Andrea Bortolotti is an architect and a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta in Brussels (ULB) in "Art de batir et Urbanisme". His main research interests concern urban metabolism and ecology, and their relation with urban design theory and practice.
Research abstract
Given the traction that the debate on the circular economy has gained as global sustainability strategy, the research aims to contribute investigating the spatiality of everyday waste management and recycling in practice. If there is a growing scholarly on the spatiality of waste as mirror of either social and environmental, global and local processes, it remains to investigate how the social practices that comprise the circulation of waste are embedded in the urban space and how, on turn, urban design discourses and processes, accounting on these practices, might enact more circular models of waste management. To do that, the research looks in-depth into some areas of Brussels where the issue of waste is more relevant and whose urban transformation process is promoted under the banner of the circular economy. Unfolding the system of relations that exist around waste objects and spaces, the research focuses on building an empirical understanding of the current waste practices and possible alternatives for waste reuse, recovery, and recycling, support further design exploration, and thus discuss everyday waste practices vis à vis of circular economy programs and plans.
Topics: Urban Inclusion, Urban Ecology
To know more about Andrea's contribution in the framework of Metrolab:
- The Space of Waste / Designing Waste
- Cellule interdisciplinaire Abattoirs
- Cycle "Ecologies urbaines : pratiques et politiques d’alimentation"
- Research seminars cycle "Cities in the metabolic loop | and design"
- MasterClass working group’s scientific mission in the United States
- "RC21 : Rethinking Urban Global Justice: An international academic conference for critical urban studies"
- LAN 2016 Conference at USC School of Architecture of Los Angeles
- Doctoral school in Venice. IUAV welcomes the MLB-LoUIsE researchers
- Evening Lecture "In comes the space producer"
