land-CR.AF.T.ED
A PROTOTYPE OF SOCIAL HOUSING COMBINED WITH PIXEL-FARMING, A NEW VISION OF LIVING IN BALANCE BETWEEN THE BUILT AND THE NATURE
SOCIAL HOUSING and PIXEL-FARMING: a challenge on which the Mayor of Peccioli, Renzo Macelloni and architect Maria Alessandra Segantini, CEO of C+S Architects, are betting to repopulate the smaller towns in Italy.
Segantini: “It is a new vision to give everyone a social home capable of generating quality food at affordable prices, regenerating impoverished landscapes, building cohesive multi-ethnic and multicultural communities, de-carbonising the construction sector and introducing innovation and circularity in the construction field to restore balance between buildings and nature.”
C+S Architects (an architecture office based between Treviso and London, recent winner of the San Marino Roll of Honor and Italian Architect 2022) proposes “land-CR.AF.T.ED” (“Community Reinvent Affordable Food Through Ecologic Design”, ed.) a masterplan in Peccioli, in the province of Pisa, in Tuscany, on behalf of the municipal administration as a response to the ecological, economic and social issues crucial in the processes of contemporary transformation of cities and landscapes.
Among these is land consumption. According to United Nations data, more than half of human beings now live in urbanized areas which are destined to increase significantly in the coming years with consequent depopulation of rural areas. This process is not accompanied by processes of re-naturalization of abandoned territories but rather we are witnessing the consumption of new land (in Italy in 2022, 7,677 hectares of land was consumed, i.e. 24 hectares per day, 10% more than the previous year).
“It seems like a contradiction - says Maria Alessandra Segantini - who, with Carlo Cappai, carried out research and collected data on the topic as full professor and head of two research groups respectively at the Universities of Hasselt and London and in a joint venture with the University of Syracuse - the data indicate a huge movement towards urban centers and we would expect the advancement of re-naturalization processes, but this is not the case. New soil continues to be consumed. With our research we have also discovered other interesting trends in the composition of the housing mix in rural areas: if on the one hand the number of direct farmers who were once also the owners of the land has decreased, the number of temporary workers with multi-ethnic backgrounds has increased, bed and breakfasts and farmhouses have appeared everywhere to satisfy tourist requests, museums of local crops, tasting spaces, immaculate villages that tell the story of the detachment from farms, which themselves, however at the same time are becoming increasingly automated and digital, offering an interesting toolkit for continuing to work remotely until arriving at the design of exoskeletons that allow contact with nature and farming activities for a constantly aging population, in an Italy affected by significant processes of depopulation, migration of young people and loss of resources. ”
The research data on a global scale represented a potential to inform design, when C+S Architects was contacted by Mayor Macelloni for the regeneration project of the Santo Stefano area in the municipality of Peccioli (province of Pisa, in Tuscany) to build a complex of twelve public social housing and services.
It is an area of 11.76 hectares with a building capacity of less than 3,000 m2.
Located downstream from the Apennine village of Peccioli, Santo Stefano appears as a large free lot, with the ruins of some buildings serving agricultural work.
Macelloni declares: “We asked C+S Architects to design a complex of public social housing in the Santo Stefano area and the architects gave us back a cutting-edge vision that makes the land productive by introducing arboriculture, that improves the view from the high and the quality of the air between two traffic arteries, while at the same time reconnecting the inhabitants of the new social housing units to the land, building a multi-ethnic and multicultural community. The all-round sustainability (economic, environmental, and social) of the proposed vision puts us at the center of teamwork that looks to the future of our landscapes. The discussion with the Region on this master plan is imminent and we will work with them to create this prototype of sustainable development between built and nature, between tradition and innovation".
“We worked with the agricultural landscape on different scales. - comments Segantini - On the macro scale we have recovered the theme of arboriculture (alternating major ash trees and poplars with multi-objective or mixed polycyclic planting) which redesigns a landscape that naturally regenerates, also becoming an economic resource for the Municipality, in line with some local examples and therefore also easy in terms of management.
The new landscape is designed by a series of circular woods served by paths for maintenance and cutting, water collection basins for irrigation and shelters for agricultural equipment. This landscape has allowed us to bring back to life the rural buildings that were poorly suited to the old functions and which have been transformed into a reception area with a tourist offer and collective spaces for the new community that will inhabit the Santo Stefano area."
But it is precisely the latter that is a further element of interest in the project. The twelve new social residences requested by the administration were designed as a community of micro-farms that translate the system of historic Tuscan farmhouses into contemporary forms.
The dimensions vary from 80 to 130 m2, each unit is characterized by a living room/kitchen space and one, two or three bedrooms, according to the classic canons of social housing.
Each unit is designed by a raw earth enclosure which also defines arable land. The innovative agricultural concept of 'pixel-farming' comes into play here, where it is the variety of species and biodiversity that guarantee high productivity. The data collected demonstrates extraordinary results in the quality of the products resulting from this process, which in this way can be used locally, becoming sustainable food in ecological and economic terms.
The watchword is therefore an innovation that feeds on the typological roots, reinterpreting in a contemporary key the farmhouse of the Tuscan Apennines but also of all of Central Italy and in the same way reconnecting it to cultivation by introducing the innovative technique of 'pixel farming'.
“I spent part of my childhood among the gullies, vineyards and peach orchards of Emilia Romagna, where my father lived who, alongside his work, planted olive trees and all possible species that he often brought with him from other countries in the world, creating a special place for biodiversity' - recalls Segantini - 'this project feeds on those roots and combines them with innovative techniques both in terms of agriculture and construction.
The proposed model that combines social housing with agriculture is innovative.
The agricultural typologies are innovative: from arboriculture to pixel farming.
The building typologies are innovative and translate the traditional Tuscan farmhouse into contemporary forms.
The construction techniques are innovative: raw earth or 3D printing, wood for the horizontal and vertical structures, oxidized copper or zinc for the roofs which have been designed like leaves leaning against the walls. All construction techniques that promote decarbonisation in the construction sector, currently responsible for 37% of total CO2 emissions.
The prefabrication system of the new residences is innovative and has been designed as an assembly kit that can be recycled at the end of the buildings' life.
The social mix is innovative with the construction of a multi-ethnic community that is nourished by the bond with the land, which will have quality self-produced food available to share, mixing knowledge but also local seeds with those coming from other countries in the world.
All-round sustainability for Peccioli therefore, who with this project launches Land-CR.AF.T.ED: a use of land in balance between the plants and animals.
From land consumption to the production of a new landscape that feeds on the cultures of the communities and produces a new culture and sense of belonging in the perspective of a young generation that looks to Italy as the country in which to build its own future.
