ...
This post is a work in progress. This warning will be removed once I'm done editing it.
For the Ecosystem Mapping, I have interviewed people who are related (either professionally or informally) with repair and reuse. The main idea was to understand how the value of discarded materials can...
This post will be updated every time my research questions have changed. Current version: January 2021, following my successful Annual Progression review.
Research Question 1 (RQ1): What prevents more widespread reuse of discarded materials in contemporary cities?
To address RQ1, I will i...
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this year's edition of Fixfest UK, originally planned to take place in Glasgow, moved to a series of online meetings. I had the chance to present my research and some of the things I am planning to do in next phases of the project.
Now, this move to a strictly onlin...
At the current stage - August 2020 - of the OpenDoTT project, I am working on design concepts that respond to data collected in this first year of work. The data comes from two design research studies; my explorations towards literature review; and reflection upon projects I have been involved w...
Head
In recent weeks I've been skimming through interview transcripts and my (copious) notes. It's a tiresome but rewarding phase of research. Things are starting to make sense, even if I feel it still is over my current grasp. As I work through, though, I find different forms of useful informatio...
OpenDoTT
Waste Avoidance in Smart Cities
I am Felipe Schmidt Fonseca, a researcher at Northumbria University. At the time of publishing this page (August 2020), I'm working on design concepts that respond to insights on data collected during my first year of research in the OpenDoTT pr...
Sketching...
The common sense associates recycling with sustainability, leading citizens to think that ideally, all the materials disposed of in a city should undertake that path. Evidence indicates, however, a different reality. There are solid arguments proposing that recycling is not the most...
One of these days I went out for groceries and decided to turn my way back home into the allowed outdoor exercise hour. I was on the free bike and took a longer path back.
Right before crossing the Riverside Drive to get to the bike path by the Tay, I saw a dancing unicorn. A plush one,...
This post is a work in progress. This warning will be removed once I'm done editing it.
Tooling Up: Civic visions, FabLabs, and grassroots activism
Many in the wider ‘maker’ movement can be reluctant to engage in politics overtly, as to do so would appear to constrain the notion of giving...
This post is a work in progress. This warning will be removed once I'm done editing it.
Adam Greenfield wrote a series of interesting texts criticizing the usual take on smart cities. I'll be pasting below some excerpts of his work as I (re)read it.
An update, sketched for formal reasons:
I started my research in Dundee last year writing a Career Development Plan in which I stated what were the opportunities I would be looking for in terms of learning, experimenting and seeking collaboration and exchange. Since then I have progressed in mul...
As part of the Repair Journey research study, I decided to apply to myself what I am asking participants to do. So upon asking them to keep a repair diary for what was originally meant to be two weeks, I started a diary myself.
Two weeks into it, it feels the duration is somewhat arbitrary. Amid a...
How long is it acceptable for a good to be kept out of use? What is the threshold? Time, intention, usefulness?
Could a bike kept outside for a month be reclaimed?
How about six months, one year, more?
Whose object is this?
Whose object was this? Who's taking care of its rema...
Message sent on the first day of the study:
Hi, and thanks again for signing up to this research study. As you may be aware by now, I'm asking you to keep for the next couple of weeks a diary of an object that needs repair. I hope you have decided what object you will be focusing on. Otherwise, fe...
Excerpts of the message sent to participants of the Repair Journey research study, some days ahead of starting:
The study will start next Monday. For two weeks, I will be proposing different activities to create what I'm calling Repair Diaries. You are not required to dedicate much of your time...
Last month as the UK slowly went into its own type of lockdown mode, I used the remaining freedom of exercising outdoors and brought my kids to cycle towards the Riverside Nature Park:
Riverside Nature Park has been created from Dundee's old landfill site. Trees and wildflowers have been plant...
I'm not a fan of using dictionary entries to define terms, as I believe meaning is built on interaction rather than prescribed by a fixed rule book. That said, I do love etymology, as a sort of social history of words and concepts. And I figured that might come to rescue at this point of my research...
