Evolving OBJECTS -  Changing MINDS _ MI LA Consulting

 

As humans, we experience the world through OBJECTS, and objects are our traces of passage through the world. They are the expression of our ability to create, adapt, and co-evolve with(in) our environment. Be them buildings, clothes or accessories, tools, objects of mobility, or domestic appliances, objects are the intermediary between our bodies and our habitat. They do not just exist, they "act": upon our conduits, upon our environment, upon the way we build our relationships and our institutions/corporations?. The way we design them expresses the way in which we think about ourselves, about others, and about our environment. Therefore, we think design is more than a creative discipline: it is a method to look at, and place oneself within, our world.
           
Entering the Antropocene, humanity faces the challenge of how to sustain its development in a planet that is rapidly depleting in its natural resources. How can we, scientists, economists and people in the creative field, work together to shape the XXI Century? How can we work effectively in provoking the needed shift so to build upon resilient systems and a balanced planet?

MI LA Consulting does not have a simple answer to these questions; our vision is that balance can be achieved through extended dialogue that bring together individuals, material culture, and environment as equal participants in the process of green design thinking.

We think good design generates meaningful OBJECTS and relations between them and those who use them. But meanings change across cultures and over time. Our philosophy is that good design comes from, and generates the balance between the bio-diverse environment, the OBJECTS and the people who use them. Our consulting group offers multidisciplinary expertises in order to facilitate the creation of OBJECTS that aim to be universally meaningful and stand the test of time.

Using this holistic approach while combining expertise in architecture and design, biology, and anthropology we offer strategic consulting services for each and all phases of your design projects: be them architectural, urban planning, interior, product or service design.

MI LA Consulting Team

How we see it

We see a world in which green thinking will be so engrained in who we are, and how we design and built OBJECTS, that there will not be no need for us anymore. We will be just you, US!

Our imprint may be restorative and regenerative. Our created OBJECTS may be unifying answers for today imbalances, generated by a fragmentary vision of humans and nature. The Anthropocene can be green, if we work together in making it such. Let us work with you on your next project towards this goal!

Our team's vision is holistic, approaching OBJECTS as generators of habits, as facilitators between the psychological, social, and ecological realms, as part of the same universe! MI LA consulting approach is based on open collaboration between different members of the team and the client, offering thus limitless flexibility upon project needs, requests, budgets, and timelines.

How we work

Are you looking to design and develop an adaptive integrated community with a coherent vision that takes into consideration both human and non-human ecological footprints and needs?
Are you interested in the future life-cycle impact of your green OBJECT in a specific cultural environment?
Would you like to identify the best practices of design and assess the possible challenges in the uses of your next living building, in function of the cultural, geographical and environmental conditions?

MI LA Consulting offers green solutions that may not only evolve OBJECTS, but also change MINDS.

We believe in open collaboration among all SUBJECTS, active participants to this change, as we view design as an interconnected, collaborative activity.

We are flexible upon projects needs, timelines and request.

We are mobile on the territory, at a global scale.

Who we are

Alexandru (Alec) Balasescu is an anthropologist, writer, curator, author of Paris Chic, Tehran Thrills. Aesthetic Bodies, Political Subjects, ZETA Books 2007, and numerous articles in international journals covering interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches on urbanism, design, material culture, and development. He is currently based in Vancouver.

Alec's 13 years experience covers a variety of related disciplines and work environments, from industrial design (Renault Technologies) to contemporary art. His work is centered on the relational aspects of human body -- in both its cultural and material manifestations, economy and the environment -- natural, built, cultural, lived. Alec brings to the team the possibility of lateral thinking about otherwise separated domains.

Ilaria Mazzoleni is an architect, biomimicist, author, founder of IM Studio Milano/Los Angeles, and professor at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. Her professional and academic focus is sustainable architecture and biomimicry. Her book, Architecture Follows Nature: Biomimetic Principles for Innovative Design - by CRC Press, explores animal skin systems as they relate to building envelopes.

Ilaria's 15 year experience in working on sustainable design, architecture and urban planning projects provides the team a solid professional grounding in the material world of the making.  Her strong believe is that we can do better for ourselves, and therefore, for our environment, through our design actions. Ilaria's intellectual stance and professional experience combined with her commitment to work interdisciplinary brings to the MI LA consulting group the openness to innovation and the dedication to our cause for sustainability.