New European Bauhaus Prizes 2023

Initiative category

Identify the award category for which this initiative is being submitted
Reconnecting with nature

Email user
radicchileonello@yahoo.it

Basic information
Initiative title
Pietralunga - The Green Lung of Umbria

Full initiative Title
Pietralunga - The Green Lung of Umbria in the Green Heart of Italy

Please provide a short, catchy description of your initiative to be used in communication towards the public.
Pietralunga, a small village in the heart of Italy, in Umbria region, is a magical place, one of those territory where the time seems to be stopped and where the beauty of the nature floods the eyes. Together with my wife, born in Romania, we buy an old shabby looking country house and we start our new vision of connection with the nature: eco-tourism, sustainability, inclusion based on the sense of beauty and the re-connection with the nature. We plan to create an ecosystem for schools activity

What was the geographical scope of your intiative?
Cross-border/international

Where was your intiative implemented?
Location 1
Italy

Location 2
Romania

Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries
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If relevant, insert names of region(s)/municipality(ies) involved
Umbria Region in Italy and Salaj County in Romania

Does your initiative address mainly urban or rural issues?
It addresses urban-rural linkages

Does your initiative refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations (hard or soft investments)?
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)

Has your initiative benefited from EU programmes and/or funds?
No

Has your initiative won an EU prize with a monetary value awarded?
No

Does your initiative has a minimum level of maturity? The minimum level of maturity is exemplified by stakeholder/ initiative promoter commitment to implement the initiative in practice and a clear methodology /approach.
Yes

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?
As an individual
Please provide the contact details for the intiative promoter (the individual or representative of the organisation authorised to represent the intiative).
- First name: Leonello
  Last name: Radicchi
  Gender: Male
  Nationality: Italy
  Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Perenchies n. 9
  Town: Pietralunga
  Postal code: 06026
  Country: Italy
  Direct Tel: +393779830148
  E-mail: radicchileonello@yahoo.it
Social Media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
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In case my initiative is selected as a finalist of the NEB Prizes 2023, I agree to share the name (individual and/or organisation’s), email address, website and social media accounts indicated above with other NEB Prizes finalists. I also agree to publish the name (individual and/or organisation’s), website and social media accounts indicated above next to the public description of my initiative in the channels of the European Commission.
Yes

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes?
Press

Description of the initiative
Please provide a summary of your initiative
Pietralunga, a small village in the very heart of Italy, in Umbria region is a magical place, one of those territory where the time has stopped and the beauty of the nature floods the eyes. Together with my wife, born in Romania, we buy an old shabby looking country house and we start our new vision of connection with the nature: eco-tourism, sustainability, inclusion, based on the sense of beauty and the re-connection with the nature. We plan to create a open space where schools and schoolchildren can get in touch with the nature and learn about the natural resources, the sustainability, the green economy, the zero pollution, the biodiversity.
We plan to create laboratory about the re-use of the packaging, the recycle process, the healthy foods and the clean air.
We will create an organic vegetable garden - zero km products - using local seeds and we will cook ancient recipes for snacks.
We will create 4 apartments where we can accommodate up to 16-18 guests, that can explore the territory and re-connect with the nature.
We plan to renovate the entire country house with energy - efficient criteria, in order to obtain a green building in the middle of a circular economy.
We will create a totally green poll, using zero chemical products: we will use a local well and the water will be mixed with the necessary quantity of salt.
We will raise some small company animals like cats, dogs in order to give the possibility to the school children to play with them in open nature.
It will be a huge possibility to think about a new way of making school and taking lessons: it will be everything in open air, in the middle of the nature, all surrounded by the hills of Pietralunga, the greens of the forest and the breathtaking view in one of the most beautiful authentic village in Italy.

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with 5 key words.
nature

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
sustainability

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
quality of life and food

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
new places for instruction

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
biodiversity

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of sustainability and how these have been/will be met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
Environmental protection is the goal of sustainable development. Through our project we aim to change our unsustainable ways into more sustainable ones, by offering to the community a more balanced way of making school for now and future generations. Our project, even it is based in a small local and rural reality, consists in a long-term, integrated approach between private and public by developing and achieving a healthy community that can grow up only if we are able to teach to the new generation and to the young people the crucial role that nature has. We must teach them that we need to avoid the over consumption of key natural resources and we must conserve and enhance our resource base, by gradually changing the ways of living and studying and by a using the nature as our new home.
We must teach to the new generation that environmental protection, conservation of natural resources and the right to a healthy, clean and safe environment is the only way to have a future. We must all reduce pollution, we must use a healthy way of living and we must be inform about global environmental threats, such as climate change and poor air quality that must be reduced in order to protect human and environmental health.
We will use our "home" to make the basis of a new way of taking lessens and taking school: more possible in open air, in a fully contact with the nature, eating good and healthy food and playing with animals.

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions and cultural benefits) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
It will be a very important project with a deep impact in the society, even if this one is a small reality as Pietralunga. We will be able to host children each day, we will be able to give them space for their creativity by using the nature as their design theme and the love for the open air and the animals as positive emotion to develop.
The open air school can be intended as a open air laboratory, with benefits for the body and the soul, can sing and draw the sights of Pietralunga.
We can eat all together, we can plant and cultivate local seeds and fruits that we can use for our open air snacks.
They will learn by playing in open air!
Each day, we can host two classes one from 8 to 10 am and one from 10 to 12 pm so this project can permit to all the classes in Pietralunga to stay in open air, in contact with the nature for two days in a week.

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of inclusion (ranging from accessibility and affordability for all to inclusive governing systems, design for all principles or new societal models) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
Open air, nature, good food and sun are the main ingredients of this new proposal of making classes. In the middle of the nature we are all equal and we have the same access to the beauty and the happiness. The goal of all inclusive education system is that to provide to all students the most appropriate learning environments and opportunities for all of them in order to best achieve their potential. All children can learn and reach their full potential given opportunity, effective teaching and appropriate resources.
In our open country-house, we will provide to the wheelchair access and we will have the possibility to provide, if requested, a nurse service that can integrate if necessary, medical care and medicine treatment.

Please explain the way citizens benefiting from or affected by the initiative and civil society have been/will be involved in the initiative and what has been/will be the impact of this involvement on the initiative
All the community of Pietralunga will benefit from this experience because all the children will grow up in healthful way. We will ask to the local community to give their support, by taking part as volunteers at this project, everyone based on him own capacity. We will create a network that can be a model for a new way of learning all together: the aged people with the new generations.

Please explain how different stakeholders at various levels (local, regional, national, European) were engaged in the design and implementation of the initiative.
The city hall of Pietralunga, as first interlocutory of this project, will help us to promote, on the Pietralungatourism page, the activity of our country-house.
We will also request to the Umbria Region the support in promote this new way to taking classes and eco tourism, in order to expand our idea also at the nearest Region.

Please explain which disciplines and/ or knowledge fields were reflected in the design and implementation of your initiative. Please explain how representatives of these different fields interacted with each other, and what the added value of this process was
As an Anthropologist, my wife has consolidated knowledge about how the cultures mixed together with the nature. I am a technical consultant with important basis in electrical and mechanical field so we can mixed our backgrounds in order to create a very interesting project.
The last two years, during the pandemic, we all learn how important is to stay together, to stay in open nature, to put the accent on the sustainability, to the good way of leaving and eating.
Growing in an open place will really help our kids to re-create a new way of taking school: we must move beyond of the concept of the school made of cement and walls and think about the possibility to take advantage of places near the city that can permit a better way of thinking the future.

Please highlight the innovative character of the initiative, when compared to mainstream actions in the field of the initiative
This project aim to develop a new way of taking school: after the world pandemic period, it a necessity for all of us to re-gain the contact with the nature, the good life and the good practices that can help a society to grow.

Please describe which elements of your initiative could be replicated or transferred to other places, groups of beneficiaries and contexts. This may involve, for example, aspects of the methodology, technology, processes, products, learnings, etc.
This our proposal of a country-house that can be use non only for an eco tourism but also for helping schools to go out from the classical spaces, using new learning methods, developing more and more the fine arts such music and design, encouraging kids to use the nature as our home, to keep it clean and safe, because there is our future. This new way of integrated school as in and out can be replay in all the small villages in Italy where there will be the possibility to use a privare country-house for all the outdoor activities.

Please describe the methodology or approach used in your initiative.
The methodology will take into consideration the following keys point:
- Business strategy: we will need some extra funds in the begining and we will try also to use all our knowledge and our personal savings in order to initiate the project. In the first place, we plan to start with the rental, in the weekend of some apartment when this one will be ready and to use the country-house during the week for schools laboratory as indicated upper.
- Operational strategy: we must provide to the restructuring of the building taking into consideration the eco materials, the sustainability materials and local enterprises, in order to help the economy of the territory.
- Transformational strategy; this new way of making tourism can change the small village of Pietralunga because during the week there will be a lot of activities with the schools and Saturday and Sunday the structure will be rent for world wide tourist.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the initiative addresses by providing local solutions
We are strongly convinced that the local community should play the key role in this new way of thinking process that is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote the bond between the humans and the environment that surround us, in order to take into consideration the nature as our new Home. We must think new ways of making our environment and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
We want to empower local community and to encourage them to take part in this process that will help a foster solidarity by cherishing the values of community philanthropy (tolerance, empathy, care and peace) and to inspire other local small villages them by promoting this good practice.
Locally based solutions, like buying food and provisions from nearby sources, removing invasive species, preserve the nature or creating decentralized ways of learning and educational systems, help to move all the community toward sustainability

Please detail the scope of progress in the implementation of the initiative. This can include already demonstrated results/outputs related to the chosen Prizes category, and the already achieved benefits from the initiative for direct and indirect beneficiaries. This can also include a development plan of the initiative, with a particular attention to the steps envisaged in the year following the application, and including envisaged results and benefits from the initiative
I attached the permit of construction released by the city hall of Pietralunga one week before we buy the house. This permit was released on the name of the past owner and it is the proof that the country-house building has all the permit from the technical office. We buy the property on 6th of April and we can provide also the lawyer documents or public notary.
I also inform you that the property on almost 200 mq was already cleaned and we start some little maintenance

Please provide documents that demonstrate the maturity level of the initiative and commitment to implement the initiative in practice (e.g.: evaluation report, final or mid-term initiative report, certification, publications, building permit, grant agreement, letter of support, partnership agreement, etc.)
PDF
PDF
If relevant, please describe how your initiative contributes to developing new competences, especially in the context of the European competence framework on sustainability.
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Please attach at least 6 high resolution images or visual representations of your initiative to your application.
If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload or write below.
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By submitting your application you confirm that you are the copyright owner of the images provided and that they can be used by the European Commission for the purposes of promoting the New European Bauhaus on all platforms (websites, print, social media and other).
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that you are not in in one or more of the exclusion situations foreseen under Article 136 of the Financial Regulation.
Yes

By submitting this application, I declare that I am not related to the entities subject to EU restricted measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and subject to Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)1, and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05), which are not eligible to participate in any capacity.
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed initiative has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.
Yes

By submitting your application, you guarantee that you are the author or have the rights to proceed with the application and to authorise the use of the initiative and that you have obtained any necessary consents, licenses or assignments from third parties and included copyright notices when necessary
Yes

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their initiatives, initiative, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted initiative, initiative is found to infringe third party’s rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.
Yes

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you read and understand that the ‘Guide to Applicants’ of the NEB Prizes 2023, available online in the website of the NEB Prizes 2023, is an integral part of this application form and that it must therefore be observed when completing and submitting your application.
Yes