Before venturing into the terrain of Socioplastics, it is essential to clarify the foundational concept of transdisciplinarity, which goes beyond the juxtaposition of disciplines and instead generates an integrated epistemic fabric capable of addressing the complexity of real-world challenges that defy reduction to singular areas of expertise; whereas disciplinary work operates within closed systems (an architect designing a house with no external reference), and multidisciplinary efforts merely align neighbouring perspectives without merging them, interdisciplinarity introduces partial exchanges, such as artistic concepts informing architectural aesthetics, yet none of these fully dissolve the boundaries between domains—in contrast, transdisciplinary praxis blends methodologies, vocabularies, and ontologies to invent entirely new ways of thinking and doing, producing hybrid knowledge structures responsive to crises like climate change or urban toxicity; historically linked to Jean Piaget’s epistemological propositions in the 1970s, its resurgence today aligns with fields like innovation design, environmental humanities, and sustainability studies, not as fringe pursuits but as strategic responses to entangled urgencies; within this framework, Socioplastics, developed by Spanish architect-artist Anto Lloveras, emerges not as a discipline but as a “terrain”—a mutable conceptual and practical space where architecture, relational aesthetics, industrial design, ecology, and epistemology are intertwined through a mesh-based methodology that replaces linear planning with adaptive networks of action, using simple interventions—like colour pigments, modular prototypes, and recycled components—as socio-material fixers that reveal and reconfigure ruptures in urban and industrial ecologies; Lloveras's approach relies on transdisciplinary tools such as participatory art, bio-inspired design, and critical pedagogy to create sovereign pedagogies and foster post-autonomous critiques, not as abstract gestures but through real-world cases like refunctionalising concrete plants or transforming machinery into sensorial experiences, thus modelling a regenerative logic where waste becomes message and space becomes dialogue; in essence, transdisciplinarity is not a level of academic complexity but a situated strategy for regeneration, and Socioplastics stands as a living proof of its potential to reclaim agency, mutate systems, and cultivate affective alliances between humans, non-humans, and their environments.
Lloveras, A. 2026. Nodal Profile – Synthetic Overview. [online] Available at: https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2026/02/nodal-profile-synthetic-overview.html
Lloveras, A. (2026). From Architectural Foundations to Socioplastics: Reconfiguring Urban Practice. Retrieved from https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/2026/02/from-architectural-foundations-to.html#more