Welcome



I'm Carolina Delgado, a Portuguese Designer, specialised in Packaging Design and Sustainability, working as a Research Collaborator at CIAUD, doing my PhD in Design at FAUL, School of Architecture, University of Lisbon.
I love to travel and meet new people, places and cultures.
I'm also a proud mother and wife. My son João is a very creative boy, and my husband Luís is a Photographer.

On this page, you can see the works developed during Fabricademy in TextileLab Amsterdam, Waag.
I met the Fabricademy family in Iceland on the 2019 Bootcamp. It was a great experience, so I realised it would be very enriching for me to make the full course.
Also, I could not leave my family for so much time, so I planned to attend at least four workshops that could give me more hands-on lab work for my PhD research.
I enjoyed it so much that I kept returning.

With the Covid-19 Pandemia, I had to leave TextileLab overnight and did the final project in an improvised Home Lab in Lisbon during the lockdown. I went back in October 2020 to take more classes.
This year, 2021, I have won a studentship by FCT, the Portuguese Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology, for my PhD research.

Therefore, I will be doing part of my research here at TextileLab Amsterdam while finishing classes I missed to graduate at Fabricademy.

Why the nickname #ByLessPlus?

By - Preposition * Identifying the agent performing an action. * Origin - Old English bī, bi, be, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch bij and German bei.

Less - Determiner & Pronoun * A smaller amount of; not as much. * Origin - Old English lǣssa, of Germanic origin; related to Old Frisian lēssa, from an Indo-European root shared by Greek loisthos ‘last’.

Plus - Preposition * In addition; above, better than, also, futhermore. * Origin - Mid 16th century from Latin, literally ‘more’.

in Oxford English dictionary Lexico

I started my path in Sustainable studies when I choose my nickname for my Pinterest account. Moreover, we live in a global community and there are so many designers and researchers, with a Latin background, called Carolina Delgado. In my research field, I usually use complete name whenever is possible, and it could make some sense, but for social media shorten the name and # are the goals. Is inspired on 'Less is More' adopted in 1947 by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, but has a different meaning.
Made by + Using less + Better result, Resilient, Regenerative.

My background

I was born in Lisbon and there I lived all my life. After 15 years of doing advertising and marketing designs, I felt the need to search for a more sustainable path. Therefore I quit my job and take a Master in Production Design at IADE - Creative University IADE specialised in Design for Sustainable Living. Currently, I'm a research collaborator at CIAUD - Centre for Architecture, Urban Planning and Design Research, School of Architecture, University of Lisbon.

Previous work

My last long job was designing communications and packaging for food supplements in the pharmaceutical industry. Dealing with a lot of waste and disposable materials, soon was clear to me that I had to change the focus of my work.
Instead of making part of the problem, I want to make part of the solution.
So, during my master I open a company Gaivota do Rio, so I could work on my own. The main project was to divide an old family 9 rooms apartment, from the beginning of the XX century, into 4 up-to-date and sustainable suites for short term rentals.
Because overlapping master studies with family and work was very extenuated to me, I had to quit something if I wanted to continue research. After two successful years and the finish of the main project, I passed the management of Gaivota do Rio Suits to others and closed my company to only focus on the research.
In parallel, I've been developing my personal brand SACA à Portuguesa, where I started my research on portuguese textiles.

Main Project

My PhD project is 'Nature-based Design: reusable packaging for dry food bulk consumption':

Resume
This study seeks to present sustainable solutions for reusable packaging, without tare (lightweight), considering as an added value the Portuguese Textile Industry, as a solution to plastics and disposable packaging related issues. Bulk sales are increasingly returning to consumer markets, (worldwide as well as locally), with strong growth in the European market.
By solving (poorly designed) packaging issues related to the food industry (with its massive production, consumption and residue) it is expected a contribution that helps to stop energy and raw materials waste. By observing the consumption habits that existed before the massification of plastics, and the need to define new packaging alternatives (i. e. non-plastic, non-polluting, more sustainable), textile materials might prove as of great potential, once again. Studies indicate that developing processes and materials, based on nature, can contribute to solving sustainability problems.
The application of biological systems in textiles development suggests a possibility for the resolution of sustainable reusable textile packaging related issues. The research is divided into four distinct phases (i. e. Exploration, Acting, Contribution and Dissemination) to be developed with different methods, being assumed mostly with an Interventional Qualitative Methodology.

Keywords: reusable packaging design; bulk consumption; nature-based design; zero waste; portuguese textile industry.