Exhibit: Rebuilding the Edge

For immediate release

“Rebuilding the Edge” – The 2022 Liminal workshop in Abruzzo
An exhibition of a traveling, field-based laboratory that documented existing conditions, analyzed opportunities and proposed solutions for the sustainable development of rural communities along the Sulmona-Carpinone rail-line with MIT students and faculty.
 

“Rebuilding the Edge” – The 2022 Liminal workshop in Abruzzo
On view February 6, 2023
MIT Architecture HQ Gallery, 77 Mass Ave, 7-337, Cambridge, MA

Cambridge, MA, February 6, 2023 – MIT announced that “Rebuilding the Edge” – The 2022 Liminal workshop in Abruzzo, an exhibition by Liminal and Adriana Giorgis MArch candidate 2024, Angela Loescher-Montal MArch ’23, Sarah Lohmar MIT ’22 is on view at MIT Architecture’s new HQ Gallery through the month of February. The exhibit takes as its subject Liminal Lab’s pilot project, Rebuilding the Edge, which was a workshop offered by MIT’s Department of Architecture during the summer of 2022. The workshop is the result of a collaboration between Liminal, Fondazione FS, MIT-Italy Program (Dr. Serenella Sferza), Urban Risk Lab, Digital Structures, and several municipalities from the Valle Peligna. The initiative allowed students to join the members of Liminal and a group of experts, including Prof. Miho Mazereeuw, Prof. Caitlin Muller, on the ground for three weeks in Abruzzo and Molise to develop visions for the territories around the Ferrovia dei Parchi, a rail line rehabilitated in the last decade by Fondazione FS. Students were asked to think about mobility challenges in the region, opportunities for ecotourism in natural reserves, adaptive reuse strategies for underpopulated towns, land use strategies to recover agricultural districts, and migrant integration models. Participants lived in the depopulated town of Pettorano sul Gizio and worked from the disused Roccaraso railway station, transformed into a pop-up co-working for the occasion.

This exhibition is the result of the intensive fieldwork and stakeholder engagement pursued throughout the entirety of the workshop. Liminal focused on setting up the conditions for students to understand the opportunities and criticalities present on the territory, from which students formulated their assessments and developed preliminary proposals that they considered had the potential for a catalytic socio-economic impact. Participants were asked to document and analyze their sites of interest, perform stakeholder interviews, and propose tangible solutions for the territory and its corresponding communities.

The exhibition is composed of six booklets that contain the work produced by each group according to a specific issue/site of focus, as well as a seventh booklet describing the overall initiative itself. The work produced during the workshop is the result of a first intensive approximation to the territory and its stakeholders. However, the reflections and ideas contained within these booklets have already provided valuable insights to the project beneficiaries. Liminal continues to work with key stakeholders to promote the visions developed throughout the workshop and construct concrete opportunities for certain aspects of them to be implemented.

About Liminal
Currently with a global population of more than 8 billion people, more and more of the world’s inhabitants are moving to cities, especially in the global south. However, as cities try hard to accommodate newcomers, despite evident infrastructural and housing challenges, one cannot help but wonder: What happens to the places left behind by people moving to cities? What is the flip side of urbanization, and how can non-urban areas reinvent themselves?

Approximately 70% of Italy’s land falls under the administrative jurisdiction of towns with populations below 6,000, therefore, which have been grappling with depopulation disinvestment, degrading infrastructure, and mounting environmental stresses. As a result, their rich cultural, historical, and natural heritage has remained on the margins, neglected, and deteriorated over time.

In light of these pressing global challenges with highly local consequences, a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University graduates (Ginevra D’Agostino, Carmelo Ignaccolo and Nicolas Delgado Alcega) decided to establish Liminal, a non-profit research and design group based in Italy. Liminal operates as a decentralized research laboratory across Italy documenting, analyzing, and proposing design solutions to tackle the challenges faced by rural towns in Italy. The organization tries to leverage the historical and cultural heritage of these towns and looks at how to transform their underutilized infrastructure into spaces for research and innovation. Liminal is composed of experts from different fields, from urban planning and architecture, to economics, urban law, and development. Together, they approach problems through different lenses to present solutions that are multi-faceted and cohesive.

About the MIT Department of Architecture
The MIT Department of Architecture opened its doors in 1868 as the first Architecture department in the United States. MIT Architecture is currently home to around 250 graduate and undergraduate students. Numbered among the Department’s over 5,000 alumni are Sophia Hayden ’1890, Robert R. Taylor ‘1892, I.M. Pei ‘40, and Charles Correa ‘55.

“Rebuilding the Edge” – The 2022 Liminal workshop in Abruzzo was supported by Fondazione FS, MIT-Italy Program, Urban Risk Lab, Digital Structures.

MIT Student participants
TJ Bayowa, John Devine, Lauren Gideonse, Adriana Giorgis, Ipshita Karmakar, Sarah Ladhani, Sojung Lee, Angela Loescher-Montal, Sarah Lohmar, Sacha Moreau, Kerri Lu, Ava La Rocca, Naksha Roy, Tristan Searight, Natasha Stamler, Alex Steelman, Alexis Spinetta, and Amanda Ugorji.

Booklet Curation and Editing
Adriana Giorgis, Angela Loescher-Montal, Sarah Lohmar and Liminal.

Liminal
Ginevra D’Agostino, President (MIT MArch ‘22); Nicolas Delgado Alcega, Executive Vice President; Carmelo Ignaccolo, Vice President of Research (MIT PhD DUSP ‘24); Elena Militello, Founding Partner; Gabriele Pizzi, Volunteer; and Chiara Romano Bosch, Founding Partner. Learn more about Liminal.

Special thanks to Nicholas De Monchaux, Miho Mazereeuw, Caitlin Mueller, John Ochsendorf, and Serenella Sferza. HQ Gallery exhibition team: Amanda Moore, Joél Carela, and Jim Harrington.

Visitor Information
MIT Architecture HQ Gallery, 77 Mass Ave, 7-337, Cambridge, MA
Monday through Sunday, 7AM to 7PM

Media contacts
Amanda Moore
Communications Strategist, MIT Department of Architecture
amm@mit.edu / 617-253-0692

Chiara Romano Bosch
Liminal Founding Member | Communication Team
liminalweb.com / cromanobosch@gmail.com / 401-533-3611