Cyber gardening

The Architectural Association's recent Visiting School at Spazio FMG per l'Architettura sought to create new systemic models imagining new agro-urban prototypes.

Characterised for many centuries by the marcite (water meadows) agricultural system, what operational identity might Milan's future urban agricultural landscapes take in the 21st century? What new sustainable system would be worthwhile, and how could citizens be brought closer into this eco-architectural vision? These are urgent questions for a city preparing for the EXPO in 2015 with the theme "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life".

CyberGardening the City, the Architectural Association's Visiting School in Milan, codirected by Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto of ecoLogicStudio, architects and teachers at the AA, was held this summer at the Spazio FMG per l'Architettura. In this ten-day workshop, 25 international students went to Milan's Parco Sud to research five very different farms (cascine), talking with farmers and exploring their landscapes and facilities. Their motives and agenda were to create new systemic models imagining new agro-urban prototypes — an eco-architecture to help facilitate new urban cultural patterns that strengthen, and are strengthened by agricultural values and practice.

There are multiple scenarios to consider: firstly, agriculture within the city, more traditionally in the peripheral areas and in abandoned industrial spaces (as evidenced in the contemporary reinvention of Detroit). Milan also needs a better relationship with its surrounding smaller towns. So ecoLogicStudio's focus is timely. "Maybe the new urbanity — the fourth scenario — is where the boundary of the city will disappear in the countryside and the countryside becomes part of the city", Luigi Nefasto, one of the participating students, feels. The culminatory roundtable with Stefano Boeri (architect, urban planner and Milan's Councillor of Culture, Fashion and Design), Aldo Cibic (architect founder of Cibic & Partners), Matteo Gatto (Director of the thematic areas of Milan EXPO), Richard Ingersoll (Professor of Architectural History at Syracuse University in Florence), Luca Molinari (Director of Spazio FMG), Pasquero, Poletto and myself drew to Spazio FMG a good audience of locals, including one of the farmers and media representatives. The debate brought home just how applicable this design approach could be to other global scenarios in which there is a need to bond farming cultures and the city, as well as to Milan.

Debate and project exhibition at Milan's Spazio FMG per l'Architettura, with Marco Poletto (sitting, left), Lucy Bullivant (behind him) e Aldo Cibic (sitting, right). Photo by Mauro Consilvio – SpazioFMG

For their research and development the students undertook digital mapping through a self-devised interface based on Twitter, to breed a new system of consumption points of locally produced agricultural products — milk, cheese and cereals. These are intended to function as socio-cultural attractors within the imagined civic "cyber-garden". ecoLogicStudio use not only QR codes as locative media sourcing information via mobile phones but also the socially driven Twitter. Using people in this way rather than streets and buildings is a new way to investigate the city as part of the making of an urban plan.

<em>CyberGardening the City</em>: view of an urben cyber garden — *CyberGardening the City*: view of an urben cyber garden

Moreover the students' proposed synthetic models — which draw on and reinvents the notion of a "filiera alimentare", or food supply chain — is a highly innovative approach to urban design. To understand this more profoundly they were tutored in the shaping of a critical written narrative: their own independent viewpoints on the agro-urban scenarios and their contemporary cultural, economic and technological factors, with each of the three groups producing their own op-ed, which will be published in the coming week.

For their research and development the students undertook digital mapping through a self-devised interface based on Twitter

Marco Poletto presents the student's work. Photo by Mauro Consilvio – SpazioFMG

AA Visiting School Milan Directors: Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto, ecoLogicStudio
Tutors: Andrea Bugli, Lucy Bullivant, Immanuel Koh
Scientific Committee: Luca Molinari and Simona Galateo
Students:
cyberRicotta: Andre Figueiredo (Brazil), Katie McClure (UK), Luigi Nefasto (Italy), Jonathan Sutanto (Indonesia), Ismet Hakan Yarman (Turkey), Hyunjin Yoo (South Korea)
cyberFrisona: Amaia Arana (Spain), Elena Fadeeva (Russia), Monisha Prakash (India), Melanie Sugiarti (Indonesia), Beatriz Villahoz Herrero (Spain)
cyberCereal: Anita Halim (Indonesia), Daria Sheveleva (Russia), Patricia Silva Ojea (Spain), Khushboo Sonigera (India), Victoria Eugenia Soto Maga¡n (Spain)

The show at Milan's Spazio FMG per l'Architettura

Timeless icons: the Marenco sofa by arflex

Sponsored content

Cyber gardening

The Architectural Association's recent Visiting School at Spazio FMG per l'Architettura sought to create new systemic models imagining new agro-urban prototypes.

Metamorphosis: when ceramics lives with technology

Timeless icons: the Marenco sofa by arflex

Latest on News

Latest on Domus