BOTTOM UP! THE ARCHITECTURE FESTIVAL

A model of urban regeneration from the bottom

The bottom up! architecture festival started in 2019 as an experimental and generative process involving citizens in urban transformation actions.
Bottom Up! listens to the needs of places and those who live there, asks local communities to make a wish, turns to architects and designers and organizes crowdfunding campaigns to make it happen.

1, 10, 100 Bottom Up!

Bottom Up! started as an experimental process of urban transformation. There are 10 simple requirements to replicate the festival in different geographical contexts.

  1. The organizer must be at the centre of a network
  2. The city administration must be informed and willing
  3. Select the crowdfunding platform that offers customized solutions and provides training and consulting to projects
  4. Everything starts with the project selection announcement
  5. Support and information actions for the announcement
  6. Qualified and competent jury
  7. Offer the selected projects a qualified training course
  8. Matching fund
  9. Supervision and monitoring by the organizing body
  10. Communication for the festival is the festival itself

First Edition

11 campaigns have achieved the expected goal leading to new architectures as well as urban and social transformations starting from the “bottom”, through a mobilization of both designers and citizens’ associations.

Cultural involvement and social integration actions have been taken within the framework of the selected projects: we are creating a collective oven, a theater inside a juvenile prison, a system of urban gardens, a service to collect and redistribute leftover food in the open markets of the city.

  • 105 COMMUNITIES INVOLVED
  • 929 DONORS
  • 142,365 TOTAL FUNDS

MIRAORTI: The participatory process involves illegal gardeners and volunteers in the construction of a large park of urban gardens, where they can experiment with new forms of urban agriculture and social inclusion to restore 6 hectares of public green areas.
CORTILE MONDO: the challenge is to transform a green school area into an opportunity, to turn it into a public welcoming space, a space for cultural encounter and integration.
STIAMO FRESCHI: the project has created a system of green wooden pergolas in a district of the city.
RISORGIMENTO SOCIAL CLUB: The proposal provides for the redesign of outdoor spaces through small facilities and furnishings and the enhancement of a large unfinished canopy. The latter is intended to host shows, to grow gardens and play football.
RUOTA DI SCARTO: aims to reduce food waste through the creation of a mobile kitchen to collect, process and distribute the unused food surpluses in Turin.
WALL COMING!: construction of a new public theater inside the Turin juvenile prison.
28. LO SPAZIO DI MEZZO: an empty and underused space is reactivated and turned into a new Sino-Italian cultural exchange centre.
PIETRA ALTA: The aim of the project is to create a new cultural, recreational and social park, a place where it is nice to stop and rest, a welcoming, green space, a meeting point with games and areas for events and activities.
S.P.I.G.A.: a community oven will soon see the light for gardeners to experience the act of baking as a moment of togetherness and sharing of physical, cultural, social, environmental resources, according to the principles of the circular economy.
HEAR ME: the aim is to promote the social inclusion of psychiatric users, to activate a process of urban redevelopment and experience the potential of combining creative disciplines and psychiatric rehabilitation.
CORTI.LÍ SPAZIO E TEMPO PER ESSERE: the project aims to transform the courtyards of a Turin neighborhood into a meeting place for the people who live there, creating a hub with a strong community and participatory value.

Edition 2022

The second edition of Bottom Up! goes beyond the borders of the City of Turin and is aimed at civic and cultural centres spread throughout the Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta regions.

Collaborative culture is expressed in its contemporary forms, new design and production methods are experimented while, embracing complexity, innovative and concrete ways to use them are imagined.

8 centers have been selected to design the transformation of outdoor spaces for public and collective use, with a view to social recovery and post-pandemic health, such as:

  • pedestrian areas
  • phantasy park
  • urban reforestation
  • inclusive sports routes
  • spaces for young adult activities
  • light art installations

The results of Bottom Up! 2022 will be presented in a major public event in March 2023 in Turin.

8 Giugno