Shaping the Ground is an initiative that aims to foster local and regional debate about new ways of stewarding the arid prairie landscape of Monti Prenestini. In collaboration with a local stakeholder and community volunteers, members will produce an ephemeral landscape intervention that employs techniques at the intersection of tactical urbanism and land art. The challenge will take a practical and collaborative approach, using a restricted palette of tools, local materials, and repetitive actions to awaken enthusiasm for more intentionally conceived land management practices. 

Shaping the Ground is the second of a series of challenges that deal with agricultural land abandonment, a nationwide phenomenon that has been on the rise throughout the last century of urbanization. Participants in the challenge will build upon the research developed during Transitioning a Landscape, and imagine their intervention as a catalytic event for a multi-year landscape laboratory in the area. The aim of this laboratory will be to test viable, scalable solutions of land management that have clear incentive alignment for local actors. Transitioning a Landscape will narrow the thematic focus, local partner and specific intervention site during the summer of 2024 so that participants of Shaping the Ground are able proceed during the fall.