Urban regeneration: the school as a driving force with the project "Abitare il Paese - La cultura della domanda"

Rome, 12 January 2024. 

Thirty-five cities, from North to South of the country, are protagonists of the 5th edition of the project "Abitare il Paese- La cultura della domanda" carried out by the National Council of Architects, Planners, Landscapers and Conservators (CNAPPC) and the Fondazione Reggio Children-Centro Loris Malaguzzi and which had as theme "Activating educational communities: new generations for a future project".  Agrigento, Ancona, Bari, BAT-Barletta Andria Trani, Benevento, Brindisi, Caltanissetta, Chieti, Crotone, Cuneo, Genoa, Grosseto, Latina, Lecce, Macerata, Massa Carrara, Matera, Modena, Nuoro, Padova, Pescara, Prato, Ravenna, Reggio Calabria, Rome, Sassari, Savona, Syracuse, Taranto, Teramo, Treviso, Trieste, Varese, Venice, Vicenza.

Thanks to a renewed alliance between Architecture and Pedagogy "Abitare il Paese", since 2018, has placed the younger generations at the center of a project for the city of the future to expand their ability to elaborate their vision on the sense of inhabit the territories starting from the School as part of the wider community and define, throughspatial planning, strategies for a sustainable city fit for all. 

Since the launch of the Project in 2018, more than 5000 pupils and students from over 200 schools of different orders and degrees, together with more than 200 Architect tutors and teacher tutors - and 60 Territorial Orders of PPC Architects - have produced workshops, videos, photo sessions, designs, elaborated, etc - that testify to the strong incisiveness of a School that builds culture and promotes, within the community, new skills.

For Francesco Miceli, President of the CNAPPC, "the School is increasingly characterized as a driving force for a new way of living cities and territories that has its core in participatory action. Community services and schools are fundamental elements of any regenerative process. Culture, School, participation are extraordinary drivers.This is all the more significant today that the future of our country is in cities and urban regeneration represents the engine of change".

Lilia Cannarella, head of the Department for Participation, Social Inclusion and Subsidiarity of the CNAPPC, points out that "thanks to the research areas covered and the strategies adopted, the projects of "Abitare il Paese" they have been part of the Schools of every order and degree becoming a resource for the expansion of the training offer, favoring the development of transversal skills in an environment open to many protagonists. This is in the spirit of the Law 92 on new civic education and promoting,  in the perspective of the UN 2030 Agenda, the culture of social and economic environmental sustainability".

Carla Rinaldi, pedagogue and president of the Reggio Children’s Foundation, says that "the city as a widespread learning dimension is an achievement of this project".  "We are very grateful to the boys and girls who participated, with tutors, architects and teachers, and institutions - continues Rinaldi - Together they have rediscovered places in cities, sometimes managing to leave their mark and transform them. And so they also reaffirmed a common belonging and their own identity as citizens".

The results of the V edition of "Abitare il Paese" will be presented on January 18 in Rome at MAXXI - National Museum of the arts of the 21st century from 10 to 17, 30.

To open the proceedings, coordinated by Filippo Gaudenzi, TG1 journalist, the institutional greetings of Alessandro Giuli, President of MAXXI, Francesco Miceli and Carla Rinaldi. After a focus on the Project through the interventions of Lilia Cannarella and Barbara Donnici will follow two round tables with representatives of MIM, international organizations, experts and protagonists of some exemplary territorial experiences. Link to the programme ?

To conclude the day a workshop in which students will be protagonists during which the first draft of a map of values for "Inhabitare il Paese - La cultura della domanda" and that will help to start the sixth edition of the project.

It will be possible to follow the work in Live streaming, from 10.30, on YouTube channels of CNAPPC.

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