Civico Civico – LURT – Human Laboratory of Territorial Regeneration

Civico Civico is a project representing the first stage of regenerating an old property in Riesi, a small town in Sicily, Italy, dealing with depopulation and abandonment of old buildings and historical villages.

Civico Civico is a product of an international summer school workshop conducted by orizzontale for the Servizio Cristiano center. Servizio Cristiano, situated in the nearby Monte degli Ulivi Village, provides support for vulnerable groups in terms of education and culture as well as social support. The workshop took place there and was called Laboratorio Umano di Rigenerazione Territoriale (Human Laboratory of Territorial Regeneration).

The goal of the workshop was to improve and recover the building and also to deal with the depopulation of historic villages among other issues. A property which was formerly used by the Mafia in Sicily and neglected after that was to be renovated to be a space to attract young people and children, to connect itself with the street and to be a creative space that can be used in many different ways and that creates a feeling of belonging to a community.

All the above was achieved by making it a more open, fluent space without too many partitions, at the same time while keeping visible traces of the past. New windows and a glass door allow passers-by to peek inside and also create a connection to the outside world when inside. Parts of the outside of the building were painted in a bright blue alongside with parts of the street, connecting the building very clearly with it. The intervention continued on the street: white lines on the blue asphalt create a place for the local children to play all their games such as four cantons, basketball, and five-a- side football. The blue expands beyond the immediate front of the building and the entire stretch of the street has been turned into a pedestrian zone by the municipality, which in a way symbolizes how this project’s effects will spread into the community as a whole.

As Domenico Mollura from Il Giornale dell’Architettura poetically describes: “As in a Dantesque ascent through the building’s three levels, we started from the ground floor, the one closest to shared life, witness to the city and crossed by indifference, hope, suffering, a desire for redemption – often concealed behind the shutters – and joy, like that of the many children in the neighborhood who spontaneously approached the work as it took shape, then became directly involved.”