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RCI USA

EUNIC New York’s ECO Solidarity to Open at WantedDesign Manhattan

Updated: May 23, 2022

A project that elevates design to an existential mission




The socially conscious architecture practice Atelier AD HOC represents Romania in the ECO Solidarity showcase, a multidisciplinary initiative that rallies a group of 9 European design practitioners who explore radical sustainability in architecture, urban planning, product design and development, energy and waste, standing in solidarity in the face of global humanitarian, public health, and ecological crises.


The exhibition is set up under the aegis of EUNIC, the association of European cultural institutes and cultural attaches working in New York City, as part of WantedDesign Manhattan + ICFF, the leading American design fair, is hosted by the Javits Center between May 15-17. Atelier AD HOC’s George Marinescu and Maria Daria Oancea will join other participating designers and architects in a talk about pursuing transformative design solutions to alleviate social ills and sustainability problems, which will take place at the Javits Center on Sunday, May 15.


Participating designers and studios in ECO Solidarity include: EOOS NEXT (Austria), Herrmann & Coufal (Czech Republic), Livable Platform (Flanders, Belgium), MOYA Birch Bark (Germany), AHA Objects (Malta), NASDRA Conscious Design (Poland), SUSDESIGN (Portugal), Atelier AD HOC (Romania), crafting plastics! studio (Slovakia).


The exhibition is designed and curated by Deborah Wang, architect and artistic director of DesignTO, and presented in partnership with WantedDesign.


Please register in order to attend. USE CODE: ECO22

REGISTER HERE.


UPDATE: The ICFF Editors Award 2022: Best Booth at WantedDesign + ICFF goes to ECO Solidarity! We're exceedingly proud that our common EUNIC New York project has been awarded the 1st prize out of over 700 competitors. Congratulations to the wonderful designers, to curator Deborah Wang, to all the co-organizers, and to everyone else involved!




Atelier AD HOC is a Bucharest-based architecture practice focused on the shifting situations of public space, living conditions, property, and land use, as manifested in the everyday life of the city. Founded by architects George Marinescu and Maria Daria Oancea as a dual practice consisting of a design studio and a non-governmental organization, Atelier AD HOC engages with social and spatial vulnerability, dealing with informal or planned aspects of architecture. (Photo credit: Barnabas Neogrady-Kiss)



The selected projects create possible temporalities, by subverting the relations that generally govern the use of public space in order to accommodate and make visible informal networks and various forms of living: individual or collective, consolidated or precarious. Each project is used as a tool for research and experiment developed in order to understand and support an existing situation while trying to consolidate and extend the resources available for marginalized communities. They create access to architecture and design for people that lack representation, resources and power. The present installation attached to the edge of the exhibition space displays a series of fragments made at a 1:1 scale from previous spatial prototypes, describing the relation between solidarity, public space and design. The fragments are reactions to precarious, shared, inter-relational or temporary instances that are recomposed in an exhibition format.







ECO Solidarity Talk, Part One: Doing It!

Sunday, May 15, 11: 30 am, Javits Center

Moderated by Simone Rothman, Co-Founder, FutureAir


Presenters: Aha Objects (Malta), Atelier AD HOC (Romania), EOOS Next (Austria), Hermann & Coufal (Czech Republic), Livable Platform (Flanders/Belgium)


The talk is open to all fair attendees and the media, with no reservations required.







The 2022 edition of ECO Solidarity is produced and presented in partnership by WantedDesign NYC and EUNIC New York, the European Union National Institutes for Culture, including the Austrian Cultural Forum New York in cooperation with Austrian Federal Economic Chamber and Vienna Business Agency, Delegation of Flanders to the USA , Czech Center New York, Goethe-Institut New York, Arts Council Malta in New York, Romanian Cultural Institute New York, Polish Cultural Institute New York, the Consulate General of Portugal in New York/ Camões, I.P., Consulate General of Slovakia in New York, and the European Union Delegation to the United Nations.


The ECO Solidarity 2022 Advisory Committee includes Jonsara Ruth, co-founder and Design Director, Parsons Healthy Material Labs; Simone Rothman, co-founder, FutureAir; Laurence Carr, founder and CEO, Laurence Carr Inc.



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