Civic space at Vignole Island - Viticulture tradition as a recovery of territorial identity
A civic space that proposes a cultural-historical reinterpretation of the Vignole island, the viticulture tradition at the project's center. Vines and wine, elements that bind past and present together, play a central role in the lagoon tradition, which the project wants to recover. In a civic space such as an archaeo-enological park, wine becomes a symbol and means to mend relationships within the territory, its productive realities and within a community.
Local
Italy
Venice (Vignole Island of Venice Lagoon)
Mainly rural
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Alice Last name: Bigini Gender: Female Age: 25 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
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First name: Federica Last name: Bison Gender: Female Age: 24 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
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"Isola delle Vignole" is a little-known corner of the Venetian Lagoon. Once a tourist and horticultural land, today it suffers the effects of depopulation and a lack of territorial development. For this purpose, motivated by the association VERAS, the project aims to regenerate an unused state-owned area by recovering its productive heritage.
The winemaking tradition and wine, elements binding past and present, become symbols and means to mend the relationships with the territory and encourage an intergenerational exchange within the community.
The proposed civic space, dynamic and versatile, offers tastings and educational activities related to these to involve the community while at the same time triggering a virtuous network of contacts between regional realities. Leisure and education, united by the shared desire to protect and enhance the biodiversity of local wine, create the pretext to strengthen the sense of belonging - rediscovering its origins and traditions.
The structure - an "artificial" modular and pop-up row - is an ephemeral intervention and is in harmony with the natural environment. The positive social and economic impacts act from the local to the regional scale and spread a design approach that starts from the definitions of culture and identity.
Civic space
Viticulture tradition
Territorial heritage
Community engagement
Local wineries
The concept involves a non-intrusive intervention within a rural context in which nature is the protagonist.
Therefore, much importance has a temporary structure's realization that exploits pop-up solutions. For this purpose, the system consists of an "artificial" row that, by adding simple modular elements, is transformed into a functional and flexible space for various activities.
The modularity and the use of few and durable materials reduce the production costs and facilitate the eventual maintenance - limited and circumscribed to single pieces. Wood, steel, and fabric are readily available locally and do not burden transport costs.
Almost entirely free of flooring, the structure is moderately impacted on the ground, predominantly benefits from natural lighting, and requires a minimum energy use.
In future scenarios, the planned row could have new uses as a support structure for a proper vineyard or as a green area for the population, letting the vegetation regain its surface.
Among the main formal criteria of the project, there is a strong appeal to the monoculture systems of the vine. The sampled vineyards are the fundamental aesthetic references, mapped and reworked with a simplified and essential approach. To reinforce this appeal, the naturalness of the materials, their textures, and even the smells and flavors help to generate an atmosphere capable of arousing positive emotions.
The charm of the wine world and the simplicity of conviviality provide the background to the different experiences proposed - opportunities for social exchange and knowledge of the local history characteristic background. The tastings, along with the cultural events and workshops such as debates or practical activities, accompany the community to discover the tradition - moving from the past to the contemporary - at different levels of contact, which can be more or less immersive.
The “Isola delle Vignole” lagoon suffers from difficult accessibility due to a strong natural presence and weak maritime connections, both reasons why it is currently sparsely populated.
For this reason, the project is aimed at the isle's inhabitants, along with those of the Venetian area - almost entirely deprived of social spaces and meeting places. The tourist flows are limited and possibly only practicable in a slow and contained dimension.
To encourage participation, the experience is economically accessible to the community, making popular and inclusive a theme known for its elitist character and therefore associated with exclusivity. The structure's layout, easy and intuitive in the assembly, also requires the collaboration of individuals and therefore invites cooperation in the name of a genuine civic approach.
As a large ecosystem, the project is based on self-management and self-sustaining, made possible thanks to the network of virtuous contacts triggered - a multitude of particularities interested in becoming whole within a single and more extensive design.
The project offers different benefits to the various stakeholders. To the citizens, it provides a space of sociality, gathering, and dialogue. A space to discover the local productive and cultural realities, to experiment with waste practices and materials in the field of viticulture - strengthening the sense of belonging and recognition of the identity of their territory.
To local producers, authorities, institutions, associations, or studies, it is an opportunity to give visibility to their activities and projects and establish new professional contacts.
To "Isola delle Vignole" inhabitants and all the Venetians, it is established as an expedient to make known an unusual context of the lagoon, in particular the specificities of its islands, promoting a form of slow tourism.
The realization of the project is possible thanks to the involvement of numerous public and private entities. Mainly, the association VERAS, a non-profit organization born from the initial impulse of a group of Vignole’s residents to develop an argument on the island's future.
Other supporters are associations and consortia interested in the recovery and protection of the local wine biodiversity or historic vineyards attentive to the conservation and enhancement of this tradition.
Other collaborators include suppliers and producers of wine for tasting activities, as well as museums, studios, or companies for cultural and laboratory offerings.
All the subjects involved, from the local to the regional scale, are selected among those realities that, more than others, became carriers of the meaning of the project and its added value: recovering origins, traditions, and local products with practices that try to be as little invasive as possible on the environment and its biodiversity.
The approach to the project concerned a preliminary phase of historical framing of the intervention site to contextualize it and trace its origins. In this way, it was possible to outline the subsequent research constraints for the development of a theme that could be traced in the lagoon identity fabric.
The following deepening of the wine-growing tradition from the biological, organoleptic, and productive point of view laid the foundations for a design language identification - further translated into formal, aesthetic, and material elements. In this regard, it was essential to sample and map the main types of vineyards that have returned characteristic patterns.
These inputs' implementations with further technical insights have meant that the disciplines addressed so far converged in a practical structural system, but also symbolically effective: The wood returns the natural and sensory qualities of the vineyards and revives the seasonality.
Much attention was also given to the study of a modular pop-up system, in which the elements were self-supporting as well as easy to disassemble and transport and allocate to small storage spaces.
The project involves different levels of intervention: cultural, environmental and social. It is not a simple and additional tasting space within the wine scene but a symbolic center around which productive aspects and, most importantly, social ones gravitate.
The idea of wine present in the collective imagination is turned upside down and made usable in a key of reading invested with a new civic role. The innovation lies in the proposal of the theme aimed at educational and cultural functions, with an approach that looks to the short and long term without neglecting possible future scenarios.
There are various ways to replicate the proposed project. One type of replicability concerns the approach, the methodology behind the project that starts from territorial specificities to enhance the aspects and re-propose the characteristics at the formal level. Another type of replicability concerns the scalability of the structure, which can be translated into contexts with similar physical and cultural characteristics compared to the “Isola delle Vignole”.
Hopefully this will be the result of such an intervention, imagining the advantages that a network of similar projects could bring.
We live in a world in which climate change and globalization put a strain on diversity, causing a loss and homogenisation of territorial varieties, whose peculiarities are less and less valued. That is why it is of fundamental importance to give a new spirit and a new meaning to the places, communities and products that celebrate and protect local specificities and peculiarities.
Creation, renewal and regeneration of the environment - with the aim of reconnecting it to the historical heritage, local traditions and production realities - are the coordinates behind the project. In addition, there is the possibility to shape the future ambitions of the regional communities by developing processes and economic models based on specific cultures and skills.
The effect of these actions is to raise civic awareness of the possibilities and benefits of enhancing local specificities for the future development of good practices focused on them.
