Ortigia design guide: Banchini, Cauderay, Faccin, Ghidoni and Laposse share their tips

Starting inside the Ear of Dionysius, listening to the voices of the past, Banchini and Cauderay's students built tehir own raft, where they organized a long formal dinner in the sea.

"We decided to prepare a dinner with a serious conversation topic. Martina, a girl from Syracuse, decided to invite Idris, a peddler from Senegal. She already knew him, but it was the first time they sat together for dinner. The conversation was very intense"– Leopold Banchini

There were several moments of listening and concentration when, for example, Idris told his story or when an NGO cooperator explained her work experience in Italy. The dinner was a simple and formal moment at the same time.

The participants designed the whole experience: dressing code, invitations, menu, topic of conversation.

We went to different stores to retrieve the materials. Pallets, disposable plastic beer barrels, ropes, wood and paint were among materials employed.

The first idea of ​​Leopold Banchini and Pierre Cauderay was to let the students build a space with their own hands. "It is a very important experience for an architect," they explain.

"It was about building a space and discussing together what we wanted to happen in that place." A strong theme was the sea, which surrounds the city and in particular Ortigia, the historical centre of Syracuse.

Another key element to understand Syracuse is food: for many years Sicily has been a land of exchanges and influences, many of the ingredients of the most typical dishes of the region – pistachio and saffron, for example – come from elsewhere.

“The sea is the border to cross”, explain Banchini and Cauderay. “We proposed to the students to build something on the sea”. We decided to build a floating platform and, after a series of considerations – staying 24 hours, a whole night – we decided to organize a long dinner in the water.

Matteo Ghidoni, founder of Salottobuono, investigated the very close relationship between Syracuse and water, through a series of small public installations in the Graziella district. Starting as a corner shower, this installation ended up offering an umbrella of water, a cool corner.

“The most successfull installations are those where you can imagine, after a day of work, to pass and rinse off fatigue. This installation suggests a public ritual that goes beyond the boundary between public and private”.

La Graziella was the fishermen's district because it is very close to the small harbor and today it still has several shabby or abandoned buildings. "Our approach was to identify the places, clean them and then work with water, playing on its primary functions– personal hygiene, supply – and its symbolic presence within the city."

The water access points become points of reference. They also become a direct and actual expression of the topic of hospitality.

"It was important to show that by taking care of a small space we can improve the situation and give birth to new ideas."– Matteo Ghidoni

Participants designed five baths in the Graziella neighbourhood, taking inspiration from the ancient arpings located in the island of Ortigia.

Matteo Ghidoni with his students at the presentation of the workshop projects.  

In this workshop participants worked with two plants, the oppuntia (or prickly pear) and the agave. Both are plants introduced from Mexico to Sicily in the XVII Century and have become such a common sight that many Italians consider them endemic to the area.

Participants learned about the history of how and why these succulents made this transatlantic voyage and they used traditional mesoamerican techniques to make textiles, varnishes, dyes, stucco and even food by using these plants.

“In a time when we seem to be reliving a rise in nationalist ideologies which claim to try to preserve a nation’s traditional culture by demonizing what is considered foreign, it is of extreme relevance to remember that what we perceive as the identity of a place, from its culture to its landscape, has been in constant flux for centuries”, explains Laposse.

“For this piece we used the agave we harvested and after pulping brushes and cleaning we produced usable fibres. Then thousands of individual strands were knotted using a latch hook technique.” – Fernando Laposse

In this workshop, participants explored the potential of the agave plant fibres, to create a diversity of objects.

“Besides from talking about the history of plant migration and trade we also focused on the value of craft and hand skills. These projects are a testament of comunal hard work and patience and an impressive feat to achieve in 3 days!”– Fernando Laposse

After an analysis of the urban fabric, involving the inhabitants of the city, the participants created a series of "parasitic" urban furnishings, able to understand existing elements and give them a new life.    

One of the areas chosen for the workshop was the Talete car park, a concrete esplanade overlooking the sea, with 80 benches, but no shade.

The students created a placeholder, similar to that of Google maps, to indicate the panoramic places in the historic center where tourists can stand for a selfie.

Colored threads stretched along the Innocenti tubes that shore up the abandoned buildings of the city. An act of re-appropriation of public space.

The students’ installations, made in three days with little money and with recycled materials, appropriate of the language of the elements already in place, instead of removing them.

A sign created by the stundents, similar to the one indicating the position on Google Maps, shows the ideal points for a selfie.

The students designed a tent to shade the Talete parking benches.

Francesco Faccin (right) with two students. The group worked on the urban furniture of Ortigia, with small design gestures, trying to reclaim the abandoned spaces. Their projects will be presented to the municipality.