LA CITTÁ LIBERA.
Off-Grid Participatory Design City Making.

La Città Libera is a performative installation that investigates participatory architectural forms of “off-grid neighbourship”.

The project consists of a toolbox that stimulates the public imagination to explore participatory and self-sufficient urbanization models. The toolbox contains 1:50 scale architectural elements used to assemble a hypothetical housing concept designed to host eight people according to “Swiss living standards”.

The toolbox provides a primary spatial taxonomy that enables participants to explore the syntax of a self-sufficient architectural language. Elements include walls, volumes, columns, multiple roof typologies, windows, photovoltaic panels, phytodepuration surfaces, solar panels, an edible garden, and a tree.
Each participant is provided with a toolbox to “develop” an urban plot in relation to their hypothetical neighbours. Through this collective process, participants explore how collaborative spatial development can enhance self-sufficient strategies and shared solutions. The workshop can be adapted to different mixed target groups and typically lasts a minimum of forty-five minutes, depending on participants’ age and level of engagement.

La Città Libera engages with the long tradition of high-quality, affordable housing research initiated by multiple authors since the 1950s, while introducing participatory space construction and energetic sustainability as central architectural concerns. The research originated from the Italian Pavilion commission for an off-grid pavilion developed to activate land confiscated from the Mafia in Southern Italy for the exhibition Taking Care at the XV Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. Since then, La Città Libera has been prototyped on several occasions within different institutions, including ETH Wohnforum Zurich and the FHNW Academy of Art and Design.

The current format was presented as a Vermittlung concept in the architecture section of the Swiss Art Awards at Art Basel in 2018. During the event, four daily workshops engaged the public in exploring the challenges of off-grid architecture and its social, spatial, and energetic implications.

Displace - The project displaces conventional housing models by shifting architectural focus from centralized infrastructure to collective, off-grid neighbourship and self-sufficient urban systems.

Expose - It exposes the spatial, energetic, and ecological components of housing, making visible the dependencies and choices embedded in architectural and urban design.

Mediate - La Città Libera mediates architectural knowledge through a participatory toolbox, translating complex design, energy, and sustainability principles into accessible, hands-on operations.

Activate - The project activates participants as co-designers and collaborators, requiring collective decision-making and spatial negotiation for the architectural system to emerge.