The Report

Mappare il Vuoto – Map the Void -, is an interesting and fascinating italian civic ecology project.

Started in 2014 by a group of architects and creatives, it aims to restore some green spaces in the southern italian city of Matera, through the creation of new urban gardens and vegetable gardens.

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Awards and Call for Solutions

Basilicata Fiorita 2015 by Matera2019 Foundation, third prize

Nuovi Fermenti 2014 by Regione Basilicata, funding

Social Roots 2015 Call for Solutions by Giacomo Brodolini Foundation, Milano

Where

The city of Matera lies in a natural highland, that overlooks the Gravina, product of landscape gradual natural erosion, in geological eras. The same name Gravina identifies both the canyon that the little river.

The oldest, historical core of the town is Sassi – literally, The Stones – , one of first inhabitated village in Europe, with a settlements continuity from the Paleolithic until the modern era, and in which the archaeological stratigraphic units insists in direct continuity with the current site.

Why?

“Civic ecology practices are environmental stewardship actions taken by members of a community to create green infrastructures such a community garden, to provide ecosystem services and opportunity for learning, and to enhance human and community well being, expecially in cities and after disasters” (Marianne E. Krasny and Keith G. Tidball , Civic Ecology: Adaptation and Transformation from the Ground)

Civic ecology practices occur in socio-ecological systems – what anthropologists define human systems – and generate in turn other socio-ecological systems. Socio ecological systems are complex sets of human factors – cultural, physical, cognitive factors, knowledge, reality interpretation systems, symbolic systems, beliefs, activities – that arise from the interaction of man and of the community with the environment, spaces, and the natural resources.

Green recovery practices and the restoration of natural ecosystems within the urban areas, are often found in conjunction and in response to crisis factors, that take place in specific historical moments or that accumulate over time, until to result in a degradation or a collapse of the same human eco-system. Observing this practice makes it possible to define a first distinction between areas which host ecology civic projects: sudden red zones or slow burn red zones. Natural disasters, war or ethnic conflicts, pollution, unemployment, crime, lack of services are some of the contexts in which civic ecology practices occur, often spontaneously, as an expression of the natural tendency to resist and reorganize, that communities have. It’s a social and social-economical resilience, driven by a strong topophilìa, love for places, and an innate biophilìa, love for life.

Civic ecology practice restores what we define broken places, with the creation of green infrastructures and green spaces, generating a whole series of factors:

– Learning. Civic ecology practices provide opportunities for learning.

– Community. In restoring place, civic ecology practices recreate community.

– Ecological Memories. Civic ecology stewards draw on social ecological memories rebuilding places and communities.

– Ecosystems Services. Civic ecology practices provide ecosystem services.

– Health and Well-Being. Civic ecology practices foster health and well being.

– Governance. Civic ecology practices start out as local innovations and expand to engage multiple partnership.

– Resilience. Civic ecology practices are integrated in cycles of chaos and renewal and strengthen the resilience of place and community – psychological, individual, social and ecological resilience -.

– Policy. Policymakers can have a role to play, supporting civic ecology practices.

Matera’s project Map the Void reflects all these Civic Ecology aspects, showing however some differences.

Sassi’ Ecosystem Collapse: a zone slowly burned in the Past

“The Sassi may be the most extraordinary urban interpretation of nature: built by master builders, not by architects, that is, by the people”. (Raffaello De Ruggieri, president of Zetema Foundation)

Inhabited since the Paleolithic, the old town was built into the rock and extends both above and below the ground, with an extensive system of underground rooms. Underground architectures regulated the temperature and had systems for the light and water channeling. The whole ancient city is an extension and continuation of the natural landscape, the technique of underground construction has exploited the natural form of the place, also creating materials for the construction of the above-ground city. The Sassi ecosystem was based on an economy of agriculture and pastoralism. Because different families shared the same water well, the water collection system litterally created and defined the neighborhood units, the Vicinati. The same for ovens and mills that were shared by neighborhoods.

In the old town’s architectural structure there were several green infrastructures: little vegetable gardens, indoor gardens, roofs were used for drying products to the sun.

“The ecosystem of the Sassi ruled for centuries, with a complex water collection and sanitation system – underground cisterns, an underground flow channel – a good waste storage and an acceptable standard of living.” (Antonio and Francesco Foschino)

But since the eighteenth century, things changed and the balance was gradually broken.

With the development of landlordism peasants impoverished more and more, and as the nobility lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century areas of the city, mostly the farmers remained in the Sassi’s zone. After World War II the situation became extreme, the traditional ecosystem could not resist in the face of modernity, poverty and degradation was such that the Sassi became the example that Americans brought to the Government to press it on the approval of the Marshall Plan and underline its usefulness.

In 1954 the italian President of the Republic signed a official decree for the Evacuation of the Sassi’s district. The inhabitants were forced to abandon them. There were built modern neighborhoods, with public houses to accommodate the inhabitants of the ancient city.

Modern brocken places

With the official Evacuation Decree, 1954, the old town’s inhabitants were forced to abandon it and there were built new modern public neighborhoods.

The first generation of people who left the Sassi’s area was happy to move, because this change was initially perceived as an improvement of lifestyle, compared with the difficult conditions of the old quarter.

“The new neighborhoods had been built according to the Scandinavian model, providing large green areas both internal and external to separate quarters from the wide streets scroll, squares and community centres and thus presenting a low population density. It was used the exposed brick tecnic”. (Antonio e Francesco Foschino)

However, new districts had been designed in a very modern mood, taking the ways of public and suburban housing typical of large cities. The architectural design of the new districts of Matera was creating a peripheral urban agglomeration in the middle of an agricultural land and in a natural landscape. In accordance with the trend of the ’60s to the land and agricultural work’s abandonment, in favor of governmental jobs and the industrial development. These neighborhoods had been thought as a periphery, where there was not a periphery. We can say a periphery was created artificially in a rural area with low population density.

Over time, these neighborhoods gradually changed the sense of community and the sense of place, creating a fracture, almost a rejection of the old town’s physical part as its immaterial part, its agricultural past.

it is in one of these new neighborhoods that Map The Void develops: the district of Serra Venerdì. In a large hilly area unused and abandoned, like many green areas of the neighborhood.

What: the civic ecology project Map the Void

The idea came from a group of architects and designers who recently proposed the project to the Municipality of Matera, calling it Mappare il Vuoto, or Map The Void.

So Map the Void is Reclaiming Broken Places.

In a first stage, the Agrinetural’ team will meet volunteers and civic ecology stewards, designing a map of urban – both private and public- abandoned or disused places.

The project points out that:

– there are many abandoned spaces

– there is in new neighborhoods environmental degradation and loss of sociability

– the space was on the point to be transformed into a waste collection area

The project aims:

– to use productively broken urban spaces, improving the quality of life and generating social capital and a sharing’s culture.

– to create dynamic ecosystems and communities of neighborhoods, promoting social inclusion and sustainable lifestyles .

How? Map the Void project six phases

The project is designed in six phases, with an initial one by mapping empty spaces . “Empty spaces” means public and private abandoned or not used places suitable to be used into garden and vegetable gardens.

A preliminary monitoring activity will accompany the demand of space-assignment directed to the Municipality, with a report about how much is possible to produce, how much compost will be generated, with a special attention to the problem of water conservation and consumption.

1. Abandoned spaces survey and mapping

The mapping activity will cover the whole urban area of the city – both the historic centre and the first modern neighborhoods close to the centre-, flowing in a project to collect data with Arduino.

Mapping activity will:

– identify the public abandoned spaces,

– make reliefs and representations

– make available an interactive map where people can enter their unused spaces for people who want to grow it – co-design collection data –

Broken places, so, are green abandoned, unused areas:

– Broken places in the Old Town. Small public or private spaces where once there were small roof gardens or indoor gardens; green spaces in the plateau where the old town was built, carved into the rock. In this second case, the creation of new green infrastructures is a form of public appropriation, optimization andimprovement of natural space and a form of soil protection.

– Broken places in news neighborhoods. Unused green areas, small neglected urban parks.

2. Defining potential production activities

Civic ecology stewardships will analyze the morphological and geological characteristics of these broken places. Difficulty of access, exposure, water need and declivity should also be taken into account.

Civic ecology stewards will analyse how much produce is possible, and what kind of plants and vegetables are suitable to the place

3. From spaces to communities

New green infrastructures project will involve inhabitants, will attract people and will make they meet and collaborate creating new communities and new dynamic ecosystems, with learning projects, collaborations with policies, and public and private organizations.

4. Tracing local community needs and resources

Mapp the Void will seek to understand how social capital and how collective efficacy the local community has, but also to create new social capital and to increase its own collective efficacy.

At the same time, the project will map potential demands in terms of bio-food and natural products consume, to produce in the land’s lots products and services – training,outdoor activities, events – that will best meet community needs.

5. Design and construction of green spaces

Civic ecology stewards – volunteers, people interested in participating and the creative team of Agrinetural – will identify the space’s potential and they’ll design the spaces to grow.

Green spaces will be transformed into productive green infrastructures, vegetable urban gardens, with different sectors:

– olive trees
– fruit trees
– aromatic native plants
– fibramentose plants for the production of objects
– seasonal vegetables

6. Follow up and monitoring of the social long-term impact, community maintenance and urban regeneration

In the civic ecology project Map The Void. New urban gardens in Matera there are a long-term monitoring final phase, where the same project will be evaluated in terms of quantity and quality, with economic and non-economic stairs. Measures suitable for this monitoring phase will be accessible to those with limited formal understanding of science and research. Planning, monitoring and data analysis will be made through protocols,questionnaires for c.e. stewardships, interviews with participants and practitioners, quantitative surveys of species diversity and direct observation of the place and of outcomes, with acomparison of the before and after the civic ecology practice, in term of number of involved people, participating number, quality, accessibility of recreation areas, quality of outputs, learning activities. Outcomes will be observed:provisioning, regulating, cultural, supporting of new green areas. A preliminary study is already under construction and will precede the start of the activity, since part of green areas are owned by the city and the Municipality will grants it in use after a request accompanied by a careful presentation about the social costs, about structural works, and about costs that the municipality will have to bear the same project- for example water consume intended for green infrastructures.

Policy

“Civic ecology practices go from small-scale local initiatives to having larger, even regional impacts, they become part of regional resource management systems through a process of adaptive co-management, in which an important role it’s played by the practices outcomes measuring”. (Marianne E. Krasny)

The Matera’s civic ecology practice started to create connections and collaborations bridges across other civic ecology practices and institutions, especially local government and NGO entrepreneurs. A first broken place suitable to vegetable urban gardens was found in the Serra Venerdì’s district, and it’s a municipality’s propriety. Map the Void want create a dialog with the Matera’s Municipality to involve it in the broken places restoration, generate collaborations with other local and national civic ecology project and participate in activities designed in Matera2019 context.

Map the Void will provide cultural, provisioning, regulating and supporting ecosystem services.

New green infrastructures will provide cultural, provisioning, regulating and supporting ecosystem services. Community gardening will produce vegetables, volunteer groups will provide several opportunities for retirees to get exercise and enjoy each other’s company (recreation), to participate in the cultivation of vegetables and to teach young people through their ecological and traditional know now; people will have the opportunity to learn about the gardening, the restoration of green spaces and about local history and architectural history of the old town. Green infrastructures will host concerts, workshops and other cultural activities. Volunteers and the people involved in the project will plant trees and plants in the old town’s hilly areas of the old town, mitigating the landslide and erosion process, they’ll rebuild the ancient irrigation systems of hanging gardens, counteracting the process of soil impoverishment.

Why does the Matera’s civic ecology practice looks different from other civic ecology projects realized in urban areas?

Matera’s civic ecology practice Map the Void looks different from other civic ecology practices in urban areas because of:

– The not-urban nature of the town

– The particular nature of broken places, slow burn in the past broken places that in a historical moment were crossing the threshold in a level so hight to require the Central Government intervention, a ecosystem’s collapse which required official Evacuation Decree

– The suburban characteristics of the new neighborhoods’s broken places imported from a national cultural model rather than born on site by real economic needs.

– The predominance of landscape, Matera lies in a natural landscape and insists in a Regional Park, Parco della Murgia.

– No urgent biophilìa but social biophilìa and a strong restorative topophilìa. People haven’t a urgent biophilìa, because there wasn’t a real detachment from nature, on the contrary, there is an anthropological continuity with the rural past, but here biophilia is a natural tendency of the human being, connected with a strong sense of the city, topophilia for the town, for a collective identity. In this sense, in Matera the town is the Metér Pòlis, the Town Mother of the ancient greek culture. In another point of view in Map the Void we can find a social biophilìa and resilience born from the actual economic crisis, that press young people to create new social works, collaboration forms and ideas to stay in their city.

– High-induced trend. Stewardships who had the civic ecology practice’s idea are young people, designers, architects, people who often studied at the University: so we can find the return to the agriculture, to the green and to the nature, in a Country not really so urbanized in great suburbans areas such we can find in other european and north-american cities, as an intellectual and high-induced trend, born from the sense of beauty that characterizes the italian culture.

– Topophilìa for the town in itself is stronger than with the surrounding landscape, it depends, in my opinion, from a strong, very strong and unconscious community’s sense. In ancient communities the sense of a long time and the membership to the community is more significant than the individual sense. Be lost in this crowd as a physical pleasure, it’s a trait of traditional cultures flowing in the local festivals and sacred rites.

– The extraordinary continuity, conscious or unconscious, with a long past, so long as to become universal and symbolic

Civic Ecology Stewards

Civic ecology stewards are the aspect without which civic ecology practices are impossible to create. Civic ecology practices start out from a local scale and from the needs of the communities who live in places involved in this practice. Civic ecology stewards represent the sense and love for places, topophilìa, and constitute the first community that revolves around green infrastructure, before extending on a more general scale.

In the Matera’s case, Map the Void, the idea come from some young architects and creatives, gathered in the project Agrinetural, and the ideas incubator Casa Netural. The work of Agrinetural team is a voluntary work, as volunteers will be people involved in the creation of urban gardens, in their maintenance and in the organization of learning activities. The majority of participants are locals with a few exceptions, people who came to Matera for study or work, who passionate about the project.

Context and background

Collective Identity

Resilience and adaptive cycles: the reinaissance

In 80s the city experienced a period of cultural revival, and rediscovered the Sassi as an extraordinary urban ecosystem, an outstanding example of careful use in time of natural resources: water, soil, energy. In 1993 Matera was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The old town has been restored and recovered. Matera is also European Culture Capital 2019.

Matera’s enrollment for the european contest European Capitals of Culture is an example of polycentric governance system which has included also green spaces, in specific: enhancement of the local natural heritage, conservation of local landscape and biodiversity, rocky trails, ecological recovery of historical ecological traditions like the way of transhumance.
It’s the polycentric governance systems for cultural spaces – both tangible and intangible – launched by local associations and collected by the Government of the Basilicata Region, to nominate the city of Matera as European Capital of Culture for 2019 an action involving multiple players acting at multiple levels. At local levels: neighborhood block associations, local cultural associations, local volunteers and local groups of volunteers. At city level: city government – Comune di Matera-, alliance of community cultural and environmental associations, associations of business– shop owners in the Old Town, industrials of manufacturing, tourism agencies and associations, sports associations, film commissions. At regional level: the government of the Region – Regione Basilicata-, Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, natural Park Authorities, schools, and conservatori (italian schools for classical music). At international level: the European Commission.

Hundreds of players have contributed with their ideas and their volunteer work, in coordination with local authorities, the participants – private, social and institutional players – worked together to create initiatives in support of the candidacy of Matera: environmental and cultural initiatives, we can say environmental, ecological and cultural practices.
A whole community participated in the small historic renaissance of the Old Town.

Strong sense of place and topohilìa. Starry Sky, an exemple.

September 28, 2013, 35 cultural associations, residents and the store owners of the old town of Matera, along with dozens of volunteers decided to reviving the ancient custom of luminarie in the Sassi. Italian poets and writers used to describe this custom as “ the starry sky”. For first time after centuries, the whole city has came together to admire this tradition: the Cathedral’s bell has sounded to call people, a trumpet announced nightfall, with readings and some theatrical passages.

STARRY SKY

Landscape and territory

An outstanding landscape with its wavy surface and valleys, that turns into dolines or sinkholes, and ravines as a results of the karst phenomena.

The underground layer is made out of calcareous rock dating back to Cretatious Age and is covered by calcarenite layer from the Pleistocene era.

Cultural Background and Ecological Economy

In the past, agriculture, livestock, stone processing, quarrying and crafts were the most important part of local ecological economies. Today agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and some cultural industries.