project journal: knowledge transfer

The project TASA* started as simple design project to come up with new product ideas turned out to be very complex. We realized during the conceptualization and field research that besides designing new products it is almost more important to create a platform to make the local knowledge on techniques, materials and traditions accessible.
Lots of craftsmen down here are very old, and with them lots of techniques and knowledge will disappear.

Often this knowledge has been only passed orally to younger generations. And even if there exists more data about a specific piece and technique, the knowledge is mostly not accessible to a broader community. It remains hidden in museums, university-archives or in special literature.

We saw the importance to create an “easy-to-access” platform, in order to share the local patrimony with a wider – and global – community.
Our project doesn’t have the aim to save craftsmen of the Algarve, but we are aiming to make the knowledge also available for crafts-interested people from other origins.

So here comes the first outcome: Our blog www.projectotasa.com is online! In case you do speak portuguese, follow our ongoing research on local patrimony from Algarve! Unfortunately we didn’t find yet a volunteer to translate our numerous investigation posts into english yet. Sorry about that.

*Our designstudio is executing the project TASA (Técnicas Ancestrais, Soluções Actuais) for CCDR Algarve.