CASCINA LOSSANO

a Space for the Community – Reuse Competition for the recovery of an old Cascina in North Italy

“The life of a farmhouse exists at the very moment in which relationships and interactions are present between man and the surrounding countryside.”

lt is enough for just one of these relationships to weaken or disappear to create the conditions for the abandonment of these buildings.
We currently find ourselves having to face, not only as architects, the theme of “‘escape from the countryside” towards the cities, thriving
agglomerations equipped with every necessary comfort. The issue of how to redevelop these buildings, now completely abandoned, must be posed as the next problem if we want to give new life to these beautiful agricultural realities. lt is precisely from this reasoning that the
idea around the Cascina Lossano project “A space for the community” develops:
how can we revive and simultaneously strengthen a small country reality?
The answer lies in the very concept of “relationship”, that is, the set of interactions and processes that create life in a community.
The concept of community applied to a small reality like that of the farmhouse can be an excellent starting point for the redevelopment of an architectural ensemble of undoubted hi­storical value. The countryside of the Po Valley is dotted with small agglomerations that were once
considered as real realities in their own right.

So how can we conceive a project that makes the theme of living its distinctive character?