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am 's methodology has been tried out and consolidated over the years. We can summarize am approach as follows:

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Listening
The first step is meeting the local community. The spokesperson or researchers that conducted previously local research can lead and mediate between the parties. Their inquiries are the first work-frame. The project is directly developed on-site beginning with surveys and prototypes. The structure is shaped, by modelling elements on the physical and environmental characteristics 

Resources and limits
The second frame is the "building box", which is priorly defined to drive the workflow towards a conscious use of limited resources, the employ tailored to the characteristics, and the different options of joints and fastening. The available elements impact the structural possibilities and approaches to the building phase by conducting the project development.

 

Building the team
Designers learn how to develop their community from the first work phases. By working together, there is a lack of individuality: the team carries out the entire development. The work method is the same as when working around a table, where people draw side to side on the same sheet of paper. The project is thus elaborated on a "common table", in an ongoing process where group members take turns for different tasks.
The team carries out the project from beginning to end, going through different phases, it experiences models and prototypes both on small scale and in real dimensions.

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Intellectual and manual work values
Building and design are on an equal footing as a result of a balanced allocation of time. The concrete connection to the real world guides the design towards a practical construction thanks to the know-how of materials and assembly methods. Therefore, the final design depends strictly on the choice of the fixed available materials and the site on which the structure will be built.

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Sustainability and responsibility

The action of directly designing and building a workpiece engages participants intensely. Working for a community and the common use of the workpiece drive students from the educational to the responsible role as authors.

Resistance and durability of the object are essential characteristics to base on building choices. 

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Exchange of knowledge

Anybody can learn from each other and exchange their own: experience and knowledge of the inhabitants' community, tutors and craftsmen knowledge are useful sources. We can enhance the work of listening by mixing up different branches of knowledge with varied expertise throughout continuous debates.

 

Resuming, the method associates collaborative working, whose concept is that the entire group is the author or the final object. The workpiece is the result of a learning process through experimenting, ideas and meetings with the various elements of the community. Learning by doing idea is to extend and diversify the learning process by building both the group of people and the micro-architecture.