Paper short abstract:

In this contribution we show how a group of designers try to escape from the paradigms of efficiency and authority traditionally assigned to the implementation of technologies in architecture, through the use of seduction tools or rethinking the potentials of a community of practices.

Paper long abstract:

In this contribution we address the case of the rehabilitation of some traditional houses located in an inner Mediterranean village, to host the Video Art Center "Espacio Doméstico" (EDOM).

As designers, we tried to escape from the paradigms of efficiency and authority traditionally assigned to the implementation of technologies in architecture, in order to achieve in their effects as diverse aspects as local communities, digital manufacturing or recycling policies that operate around the rehabilitation of built heritage.

The design process tried to assign to different technologies the role of mediating with the existing through the incorporation of some strange paradoxes we found attached to the history of the site. So we printed fluorescent cool tattoes over damaged and disappearing walls, we reconstructed the profile of old furniture with contemporary silk wiring, or we completed the fables about the former inhabitant importing some pieces of his lost furniture, still remaining in the memories of the bewildered neighbours that approached us during the process of reconstruction.

If we can understand the seduction as the process of converting affinities and disagreements into affirmative communication, EDOM proposal can be understood as a process of creating seduction assets between technologies and users.

This process showed us how the net of possible actors coming together in a long building process very precisely situated is not manageable in advance or as a matter of fact, but it depends for instance on the community of practices the designing group wants to implement in each occasion.