PROJECTS 2/2

2008

RIKEA is a prototype for a micro-urban structure that conceives the flea market Ballon in Porta Palazzo, Turin, as a system of "instant urbanization". The project was prototyped through a participatory process with the merchant community, IKEA and Italcementi.

The Ballon is a weakly flea market that happens every saturday mornings and is one of the poorest in Europe. The project took place after a competition launched by the Italian Magazine Abitare, directed by Stefano Boeri on Geodesign, followed by an exhibition at Pala Fuksas, 2008. The competition asked to connect communities, companies and designers to tackle one of the city's challenges.

Among the challenges of any flea markets, the Ballon expressed the need to:
- Mark on the pavement each merchant position.
- Create a temporary roof system to protect the goods from the weather.
- Develop a system to transfer the goods from the car park to the merchant position, preventing theft while the goods are left unattended during the market preparation.

The project, realized in collaboration with the merchants, proposed to
Combine all the three challenges in one system, which we called micro infrastructure consisting of tiles to recognize the merchants' position in the public space (prototype thanks to Italcementi). The tiles are designed to be customized and install elements of the system "broder" produced by IKEA to support temporary shelters. Furthermore, the foldable sofa "svingen" (IKEA) is adapted to realize a trolley for goods delivery and showcase them during the market times.

The project received a special mention at the "squat city" exhibition at the 4th Rotterdam Architecture Biennale in 2009.

Design

RIKEA.
Community Project, Flea Market Turin, Italy.

Microstructures for instant urbanization, Porta Palazzo's flea market square, Turin. [with Marco Lampugnani]

2007

Design

HUMAN CAMOUFLAGE. Uniform Pattern for Civil Purposes.

Human Camouflage, initially designed for a humanitarian organization to demine fields in war zones, aims (symbolically) to camouflage civilians in today's multicultural society.

2005

Design

ITALIA IN FUMO.
In Defence of the Italian Constitution, Participatory Installation, Milano, Italy.

Italia in Fumo (in Italian "Italy up in Smoke") is a project for the promotion of the Italian Constitution made in collaboration with the graphic designer Peppe Clemente. Its fundamental articles and the rights and duties of the citizens are framed within the graphic device of the EU non-smoking policy. The project involved designing a DIY graphic device to transform all possible citizens as the media to promote one of the most beautiful Constitutions ever written.

2004

Design

RE-USE. Sustainable Behaviour.

Re-Use is designed to empower the user to become an "anticonsumer" and create a notebook with the verso of A4 office paper.
The project started in 2004 to offer a tool to implement tangible ways of approaching environmental sustainability.

2004

A vertical public space.
The Dreaming Wall is a project for a blank wall in a historical square of Milan. The Wall is conceived as an Info Forum: a public vertical space reflecting the dual character of the city, which has a double life as the city and the piazza do – white and subdued during the day and glowing, luminous green at night.

Collective subconscious. The Wall is seen as a cultural, simultaneous, and random collaborative communication tool, creating a visual buzz. As a public digital billboard, the wall surface at night randomly displays text messages sent by people standing on the square or anywhere else in the world through the Internet. The messages are generated in real-time by a chemical reaction between a computer-controlled UV laser projection and glowing panels on the Wall. This release the text provoked by the UV light, which is invisible. A message would last few minutes before being entirely re-absorbed by the Wall.

Its constant transience metaphorically suggests the subconsciousness of a city asleep.

Architecture

DREAMING WALL.
Public Installation, Milano, Italy.

A Vertical Public Space. The Wall is an Info Forum: the messages are generated in real-time by a chemical reaction between a computer-controlled UV laser projection and glowing panels. Its constant transience metaphorically suggests the subconsciousness of a city asleep.

2003

Valokalenteri means, in Finnish, "light calendar". It shows the minutes in which the sun is above the horizon at Helsinki latitudes. The project consists of a large inkjet print: one centimetre per day in width and one millimetre per minute of the day in length. The night is displayed in black during the day in white.

The project reflects on the correlation between natural cycles, such as equinoxes and solstices, related to life cycles, such as life and death, strongly connected at Finnish latitudes.

Valokalenteri was initiated in January 2003 during an artist residency in Nykarleby, Finland. The calendar displays Finnland's national languages, Finnish and Swedish.

The calendar also displays with different coloured lines the path of the sunlight at the different latitudes of the Finnish territory in the proximity of Helsinki's meridian: Jyväskylä, Oulu, Rovaniemi, Utsjoki.

Design

VALOKALENTERI.
The Calendar of Light.

Valokalenteri means, in Finnish, "light calendar". It shows the minutes in which the sun is above the horizon at Helsinki latitudes. The project consists of a large inkjet print: one centimetre per day in width and one millimetre per minute of the day in length. The night is displayed in black during the day in white.

2001

Human World aims at displaying the world's political and cultural information on a population basis. The project raises the question of understanding the politics of culture as a demographic challenge. In these cartograms, each country is scaled proportionally to its population: 1 pixel = 1000 people.
The project refers to Alieghero Boetti's work reversing the idea of the association flag-territory to the concept of flag-population.
Human World depicts the demographic scenario of a world where everyone is technically connected via the internet and social media.

The first of this ongoing project is the Internet Users World Map, made in reaction to the G8 protest repression in Genoa in 2001.

In this collection:
Death Penalty Enforcement in World Countries, 2006.
Population Represented by Female Head of State, 2006.
Population in Free Countries, 2006.
Internet Users World Map, 2001.

Design

HUMAN WORLD. A Demographic Atlas of Politics of Culture.

Human World aims at displaying the world's political and cultural information on a population basis. The project raises the question of understanding the politics of culture as a demographic challenge. In these cartograms, each country is scaled proportionally to its population: 1 pixel = 1000 people.

2008

RIKEA. Community Project, Flea Market Turin, Italy.

2007

HUMAN CAMOUFLAGE. Uniform Pattern for Civil Purposes.

2005

ITALIA IN FUMO. In Defence of the Italian Constitution, Participatory Installation, Milano, Italy.

2004

RE-USE. Sustainable Behaviour.

2004

DREAMING WALL. Public Installation, Milano, Italy.

2003

VALOKALENTERI. The Calendar of Light.

2001

HUMAN WORLD. A Demographic Atlas of Politics of Culture.

RIKEA.
Community Project, Flea Market Turin, Italy.

ITALIA IN FUMO.
In Defence of the Italian Constitution, Participatory Installation, Milano, Italy.

DREAMING WALL.
Public Installation, Milano, Italy.

VALOKALENTERI.
The Calendar of Light.