Valledolmo Paradise 2030: Living the Tansition in Small Towns in Sicily, Italy

Abstract

CAMPUS_Asia::SUAE_Asia Program is an international education programme in architecture, supported by the UNESCO-Korea Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) National Commission, which promotes the opportunity to explore alternatives responsive to the existing urban and architectural environment through cooperation between Professors and students from the international universities of Pusan National University (South Korea), Tongji University (China), Kyushu University (Japan), Oita University (Japan), Syracuse University (USA), Vienna University of Technology (Austria), University of Palermo (Italy). CAMPUS_Asia::SUAE_Asia 2023 has as its primary objective the promotion of resilient design practice in the natural and built environment by expanding university education opportunities through international multidisciplinary events published by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre. The Summer School Workshop 2023 CAMPUS_Asia::SUAE_Asia Program entitled "Valledolmo Paradise 2030: Living the Transition in the Small Towns in Sicily. Programme for a Social Housing Community project in Valledolmo" aims to develop a concrete experience on the possible ways of living, from a framework of national and international references and in order to define a specific methodology to experiment on the strategies for temporary housing in Small Towns in Sicily. This Theme has returned to the forefront of the disciplinary debate after the Covid health emergency; in this context, the research-action proposed by the multidisciplinary research group LabCity Architecture (DARCH-UNIPA), directed by Prof. Arch. Renzo Lecardane (DARCH-UNIPA), addresses shared, versatile and adaptable forms of urbanisation towards a rational use of land and resources, where the component of the inhabitant is central. Collective housing thus contributes to redefining the built environment, relating to the layered urban fabric and its territory. The definition of Social Housing Community refers to those innovative urban projects aimed at improving and enhancing the existing material and cultural heritage that, together with the public space, contribute to the definition of new ways of living toward the ecological and energy transition. Social Housing Community includes the design of open space for commercial and recreational activities, with the scope of establishing real communities of residents and transient inhabitants. The Social Housing Community could constitute an opportunity to revive and increase the presence, albeit temporary, of new inhabitants attracted by the desire to live healthy and well in a convivial and respectful atmosphere, experiencing minimum reception spaces suitable, for short and long periods. Temporary housing in fact offers the opportunity to attract qualified young people returning back, the elderly, travellers passing through, students, artists, startuppers, activists, and researchers who, although not deep-rooted in the territory, can play a propulsive role in building policies to attract talent and include them in the economic and social fabric of the Small Towns. Temporary housing can also be functional in hosting migrant families, within a social, urban and architectural framework for the creation of a diffuse social hotel, under the public direction of the Municipal Administration.