Veneto - Production, Polenta, Palladio

P

UUTOPIA TOPIAA

a cycle of

RODUCTION

OLENTA

ALLADIO

Sarah Rach Tanya Chandra Krzysztof Pydo Erik Groenendijk

Table of contents Introduction

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Approach

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Description of project

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Reflection

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Introduction As part of our graduation project in the studio Design as Politics we visited the Architecture Biennale in Venice in September 2014 and had a four day workshop at the Swiss Pavilion. The workshop – called ‘The double death of the welfare state and nation state’ - originally aimed at an exploration of different regions of Europe seeking autonomy and making a utopic project for one of the regions.

The regions elaborated on becoming independent were Scotland from the UK, Catalonia from Spain and the Veneto Region from Italy. In the project the governance challenge for such an autonomous region and the organization of housing, health, food, industry etc. should be addressed. Our group has been working on the Veneto region.

In the project references should be made to the theme of the Biennale: fundamentals and absorbing modernity, the theme of the Swiss Pavilion which focused on the architect Cedric Price and the sociologist Lucius Burckhardt, and the theme of the design as politics graduation studio: utopia’s on the ruins of the welfare state.

Gradually on the task of the workshop evolved into a design for the pavilion of the autonomous state of Vento at the Architecture Biennale in 2016. Thinking of how the autonomous region might be organized and looks like, we translated that into an idea for the pavilion of an autonomous Veneto region.

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Background on the independency of the Veneto Region Veneto has been an independent state for more than a millennium. The capital of the region, Venice, has been one of the largest and richest maritime republics and trade empires in the world. In 1866 the Republic of Vento was annexed by the Kingdom of Italy.

Currently the driving force for the economy of the Veneto Region is export-oriented entrepreneurship.

Agriculture plays an important role in this regional economy and is also known as the most productive in Italy. The regional industry consists mostly of small-medium businesses active in several sectors like food products, wood and furniture, textiles and clothing, leather and footwear. These industries are characterized by an export oriented focus and established an export-oriented system of industries.

Spatially the different sectors are very much specialized which results in zones of industrial districts. Lacking an overall master plan the landscape seems fragmented.

The economy of the Veneto Region is responsible for 14% of the Italian economy. The high burden of taxes and bureaucracy, and the frustration about the inefficient and corrupt Italian government and the weak Southern regions lead to a demand for autonomy. Just recently in March 2014 a (unofficial, non-binding, online and privately organized) referendum shows that 55% of the Veneto population votes in favor of an autonomous region. By this referendum a signal is sent out which will be an incentive for further (national) debates.

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Approach Starting of process The three driving forces – Design as politics, Biennale and Swiss pavilion – streamlined the project into seeing the essential reason for the demand for a separation of Veneto region from Italy. The discussion started with the fundamentals of a new utopic state in terms of spatial design and planning.

Like the fundamentals of architecture defined by Rem Koolhaas, curator of Venice Biennale 2014, we wanted to define the fundamentals of a new utopic state. The essential component of what makes a state irrespective of it political, financial, social and cultural systems. The fundamentals derived from our discussions in the first few days of the workshop were: 1.

Network of people and goods 2.

Balance in production / Landuse 3. Protection 4.

Environmental safety 5.

Foreign ties These reflect through different ways and design elements in different scales from country, region, state, city, neighbourhood, block to building. We took Veneto region as a case study to test our fundamentals. As we worked through them we found that production being a single defining principle.

Present in all scales, production is also the prime reason for Veneto regions desire to separate from Italy. In consideration with ‘New Utopias: The Double death of welfare state and the nation state’, we decide the utopia through which we want to define the new state of Veneto is Production.

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First presentation A utopic country of production depends on what a region has for a resource and can produce. Thus, we investigated on different products of the export oriented Veneto region. The regional industry is especially made of small and medium-sized businesses, which are active in several sectors: food products, wood and furniture, leather and footwear, textiles and clothing, gold jewellery, but also chemistry, metal-mechanics and electronics.

Typical of Veneto is the partition of the territory into industrial districts, which means that each area tends to specialise in a specific sector.

Hence, we see that they do not concentrate in one zone of production and this is reflected in their landuse and the ‘unconscious metropolis’. We incorporated this product, export, entrepreneurialism and quality orientation of Veneto region. The pavilion of the new state of Veneto as we were visioning for our first meeting was driven through high quality products and entrepreneurial nature of venetians. A pavilion that grows with each new entrepreneur that joins into the contribution to make Veneto the best that one can have. The pavilion aimed in its earlier days of formulation to be a showcase of high quality products, a certain exclusivity even in viewing!

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Intermediate discussions The first presentation concluded to taking the next step and defining the utopia of production and not production itself in the new state of Veneto. What is a Utopia? What is a utopia of production? These were the questions that lingered into our succeeding discussions.

Utopia for us seemed that taking an idea to extreme, a Disneyland of just one theme therefore bordering into absurdity. Taking production in the Veneto region to its absurdity the discussion trailed into realms of utopia, dystopia and reality.

We started with high quality as a thematic twist which lead to dystopia of waste. Then to mass production

which lead to capitalistic utopic-dystopia. Further to capitalistic social capitalism that is minimum input and maximum output, which lead us to again a capitalistic dystopia. Finally arriving to a conclusion that we have been seeing production in light of profit and were making a utopia of economics.

With this realisation we moved to answering what is a utopia of production and as we inquired further it a cycle seem to be its answer. A cycle much like many in nature, a cycle that doesn’t end and demand, produce and supply are in a cycle. A utopia of production for us then became clear as a cycle of lifestyle, production and resources. Thus, Production, Polenta and Palladio.

Description of project Utopia Utopia is a perfect state, streamlined by an idea.

Regarding above mentioned facts about the idea of Independent Veneto, the question that rose was What is a utopic country of production? For us it became something that runs forever more like the cycles of nature that feeds and produce itself. Unlike economic utopia, whereas an egalitarian distribution of goods, total abolition of money, and its citizens working for the common good are the main factors, a production utopia is about a cycle of optimal production which tries to reach consensus between using all available resources and exist as long as possible in this state.

The utopia of production fits in typically with Veneto

as the territory partitions into industrial districts, which means that each area tends to specialise in a specific sector. Since the 1970s it has seen impressive development, thanks to the so-called Veneto Development Model that is characterised by strong export-oriented entrepreneurship in traditional economic sectors and close social cohesion.

Image of first presentation

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Circular Living The current imprint of the region resonates an arrangement of patchwork production landscape.

The intention of this utopia is to generate a cycle that takes this character but removing the idea of ownership. Everything in it belongs to production.

The four quadrants of this system is production, housing, resources and recreation. One is at its peak of production when they use the 24 hours of a day equally for working, sleeping and recreating.

A country where it is always light when you are working, dark when you want to sleep and dusky for recreational. Like a cycle this circular living runs in shifts with optimized natural lighting. This makes it possible that one house is used by three families in shifts of 8 hours each.

Circular Economy The land print of circular living follows the theory of circular economy, reducing the distances between resource, research, design, manufacture and waste.

This helps optimizing resource and manufacturing management, as being sustainable and using what the region has. As a production utopia has a cycle of produce that completely absorbs its waste.

The idea of circular economy has been invented by a yachtswoman on a globe-alone trip around the world. She realized that her achievement of being the fastest-one in this competition was only able due to the well-thought source management. As opposed to generally accepted linear economy of resource consumption, whereas many resources are treated as waste within short period of use, the circular economy treats resources more carefully regarding the fact of its shortage.

Circular Living

Circular Economy

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The idea grew up and became structured and today the key principles can be distinguished: - Division between biological and technological materials in order to decompose back the first ones and treat differently the ones made from durable materials - Products are made for circles of reuse, avoiding production of waste -The fuel for the products is a renewable energy which led to avoiding its shortage in comparison to non-renewable sources.

Circular Society The combination of circular living and economy reflects a circular society of a utopic Veneto region.

Where everything is done for production and as it is mandatory to produce so it is to sleep, play and relax!

Though, utopia adjoining with absurd can also give an optimal result to living which we have been missing in our societies. The individuals creating a circular society aim to run a regimented routine of live, work and play through the region of Veneto.

Circular Society

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The Hexagonal Pattern The society is clustered in a pattern layered over the region of Veneto and contributes to movement through it, in case one gets bored of doing the same routine everyday. People can freely change the playing field and live in another city, work in another place or recreate in another area. The grid system consisted of repetition of four elements (recreation, housing, workplace and resources) is multiplied onto the existing land-use and helps in reducing travelling distance between different activities. The feature is needed to perform the cycle of production running.

The Veneto region Hexagonal Pattern tries to suit the current geography and manufacturing trends.

World Connection A utopic production in country like Veneto, should be well connected with trading routes stretching to all parts of the world. In order to make it happen friendly ties with the European Union is preferred, comparable with a country like Switzerland.

The convenient location provides vast maritime connection with the rest of the world.

Canada USA

Canada Canada Canada Canada

USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

USA USA USA

Mexico

Sweden Norway Sweden Norway

Finland Finland Finland

The Netherlands Germany France Switzerland France Greece France Greece Spain Spain Spain Spain

Morrocco Egypt Morrocco Egypt Egypt

Russia Russia Russia

United Arab Emirates

Algeria Chad Sudan

Mexico

Brasil

Brasil Brasil

Russia Russia Russia China China China India China India

AngolaZ imbabwe Kenya

South Africa

Australia

Australia

New Zealand

World map 12

the Hexagonal Pattern 13

Pavilion The Pavilion intends to emphasize the production and manufacture oriented decision making mentality of the new utopic country of Veneto. The movement is experienced as the visitor is a product himself.

He moves through on a conveyor belt stopping at certain junctions for a given time. Live, work and play is divided in the equal amount of time within the country of Veneto and so it is the experience of being in the pavilion. The countdown timers distributed all throughout the rooms, associated to each drawing, painting and activity that one can participate and observe within the pavilion. Thereby even the exhibition in the pavilion is optimized and reflects upon the Veneto – the production utopia.

Working 14

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Living 16

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Playing 18

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Reflection The summer workshop for us had three facets that it encompasses – Design as Politics, Biennale – Fundamentals, Swiss Pavilion – Cedric Price & Lucius Burckhard. Countdown to the weeklong workshop started with the theme of the Venice biennale 2014: Fundamentals and absorbing modernity. Many pavilions referred to utopian thinking as a reflection upon this theme. This goes along with theme of our graduation studio - Design as politics: ‘New Utopias: The Double death of welfare state and the nation state’. A combination of this was the workshop in the Swiss Pavilion, which was defined as finding a utopic state for regions currently seeking independency Catalonia, Scotland and Veneto.

In the next few days of the week we endeavoured in finding a utopia for Veneto region. The region has particularities in comparison to rest of Italy. It holds 20% of manufacturing for Italy with 3rd highest GDP and an extensive export-oriented economy known as the ‘Veneto Development Model’. Thus, seeing these features we took the topic of a utopic country of production. We believe that a utopia of production would be that doesn’t ever end much like the cycles of nature unlike economic utopia that looks for maximised profit this looks for optimized production in the form of circularity supply and demand. The idea is that production is optimized in a sustainable way as long as possible. Hence, the concept revolves around the cycle of life with the new country

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completely planned into quadrants of production, housing, recreation and resources, so that work, play and live work in optimised travelling distances. It creates an absurd pattern of a rigid module but much like fractal theory multiples to make the above scales.

Thus completely planning each unit of the country as any unknown area is an unknown parameter which doesn’t fit the production utopia.

The exercise was bordering absurdity much like any other utopia with only one idea that drives a society.

Though we tried to make a utopia which directly doesn’t look like a dystopia but its many specially calculated features might reflect one. A completely top down planning with every activity of a citizen from sleeping to jumping to thinking demands them to optimize it through the most up to date scientifically proven theories. How would be life be in such a society is a question that we ask for ourselves as a reflection on the workshop.

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