"The Agritecture Paradigm" | Copparo/Ferrara | March 2019

"The Agritecture Paradigm" by Politecnico di Milano + TerraViva Workshop + Centro Studi Dante Bighi + Comune di Copparo.

Italy underwent a rapid transformation after World War II, from a primarily agricultural economy to an industrial one. These changes have left many disjunctures and anomalies in what was previously a relatively harmonious rural/urban fabric. Ferrara is surrounded by several smaller cities, such as Copparo, that were once the centers of agricultural production, now located in the UNESCO landscape between Ferrara and the coast, part of a huge naturalistic national park known as “Parco del Delta del Po”. The territory was organized by the canals and major deviations of the Po River. Copparo, a small city of 17,000, sits 25 km to the north east of Ferrara. The graphic designer, Dante Bighi (1926-1994), who worked mostly in Milan, was born here and here built a villa known as “Villa Bighi”, that has been converted into a museum/foundation where this specific workshop has its origins. The activities of the course will be included in the Program of the “Mese dell’Ambiente” organized in March by the local municipality.

Like many small cities in Italy, Copparo contains remnants of an agro-industrial past that no longer fit into contemporary life. In this workshop we will be working with an overall concept of how to structure an agricultural park, an idea that originated in Milan with the Parco Agricolo Sud, and has been applied in Barcelona, Pamplona, Aachen and several other European contexts. We will work on three sites that range in scale from a small garden, a large connecting landscape, and an agricultural extension. Students will investigate the social and environmental potential of Copparo and propose, through models, projects, and performance, how to better utilize the city’s resources and stimulate a newly productive urban/rural city.

Photo Credits © Eugenia Bolla, Stefano Lardera, Toufic Rifai, Aleša Metka Micacchi