Rebuilding the Edge Exhibition Opens at MIT
Work from the 2022 edition of Liminal Lab in Abruzzo is now on view at MIT’s Department of Architecture
Photo credit: Tristan Searight
Currently with a global population of more than 8 billion people, more and more of the world’s inhabitants are moving to cities, especially in the global south. However, as cities try hard to accommodate newcomers, despite evident infrastructural and housing challenges, one cannot help but wonder: What happens to the places left behind by people moving to cities? What is the flip side of urbanization, and how can non-urban areas reinvent themselves?
Approximately 70% of Italy’s land falls under the administrative jurisdiction of towns with populations below 6,000, which have been grappling with depopulation disinvestment, degrading infrastructure, and mounting environmental stresses. As a result, their rich cultural, historical, and natural heritage has remained on the margins, neglected and deteriorated over time.
Photo credit: Tristan Searight
In light of these pressing global challenges with local consequences, a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University graduates (Ginevra D’Agostino, Carmelo Ignaccolo and Nicolas Delgado Alcega) decided to establish Liminal, a non-profit research and design group based in Italy. Liminal operates as a decentralized research laboratory across Italy documenting, analyzing and proposing design solutions to tackle the challenges faced by rural towns in Italy. The organization tries to leverage the historical and cultural heritage of these towns, and looks at how to transform their underutilized infrastructure into spaces for research and innovation. Liminal is composed of experts from different fields, from urban planning and architecture, to economics, urban law and development. Together, they approach problems through different lenses in order to present solutions that are multi-faceted and cohesive.
Photo credit: Tristan Searight
Liminal Lab’s pilot project, Rebuilding the Edge, was a workshop offered by MIT’s Department of Architecture during the summer of 2022. The workshop is the result of a collaboration between Liminal, Fondazione FS, MIT-Italy Program (Dr. Serenella Sferza), Urban Risk Lab, Digital Structures, and several municipalities from the Valle Peligna. The initiative allowed students to join the members of Liminal and a group of experts, including Prof. Miho Mazereeuw, Prof. Caitlin Muller, on the ground for three weeks in Abruzzo and Molise to develop visions for the territories around the Ferrovia dei Parchi, a rail line rehabilitated in the last decade by Fondazione FS. Students were asked to think about mobility challenges in the region, opportunities for ecotourism in natural reserves, adaptive reuse strategies for underpopulated towns, land use strategies to recover agricultural districts, and migrant integration models. Participants lived in the depopulated town of Pettorano sul Gizio and worked from the disused Roccaraso railway station, transformed into a pop-up co-working for the occasion.
An exhibition is now on view at MIT’s Department of Architecture with the result of the intensive fieldwork and stakeholder engagement pursued throughout the entirety of the workshop. Liminal focused on setting up the conditions for students to understand the opportunities and criticalities present on the territory, from which students formulated their assessments and developed preliminary proposals that they considered had the potential for a catalytic socio-economic impact. Participants were asked to document and analyze their sites of interest, perform stakeholder interviews, and propose tangible solutions for the territory and its corresponding communities.
The exhibition is composed of six booklets that contain the work produced by each group according to a specific issue/site of focus, as well as a seventh booklet describing the overall initiative itself. The work produced during the workshop is the result of a first intensive approximation to the territory and its stakeholders. However, the reflections and ideas contained within these booklets have already provided valuable insights to the project beneficiaries. Liminal continues to work with key stakeholders to promote the visions developed throughout the workshop and construct concrete opportunities for certain aspects of them to be implemented.
Read the MIT Architecture press release
Visitor Information
Building 7, 3rd floor, Architecture Headquarters Office Hallway
77 Massachusetts Ave building 10-400, Cambridge, MA 02139
Photo credit: Tristan Searight
Exhibition and Workshop Credits
Booklet Curation and Editing
Adriana Giorgis
Angela Loescher-Montal
Sarah Lohmar
Liminal
Ginevra D’Agostino, President
Nicolas Delgado Alcega, Executive Vice President
Carmelo Ignaccolo, Vice President of Research
Elena Militello, Founding Partner
Gabriele Pizzi, Volunteer
Chiara Romano Bosch, Founding Partner
MIT
Nicholas De Monchaux, Head of MIT Department of Architecture
Miho Mazereeuw, Director of the MIT UrbanRisk Lab
Caitlin Mueller, Director of the MIT Digital Structures
John Ochsendorf, MIT Morningside Academy for Design
Serenella Sferza, MIT Italy-Program
MIT Student Participants
TJ Bayowa, John Devine, Lauren Gideonse, Adriana Giorgis, Ipshita Karmakar, Sarah Ladhani, Sojung Lee, Angela Loescher-Montal, Sarah Lohmar, Sacha Moreau, Kerri Lu, Ava La Rocca, Naksha Roy, Tristan Searight, Natasha Stamler, Alex Steelman, Alexis Spinetta, Amanda Ugorji