LuOgo — Building the common space | Orizzontale

“LuOgo ​​– Building the common space”, Lugo (Ravenna, Italy).

The installation will animate the bastion fortress icon of the city throughout the summer of 2022

Set in the historic centre of Lugo (Ravenna), Edilpiù www.edilpiu.eu – the Italian market leader in the sector of high quality doors and windows – inaugurated “LuOgo – Building the common space”, on 23 June 2022 in its home city.

Conceived in synergy with the Orizzontale collective, which has made architecture as a practice of inclusion its distinctive feature, the project, resulting from a self-construction workshop, will animate the garden at the foot of the Rocca Estense, the bastion fortress icon of the city, throughout the summer season.

In nomadic architecture, the circle is the most immediate form through which a place is identified, as both a founding act and an ephemeral gesture. In this spirit, LuOgo temporarily inhabits, with its circular parterre, the lawn of Piazza dei Martiri, constituting a new centrality.

"The main square of Lugo is a monumental space, in which the layering of history has created a solid and lasting image. At the same time, this large, orderly and measurable space is crossed daily by discontinuous and unpredictable flows. In this dialectic between the defined urban context and the incessant transformation dictated by the human factor, ephemeral architecture, which is by definition transitory, finds a new topicality and new forms of expression"

— explains Margherita Manfra, one of the founders of the Orizzontale collective.

LuOgo is a multifaceted space, an intimate yet public area, a permeable enclosure, an open-air room, a thin membrane that embraces a portion of public space, giving it new functions.

The creation process, which lasted less than a week (18-24 June), took the form of a workshop open to inhabitants, students and young professionals, for a total of 15 participants. Simple and functional modules, which make the construction site accessible to all, have been combined to define a unitary but heterogeneous architecture, where different uses can coexist. Enriched with terraces, swings, slides and deckchairs, the wooden perimeter structure is equipped with LED lighting and screened by shading sheets and metal nets covered by climbing plants, to constitute a rhythm in the visual score and an impalpable protection filter between the interior and external.

The great flexibility of the modular system allows infinite configurations, leaving room for unexpected outcomes that arise from the interaction between people. 

Following Lunette, which was created in 2021 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Edilpiù's foundation, the new installation renews the experience and consolidates a truly virtuous practice.

"We believe that LuOgo is a perfect example of how ephemeral architecture can become an element of aggregation, making the public space transformist and permeable. LuOgo focuses on people and the relationships that are generated between citizens and the square, as well as the synergies that have been created between the companies that have actively supported the project. It’s a positive example of how to network by bringing added value to the community. "

- asserts Marcello Bacchini, who is at the helm of Edilpiù alongside founders Gian Paolo Bacchini and Antonio Bacchini.

While the first intervention had demonstrated the potential of public space and the ability of an installation to change the perception of places through its microarchitecture, this year, the project expands to become a real place available to citizens, where it is possible to meet, play, and hold events and activities such as concerts, performances, talks, etc.

The new set designed by Orizzontale in synergy with Edilpiù, reinterprets the concept of threshold, imagining it as a shared space and not as a border, with the aim of bringing the community back into the collective spaces of small urban centres.

DATES

“LuOgo — Building the common space” 
Giardino della Rocca di Lugo – Piazza dei Martiri 1, Lugo (Ravenna, Italy)
23 June - 30 September 2022 (installation)

Photography: ©Gianluca Gasperoni