NewItalianBlood non profit MasterLabs
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
The New Italian Blood MasterLab programme is a living prototype of the New European Bauhaus.
We approach education, participation, design and construction through interdisciplinary collaborative, bottom-up strategies.
Since 2013, together with local stakeholders, we apply our knowledge to regenerate common and confiscated goods from mafias.
Our venue is the Salerno ferry terminal by Zaha Hadid, a multi-use inclusive building. We offer fellowships to young designers, sociologists & artists.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
The NewItalianBlood Independent School aims to combine ethics, professional practice, research, local heritage and international experience. Our systemic approach to sustainability is the cornerstone for an interdisciplinary strategy of planning, design, active preservation of the environment and socio-economic development.
NIB offers in Salerno and in the Unesco site of the Amalfi Coast an open space for conferences, seminars, workshops, exhibitions and two postgraduate MasterLabs: Architecture|Environment and Design|Bim.
In 7 MasterLabs, 200 participants, chosen between talented designers and artists, from all over the country, developed 100 urban, architectural, restoration, landscape and artistic projects. In addition, we work on renovation projects in critical fields such as high-crime areas in Campania and Sicily. We design the reuse of 30 confiscated public spaces and buildings from the mafias in collaboration with local institutions.
Our MasterLabs are a 5+3 month full-time courses, hosted in the Salerno Ferry terminal, an astonishing architecture by the sea between Salerno and the Amalfi Coast, designed by Zahah Hadid. We organize field trips, to visit construction sites, icon architecture, landscapes and the most innovative company in terms of craftsmanship, materials and innovation. Thanks to our strong network among architecture studios and companies, at the end of the study period each student has rights for a paid internship in Italy or Europe.
NIB has implemented a cultural, education and professional center in Salerno that contributes to sustainable development (500 events organized). The exploration of paramount architectures in Campania by world leading firms such as Piano, Fuksas, Portoghesi, Hadid, Chipperfield, Calatrava, Perrault, Siza, Miralles Tagliabue, alongside the masterpieces of the masters Soleri, Ponti and Niemeyer, grafted in the extraordinary landscape of the Amalfi Coast, constitute a precious framework for debate and inspiration.
Key objectives for sustainability
Sustainability is a crucial point of our mission. Our interdisciplinary work is based on two integrated approaches.
On one hand, our MasterLabs aims to qualify young creative professionals through learnin by doing experiences, processes and projects. We strongly believe that motivating new talented individuals in taking care of their territory would both trigger a deep consciousness of criticalities and implement regional progress strategies. Therefore professionals and artists will help to create stronger and more resilient communities, able to preserve their own environments and develop local values.
On the other hand, we, collaborating with local stakeholders, fundations and institutions, help to develop ideas, arrange funding campaigns and manage regeneration projects for both common and mafia’s confiscated goods. Today in Italy there are 35.000 estates confiscated from criminal associations with a value of approximately 35 billions of euros. This stolen patrimony, if recovered and managed in a proper way, would surely represent an unexpected source of capital, boosting local economies. Every land, public space or building reclaimed from mafias represents a brilliant opportunity to improve environmental sustainability while enriching the social-economical fields.
Moreover, NIB's main goal is to establish a cultural infrastructure, following european models of coworking and cooperation, among universities, stakeholders and local governments.
We are promoting innovative instruments such as BIM and CGI to digitize and optimize constructions, forecasting a new paradigm of sustainable urbanization. Since 2013 seven MasterLabs editions have been completed with almost 200 participants, 100 projects developed and 100% of post-master professional placements.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
We do believe in public art as a medium for social and urban rebirth. Environmental art had an outstanding power in renovation and enriching isolated communities' welfare. For instance, in Sicily, the huge ‘Cretto’ by Alberto Burri transformed a distroyed village into one of the largest and stunishing art icons. Nevertheless, many artworks such as Marriques' works in Lanzarote, Christo on the Iseo Lake, Chillida in San Sebastián, become attractions, trigger economic and above all inspire beauty and participation.
The aesthetics values we pursue lay into the beauty and strength of participation. Our projects are characterized by local commitments and unpredictable designs always interpreted within local needs. Working as an interdisciplinary team, we develop meaning projects whose outcomes have strong inclusive, cultural yet ecological values, where participative design is founded on the inhabitant’s language. The purpose is to help citizens reframe their engagement. We try to build customizable architecture able to attract users and ideally mutate in time coherently. Our strategy involves three key points;
- Artistic and emotional manifesto-projects with a contemporary image that use natural, recycled or sustainable materials and open to useful experiences to trigger a deep sense of community;
- Innovative programs and strategies capable of creating stable poles of encounter, aggregation, culture, training, design, art, work and income for associations, social cooperatives and citizens;
- Strategies of Architecture, Landscape, Public Space and Land Art able to express renovation while preserving the memory. We try to develop ideas able to promote new scenarios of life, without erasing signs from the past. Place-making strategies need to underline a process of transformation rather than brittle replacement operations.
Key objectives for inclusion
NewItalianBlood pursues social and cultural inclusion values along with increasing job opportunities and enriching professional knowledges in three ways;
- For young designers, by assigning scholarships, to attend the MasterLabs developing the skills and software required by the world of planning, design, art and sustainable construction. Projects aims promote the labour inclusivity of young talents in creative ateliers, organizations and companies in Italy and Europe or even helping in establishing new studios and startups based on multidisciplinary and collaborations between young architects, engineers, designers, sociologists and artists.
- For citizens and associations through the development of feasible projects, offering support for the financing and management strategy for the implementation of common and confiscated goods. Allowing socio-economic inclusion the creation of jobs in the area. We collaborated directly with municipalities to apply for funding campaigns such european funds granted by the regional government and Italian ministry of internal affairs.
- In first person, by implementing the design, the construction and management of a confiscated land in the Amalfi Coast. NIB proposed a challenging strategy to citizens, associations and schools of Positano to develop a system of terraces to create public spaces and convivial areas, pergolas with typical lemon groves and synergistic gardens.
Results in relation to category
In 7 editions of NIB MasterLabs, we have developed over 100 projects, 30 of which on confiscated goods,in collaboration with the best italian creatives, 200 architects, artist, designers, landscape architects and engineers. These projects were tackling pressing issues and criticalities of complex environments, trying to give real solutions and perspectives. Specifically, we have been working on several scales: regeneration of existing villas and compounds, transformation and maintenance-plans of public spaces, landscape rehabilitation and brand new buildings. In addition, together with citizens association and institutions we have been developing international competition briefs and jury panels for public works in Italy and abroad. Such as;
- Memory Park, with the National Council of Architects - San Giuliano di Puglia (CB)
- Hortus Artis, with Ministry of Culture - Certosa of Padula (SA)
- European Center for Emerging Creativities, with City of Pontecagnano (SA)
- Open Living in Container, with Italian Trade Institute - Tokyo
In addition, NIB during over 20 years of experiences has developed research competition such as;
- Everyville out there, with Venice Architecture Biennale 2008;
- Silk Road Map, with OICE - Shanghai Expo 2010;
- Green Boulevards, with Italian Pavilion for Venice Biennale 2012;
- Solar Park South, with Regional Government of Calabria 2014;
- Virtual Museum Interactive, with Rome Chamber of Architects & American Academy in Rome.
Today several of our projects on confiscated goods are currently under construction, but at same time, we are working to gather funds for all of the others. Nevertheless, we take care of post-master stages and internships, in Italy and Europe, giving every MasterLab participant the opportunity to get a job within 3 month after the end of the programme. Our teaching strategy focused on BIM and CGI gives a powerful instrument to young artists and professionals to apply for specialized and well paid positions.
How Citizens benefit
Projects and public works raised from above often do not meet the favor and participation of citizens; sharing and making transparent the choices and procedures for sustainable development is a fundamental aspect towards democracy and legality. The MasterLabs operate in the territories to listen and involve communities, define and implement necessary works in which participation is the most delicate and important part to achieve.
The fight against the mafias by the judiciary and the police every year entrusts the National Agency for Seized and Confiscated Assets and the municipalities with hundreds of buildings and lands stolen from criminal organizations, a precious heritage that must be recovered and reused in the best possible way. possible way to give back symbols, trust, services, opportunities and work to the community. Considering the exponential growth of confiscated assets in Italy and soon also in Europe - buildings, ruins, skeletons, agricultural land, public spaces, parks - planning their reuse in synergy with institutions, citizens and associations and the third sector becomes one of the priority themes for socio-economic development, regeneration and youth work. For this reason we have decided to collaborate with the two most important entities created by the Italian state to help municipalities and citizens to regain possession of the assets stolen from the camorra and the mafia: the Consorzio Agrorinasce in Campania (born in 1998 with 6 municipalities) and the Consortium Legality Development in Sicily (born in 2000 with 8 municipalities), which in 20 years have recovered hundreds of assets by creating legality, culture, sense of civic committment and work. We have developed over 30 reuse projects and several are in the pipeline.
Innovative character
In Italy there are only a couple of independent schools of planning and design, even in Europe few institutions examples of success are capable to mix high education with build the works conceived by young creatives. Seeing our multidisciplinary labs grow since 2013 in a small city like Salerno is a challenge as difficult as it is innovative, covering all the central-southern regions and the islands. NIB no profit has created a circular ecosystem of designers and creatives that emerges, renews itself and collaborates constantly both in presence and online; we have an interactive portal with over 30,000 self-published projects and active social media with over 25,000 followers, every year we enhance merit by assigning prizes and scholarships to participate in the MasterLabs to the best Italian graduates under 30, we organize exhibitions, meetings, conferences and project presentations open to the public. For the 10 years of our Award for young architects and landscape architects, which we celebrated at the Macro Museum in Rome with over 500 creatives and the exhibition "Designing Italy", we had the honor of receiving the Medal of the President of the Republic.
The Bauhaus founded in Weimar was a fantastic and inspiring idea to bring together design, arts and crafts. The Walter Gropius building for the Bauhaus school in Dessau was the symbol and a manifesto of 1925. NIB, after having restored an abandoned convent in the historic center of Salerno, decided to move and identify itself in the maritime terminal designed by Zaha Hadid in 1999, a glocal manifesto of fluidity, space, complexity and mixed use of our time. Particular attention is paid to the use of typical artisans and materials of our territory such as the handcrafted ceramics of the Amalfi Coast, the terracotta clay from Salerno, natural plasters, woods and hemp ropes typical of Campania.
