As a part of our work on the #SMOTIES project working in small and remote places we have the opportunity to visit all the partners that we are collaborating with. This gives us a chance to have valuable in person meetings to help develop collaborative methodology and to visit and learn more about each partner’s selected rural place.
Last month we had the opportunity to visit Politecno di Milano’s Design Department to work on bringing our approaches together before visiting some rural sites that are being considered for study. The politecno is home to over 40,000 students studying design, engineering and architecture and is considered one of the top universities in the world for this. After meeting and sharing exciting ideas over how to bring our process, analysis and impact methodologies together we had the opportunity to see some of the labs on campus, from photography studios to prototyping or pattern cutting.
Shortly after we left to drive out to Albugnano, a comune in the Province of Asti in the Italian region Piedmon. We were joined by Politecnico di Milano’s ‘Local Hero’ Andrea, the founder of Ca’Mariuccia ‘an ethical and organic farm, guided by the principles of permaculture and the dissemination of eco-sustainable methods and practices. – //www.camariuccia.it/en/’ who joined us on a tour of the Abbey of Vezzolano, a Gothic-Romanesque church dating from the 11th Century. In the evening we visited one of several businesses Andrea has in the area, AllAsilo Cucina Cultura People, in the small town of Cerreto d’Asti. The commune, like many in the area had faced a harsh depopulation, at one time home to 1000 residents, now it is simply 200, this was the story for many of the places we visited in the region, despite it being recognised as an area of natural beauty by UNESCO and taking part in the €1 home schemes.
The next day we reconvened at Nicola Restauri, it was an example of a phenomenon called a ‘local living lab’ that we are exploring within SMOTIES. Living laboratory is a research term emerged from MIT that has since taken on multiple definitions as it is applied across different disciplines. Here we see a place that has been a site for the sharing of knowledge and the preservation of culture since the 1940’s. Nicola Restauri is a purpose built site for the restoration of classical artworks, it features large south facing windows as much of the restoration must only be carried out with natural light, as well as purpose built machinery for the careful moving of the artwork and an extensive historical pigment library. Nicola employs over 20 staff members featuring art historians, architects and highly specialist restorers, all in the small commune of Aramengo.
In the afternoon Andrea returned to show us a new project that is being worked on in the local area. The village of x has faced so much depopulation that like many other places in the area, it was forced to close it’s school when there were only 8 pupils in attendance. This led to further depopulation with now only 2 pupils of school age in the area. Whilst a harsh reminder of the difficulties faced by these rural spaces, Andrea also saw this as an opportunity to reinvigorate the culture of the region and is attempting to transform the space into a place where many winemakers, farmers and artisans can gather to sell their produce and make connections with each other. Andrea tells us that this has already started, he was instrumental in ensuring that all wine produced in Albugnano shared the same label for the first time, helping build a name for the wine unique to this region to build upon the thriving wine tourism of Piedmont.
Andrea then guided us to the final destination, and the apple of his eye, the farm, restaurant and
Hotel Ca’ Mariuccia where we held our final meetings of our visit discussing the future processes and toolkits that needed to be undertaken and had a chance to experience Ca’Mariuccia with a trip around its farm, its local produce shop and to have the ‘pizza experience’. It was inspiring hearing Andrea speak about the work and all he does in the region, as well as his inspiration for leaving the city and taking a chance on such a rural space facing depopulation.
It was a great trip and opportunity for us at Clear Village to gain further feedback on our impact measurement work. Collaboration and Co-creation is at the heart of our approach so it was very valuable to meet and understand all the partners more, something that is hard to do on zoom! It helps us understand where each partner is coming from, their limits, experience and bias, and therefore how to design our work in such a way that it will be most effective.
