Village design experiment by residents of Sicily’s underdeveloped countryside

Pavara, a rural village in the southern part of the Italian island of Sicily. Just over a decade ago, it was a notorious town for the highest unemployment rate in Italy. Although it is only 8 km away from the valley of the temple of Agrigento, one of Sicily’s representative tourist destinations, it was an abandoned neighborhood that could not appear on any of the tourist maps. However, with the promotion of the Farm Cultural Park project in 2010, it transformed into an art village that attracts artists and tourists from all over the world. In 2019, a biennale emerged under the title of’Countless Cities’.

‘Countless Cities’ of Italy was selected for the 2nd Human City Design Awards hosted by the Seoul Design Foundation (CEO Kyung-ran Choi). It is an international award given to a design project (designer or group) that presents the vision of a city where everyday life is happy and a city of the future. In the first of 2019, an innovation project promoted for residents in Dunoon, a small city in South Africa, was selected as the grand prize, and this time, the urban regeneration project achieved by art and design was selected as the grand prize and won a prize of 100 million won. .

99 projects from 31 countries participated in this year’s Human City Awards. This is an increase of 32% compared to 2019, when 75 projects from 25 countries applied, indicating the high interest of the world design world. The grand prize was selected after a meeting of the Steering Committee consisting of world-class experts in urban research and design and a discussion of the jury.

Countless Cities is an ambitious project that transforms a neighborhood alley into a contemporary art exhibition and community space. It is a program that uses the outer wall of a neighborhood building as a canvas for huge paintings, and uses labyrinth-like alleys and squares as well as small stone structures as exhibition halls for art works such as sculptures and paintings. In the neighborhood that has been transformed into an art space, new galleries have been created one after another, tea houses, bookstores, sandwich shops, and champagne bars have been lively, and 120,000 tourists flocked from European countries a year.

The project began when lawyer Andrea Bartoli bought an abandoned house in the village and used it as a space for art exhibitions. Since then, photographers, urban planners, universities, and other public and private sectors have participated, and work has grown. “I’m tired of having to always go somewhere like New York or London to see things that are interesting to see,” said Bartoly, who has traveled all over the world as an art lover. “We started looking for ways to change and improve where we live.” Local residents, including an elderly woman called’Seven Aunts’, directly participated in projects such as building a pavilion. Programs such as a children’s architecture school were created, and artists from all over the world came in line to install public art works. In an online interview, Bartoli said, “As the villagers who had been underdeveloped as mafias joined forces, the village became vibrant.

“The Palm Cultural Park is a remarkable example of how residents dreamed of the future of the city, designed and improved it themselves, bringing new life to the city,” said Charles Landry, a world authority on creative cities and chairman of the Human City Design Awards. Said.

Other grand prize nominations this year were also controversial. The’Sururu Da Mundau’ project in the village of Bergel, Brazil, is an example of breathing the local economy with a product made from waste. Created a source of income. The judges appreciated the finding of an eco-friendly and economically sustainable solution in the village suffering from waste.

The Fuzhou-Urban Connector, a highland forest trail designed by Singapore-based LOOK Architects, also attracted attention. This 19km long walkway made of six deck modules and steel grids in a natural forest in Fuzhou, China, was evaluated as improving the accessibility of residents to nature. In addition, Indonesia’s’Airborne.bdg’, which created a slum next to an airplane intersection, and Korea’s’Eden Paradise Memorial,’ project, which reborn a memorial space into a space of happiness for everyday life, attracted attention. Dragged.

In this year’s Human City Awards, the non-face-to-face screening process itself was a new experiment. The Steering Committee, consisting of 12 domestic and foreign experts, was held 10 times, and 5 judges went through 3 judging meetings to select the final candidates and grand prizes for the 10 teams. Judges include Chairman Landry, Stefano Micheli (Professor of Business Administration at the University of Venice, Italy), Anya Sirota (Associate Professor at the University of Michigan University of Architecture and Urbanism, Taubman), Lu Xiaobo (Dean of the Academy of Art and Design, Tsinghua University, China), Seung-Hui Kim (Department of Architecture, Seoul National University) Professor), etc.
The judges focused on five values: whether it is operated with the participation of the residents and is sustainable, is it creative and innovative, how public is it, how participation and cooperation is achieved, and how it has a good impact. Landry Judge said, “Many projects were interesting because they showed diverse approaches to what people-centered designed cities are.” The belief of the Human City Design Awards is that of several projects that strive to make cities a better place to live. Is to share it with the world.”

Seoul Design Foundation CEO Choi Gyeong-ran said, “It is a difficult situation due to Corona 19, but now, we desperately need a discussion to restore the human-centered urbanity through design through participation and cooperation. I hope that it will develop into a contest to present the message.”

Eunjoo Lee, Senior Reporter of Culture [email protected]