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

La Città Libera is a performative installation that aims to explore participatory "off-grid neighbourship" architectural forms.
La Città Libera consists of a toolbox that stimulates the general public's imagination to develop participative self-sufficient urbanization. The toolbox contains 1:50 architectural elements to assemble a hypothetical housing concept to host eight people at "swiss living standards".

The toolbox provides a primary spatial taxonomy that allows exploring the syntax of a self-sufficient architectural language: walls, volumes, columns, different roof shapes options, windows, photovoltaic panels, phitodepuration surfaces, solar panels, an edible garden and a tree.

Each participant will be provided with a toolbox to "develop" an urban plot next to their hypothetical neighbours. In this way, participants will explore how collaborative development can maximize self-sufficient strategies and solutions. The workshop can be held with the different mixed target group for a minimum of forty-five minutes, depending on the participants' interest and age.

La Città Libera explores the long tradition of high-quality, affordable housing construction initiated by many authors since the 1950s, introducing the participatory element of space construction and its' and energetic sustainability. The research started after the Italian Pavillion commission of an off-grid pavilion to activate land confiscated from the Mafia in the south of Italy for the exhibition "Taking Care" at XV Venice Biennale in 2016. After that, "La Città Libera" has been prototyped on several occasions and within different institutions, including ETH Wohnforun Zurich and FHNW Academy of Art and Design.
The current formula has been presented as a "vermittlung" concept in the Swiss Arts Awards' architecture section in Art Basel in 2018. Each day of the event, four workshops have been held to engage the public and explore the challenges of off-grid architecture and its consequences.