Research and innovation
Zingarelho is where Buinho’s work goes furthest technically. New methods are piloted with real schools, museums and communities, documented, and published openly so that others can adapt them.
Learn
Make
Share
Grow ↘
Research lines
Citizen Sensing began as a way of monitoring air, noise and light with young people — Youth Sensing, coordinated by Buinho in 2020, was the first citizen sensing project in the youth sector of Erasmus+. We now apply it to how spaces feel, in schools, museums and public places, so that the people who use them can describe and change them.
Tactile models and adapted materials, designed and produced with digital fabrication, open science and technology to blind and partially sighted pupils, and are often useful to the whole class.
Biofabrication, youth participation and acoustic comfort: how materials grown from local biomass can make shared spaces more comfortable for everyone. SUBSTRACTO is the first full-scale test of this idea, ending in a school.
Bringing toy hacking to early childhood education: opening, understanding and transforming toys with young children and their educators. The idea came from our structured courses, where kindergarten educators from Finland and Greece found that existing methods were designed for older children.
Publications and recognition
Article on EPALE, the European platform for adult learning, drawn from the Rural Eco-Clubs for Adult Education project: how repair can bring adults with fewer opportunities into learning.
Read on EPALE ↗National award, in the Environmental Protection, Sustainable Development and Climate Action category, for the Repair Café marathon organised with Resialentejo across eight municipalities.
Buinho’s partnership with School Cluster No. 1 of Beja was presented as a European good practice case of a creative hub bringing non-formal education into schools, in this Creative Europe policy project.
Read the case ↗Projects
Some projects are led by Zingarelho or have it as a partner; others belong to Buinho, with which we share team, FabLab and territory. Each one states who does what.
Erasmus+ · School education · Small-scale partnership
In progress · 2026–2027 · Zingarelho as partner
Understanding how a school feels. Finding ways to make it more welcoming.
A partnership coordinated by the Private Johannes-Gymnasium in Lahnstein, Germany, with Zingarelho as partner. The project adapts Citizen Sensing — first used to monitor air, noise and light — to observe sensory barriers at school, and involves students and teachers in designing responses with and for classmates who experience noise, light and crowds more intensely.
The Portuguese pilot takes place with the school cluster of Aljustrel. The planned work includes sensory maps, prototypes such as quiet corners and visual signage, a small real-time sensor network, teacher forums in both countries, exchanges of students and teachers, and open teaching resources. Results will be published here as they are documented.
Bio-art · Biofabrication · Supported by DGArtes
A Buinho Associação project · Zingarelho as supporting organisation
Mycelium, thistle and sound: bio-art residencies that end up in a school.
Led by Buinho Associação and supported by DGArtes, the Portuguese Directorate-General for the Arts, SUBSTRACTO brings four international bio-art residencies to Messejana to develop acoustic panels made of mycelium grown on thistle, a plant that is abundant in the Alentejo. Scientific collaboration comes from CEBAL, the agricultural and agri-food biotechnology centre in Beja.
The research leads to a permanent installation of the panels in a school in Aljustrel, developed with students who are especially sensitive to noise, followed by an exhibition circuit in Aljustrel, Castro Verde and Beja and a bilingual publication. The process is designed so that other schools and rural communities can adapt it.
Erasmus+ · School education · Cooperation partnership
In progress · A Buinho Associação project
Tactile models that let children read the world with their fingers.
A European partnership coordinated by Center IRIS, in Slovenia, with schools for blind and partially sighted pupils. The partners create 3D-printed tactile models that explain natural phenomena — such as a volcano in cross-section — together with teaching materials that schools can print and use.
Buinho contributes digital fabrication and 3D modelling from its FabLab in Messejana, the same FabLab where Zingarelho works.
Creative Europe · Cooperation project
In progress · A Buinho Associação project
Sensory maps of public spaces, drawn with neurodivergent people.
Coordinated by the School for Visually Impaired Pupils “Veljko Ramadanović” in Belgrade, Serbia, with Buinho and FabLab Cuenca, Spain. The project uses citizen sensing and participatory sensory mapping to make museums and other public spaces more welcoming for neurodivergent people, through sensing workshops, artist residencies, an open platform of sensory maps and training for educators and cultural professionals.
Erasmus+ · School education · Accreditation
Ongoing · Coordinated by Buinho Associação
Seven rural school clusters, one European development plan.
EIRA is the Erasmus+ school accreditation of a consortium coordinated by Buinho with seven school clusters of Baixo Alentejo — Aljustrel, Almodôvar, Castro Verde, Colos, Mértola, Ourique and Sabóia — and a teacher training centre. Each year, teachers take part in structured courses and job shadowing in other European countries, focused on digital skills, robotics, digital fabrication and maker culture.
The consortium grew out of the same schools where Buinho Educativo works, and turns that local relationship into a shared European plan.
Open tools
A Braille generator for 3D printing, a 3D viewer for tactile models, micro:bit extensions for environmental and sensory measurement, block-based programming and learning games: the tools developed in our projects are open source.
They are being gathered in the Buinho Academy toolbox, together with online courses.