Founded in 1978 as a secluded site for drug rehabilitation, the Italian village of San Patrignano today consists of 1,600 residents whose therapy includes learning to produce food, furniture, and other goods. After visiting the community and markets in Emilia-Romagna, Urban-Think Tank’s design studio has been developing flexible market spaces for different sites in Bologna. The proposals are conceived as newly imagined spatial relationships between the production, presentation, and purchase of goods. On a social level, the sites will function as spatial activators where producers and consumers engage to form a revitalized kind of marketplace: a SUPER MERCATO. Hannes Gutberlet, Katerina Kourkoula and Gianmaria Socci.
