Anchors and Goals

The Bauhaus of the Seas Sails introduces an ecocentric narrative that is both cosmopolitan and rooted in nature-based solutions. Its plural and testimonial design approach to complex socio-technical-ecological and more-than-anthropocentric problems is thus of significant importance for the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals and the European Union’s strategic priorities. 

As proposed in the manifesto presented to the first New European Bauhaus co-design conference, the journey of the Bauhaus of the Seas Sails is organised in 5 anchors: 

  1. Recognising the environment by mapping the interdependencies and flows of mineral, biological and human (food, transport, communities, and migrations) resources by parameterizing, optimising, and digitising data. This recognition aims to inform and communicate the relevance of sustainable management and decision making processes; 
  2. Reconciling with the sea as a territory of trans-geographic continuity through site-specific ecosystems and entanglements of humans and non-humans. This reconciliation opens new possibilities to the strategic needs of the New European Bauhaus; 
  3. Reconnecting communities with their habitats and forms of material, ecological, aesthetic and cultural heritage by supporting the generation and co-creation of fresh ideas. This reconnection, which emerges from the interdependence between species, generations and cultures, is oriented towards a mutual admiration and respect that ground the nourishing of a sustainable blue economy; 
  4. Renewing practises by engaging citizens in the sustainable management of local resources through the resurgence of fresh modes of co-ownership, caring and stewardship. This renewal contributes to a heightened sense of belonging and sharing responsibility, as well as to innovative artistic, experiential, material and technological interventions that aim to be replicable globally. 
  5. Reimagining narratives and storytelling actions that connect the findings developed across the research journey by exposing multiple perspectives and discussing ethical challenges. This reimagination points towards alternative futures to our seas, ocean and water bodies.   

The Bauhaus of the Seas Sails’s 10 ambitious mission-oriented goals will positively contribute to the communities living in the partner cities and aquatic ecosystems, as well as to the New European Bauhaus initiative in its promotion of an environmentally sustainable, socially fair and aesthetically appealing transition. These goals are ambitious, impactful, measurable, and targeted: 

  1. Deliver an intergenerational, interspecies and intercultural co-design process;
  2. Develop culture-driven interdisciplinary blueprints, prototypes and design studies addressing present and future challenges of coastal territories and ecosystems; 
  3. Make real the co-participation of human citizens and non-human agents in pursuit of a broader green transformation;
  4. Shift the thinking irreversibly from human-centric to more-than-human centric interaction with the environment;
  5. Deliver 8 role-model “lighthouse demonstrators” addressing different coastal cities ecosystems (lagoon, river, sea, ocean);
  6. Deliver tangible results across pilot demonstrators addressing New European Bauhaus challenges of food, adaptation, community, tourism and migrations;
  7. Replicate pilot results in credible executive plans that leverage regional and recovery funds of the pilot demonstrator cities;
  8. Genuinely prove the value of an organisational model for cooperation between generations, species and cultures;
  9. Define a traceable, rigorous and innovative impact evaluation methodology based on blockchain technologies and DAOs capable of addressing the following ethical issues: trust and privacy; secure and controllable data sharing; fair inclusive and equitable benefits for those sharing the data; traceability for economic benefit sharing and liability determination;
  10. Contribute to New European Bauhaus outreach and dissemination.

Building a “culture of the Bauhaus of the seas” will involve fostering a school of interdisciplinary experimentation and entrepreneurship, bound to shape a generation of designers, architects, engineers, artists, managers, and scientists around sustainable design solutions for coastal regions and the sea. Support for networked projects should promote the articulation of entities from academic, scientific and cultural systems, incubators, and technological centres, and guide the involvement of the communities in which they operate, with the ultimate goal of creating and recalibrating the capacity to replicate sustainable or regenerative solutions.