M21: A MODERNIZED FARMERS SOCIETY

National design competition: AAA Architetti Cercasi
Award: First Prize
Year: 2016
Site: Bari, Italy
Client: Confcooperative Federabitazione Nazionale, Fondosviluppo spa
Collaborators: F.Ferrante, G.D.Vulpio

The industrial civilisation we live in wastes a huge amount of energy. People living in an industrial developed country consume, on average, ten times more the energy then an individual of the Third World. We remain aware that a lot of energy is needed to live well but at the same time we cannot ignore that low cost energy era is over.
Therefore, facing the increasing resources costs and the progressive depletion of resources, it is important to think of a new policy that can reduce energy waste, saving, precisely, energy. It is necessary to focus on the concept of a new “modernized agricultural society” based on its own self-sufficiency. We believe that this future perspective is possible and that and that good architecture can help trigger processes of change. If a district  is not capable of  self-sustenance will become another dependant part of the nearest city centre. The proposed architecture follows social dynamics of cooperation between the inhabitants and organizes its spaces in continuity with the Mediterranean way of living. The project integrates with the urban structure of new planning through a dialogue between the new district and the landscape context in which it is inserted. The design imposed by the Piano Particolareggiato, the large distance between the city centre and the project area, the sharp cut between urban areas, due to the presence of the main infrastructure axis of the city (SS16), contributes to the condition of isolation of the area. However, the remarkable landscape resources of a countryside that will soon become a city, forced the designers to face the theme of integration between the rigid scheme of the urban grid and the fragmented pattern of the cultivated areas. A new “connective tissue” able to accommodate a new model of living in close relationship with traditional rural activities. The project is an attempt to go beyond the monofunctional logic of the building, introducing several social common spaces in order to give the inhabitats of the neighbourhood a place to meet and  perform different kinds of activities.