colunga | spazio didattico semi–rurale
The “colunga / semi-rural educational space” project focuses on the design of an educational space in an old abandoned rural farmhouse, located in the peri-urban area of the province of Bologna. Starting from the issue of abandonment of spaces and buildings in the Italian territory, I highlighted this first topic of research collecting data and information about it through literature. Then I focused on the practices of reusing abandoned spaces, selecting some specific case studies in the Italian territory that I analyzed and compared to get some ideas for the focus of the educational space. At the same time I reconstructed the history of the considered rural complex and the surrounding territory, a typical Northern-Italian countryside, analyzing and mapping its characteristics to understand its identity, through various exploration practices. According to the research and analysis of case studies, integrated with the results of the mapping carried out on the territory, I highlighted a thematic area on which to concentrate the project’s focus: alternative learning environments. I have carried out research on pedagogical theories and alternative teaching methods, with particular attention to the role of space and the tools that are used, up to the new technologies applied to learning: this second phase of research has led to the definition of goal of the project, the creation of an alternative educational space, where experiences related to the exploration of the territory and the use of new technologies take place. To better define the identity of the educational space and a possible methodology for designing future laboratories with teachers, I made some interviews and a co-design session with a group of teachers and a group of makers to define the guidelines for the design methodology.
The physical output of the project is an illustrated book that shows the spaces organized for a possible future laboratory, based on the methodology developed in the co-design laboratory with makers and teachers and what emerged during the interviews. In the illustrated tables I decided to present the preferable future of these spaces, namely the best possible condition for re-using the place, which respects the project that I thought following the research carried out.
The story is based on the fictitious memory of an experience lived there, turning between the external and internal spaces and experimenting with the objects and structures that are found there. I wanted to use the point of view of someone who has lived the experience because in this way the reader can identify with it more easily. The idea is to show a possible future scenario for the place, to create a suggestion about the experience that can be experienced in space. The illustrations show the preferable experience that can be experienced in the educational space, between the various rooms, the external environment and the tools that can be used.
