FEDERICA ZAMBELETTI / KOOZ A few months have now passed since Liminal’s inaugural general assembly. Reflecting on the experience and the work so far, how have you celebrated the lastthree years of collaborative work focused on the territorial identity of Monti Prenestini, ever as you set out a framework for the future?

NICOLÁS DELGADO ALCEGA / LIMINAL The Liminal Assembly was a milestone moment for us, as it allowed us to gather the majority of our membership together for the first time since our founding. Up in the rural mountains to the east of Rome, Monti Prenestini felt like an unlikely place to meet all sorts of talented people, coming from a breadth of backgrounds rarely found in other contexts. Members from multiple disciplines convened from across the world, effortlessly striking up intense conversations after flash talks in Palazzo Mocci, or over dinner in the orchards of La Mandera. It was very refreshing and generative.

Gathering the membership in a territory where we have been welcomed over the past three years, where we have forged meaningful relationships with individuals and local institutions alike — and moreover, where we have experimented intensely with our theses of how we can render ourselves useful to local regeneration processes — was very gratifying. The Liminal Assembly itself was an occasion for our membership to meet many of the institutional partners that we have collaborated with so far and with whom we have plans for the future. I think this coming together was the most important role played by the assembly, in terms of what’s to come in Monti Prenestini.

However, the main conviction verified by the success of the assembly was that to unlock new potentials, we need to get better at coordinating resources and agreeing on visions that are worth pursuing for the future. You can gather the most talented group of individuals in a field, but if they have no ideas in common for the world, they are unable to move beyond cacophony. On the other hand, when you gather that same level of talent — irrespective of their specific expertise — around an idea that is grounded on strong values, the result is an organic proliferation of synergies and opportunities. The conversation flips from a struggle to decide what to address, to a creative exploration of ambitious proposals, convened to shape reality in the image of our ideals.

We gathered because we believe that the current moment of rapid change and instability represents an opportunity to reinvent the role of our specific territories in society, which have been overlooked for too long. However, I think what I am describing is a situation that can be replicated for any cultural project that is strongly and sincerely committed to the renewal of human flourishing.

KOOZ As per many other rural hamlets throughout Italy, the hamlets of Monti Prenestini face the issue of depopulation, as the younger generations have moved to the bigger urban settlements. What strategies can be implemented to incentivise the population of these settlements? What kind of partnerships are necessary?

HANNAH LEUNG Collaboration and resource distribution strategies should be context-based; they require constant maintenance, making them complex but crucial aspects if we want to ensure the repopulation of shrinking settlements. This could take the form of inter-settlement partnerships or mutually beneficial multilateral relationships. In Monti Prenestini, we imagined one such partnership between students from the Sapienza University in Rome and land owners around Capranica Prenestina. These collaborations would not only stimulate innovation, but also address the resource imbalance that tends to favour urban development. However, in studying the socio-political tensions that have shaped Italy's fractured landscapes, I have become aware of the need for a structural and cultural shift to allow these collaborations to flow seamlessly across social boundaries.

This doesn't necessarily mean saturating the market with subsidies — as seen with Japan's efforts to attract urban populations to rural settlements — but perhaps focusing on intentional, targeted support to specific demographics or industries. This could mean funds to encourage collaboration between urban restaurateurs and rural farmers, or student scholarships for skill sharing and hands-on volunteer workshops in Monti Prenestini.

Businesses starting to move back to places like Castel San Pietro Romano are a sign that some private actors recognise and wish to capitalise on the values of a slower pace of life, lower operating costs, and proximity to producers. However, single cases don't necessarily indicate a meaningful revival of the peri-urban landscape. We need to be paying attention to sustained resettlement patterns and signs of healthy, thriving communities. Monti Prenestini is certainly an interesting place through which we can pay attention to the development of these dynamics.

KOOZ Paolo, through the Interfaces design studio at the Polytechnic of Turin, you analysed and worked with urban transformations and notions of sustainability. How have these discoveries reshaped the two sites and economies of Alta and Bassa Langa you investigated in the region of Piedmont?

PAOLO BIANCO The Alta and Bassa Langa, while historically part of the same territory, have taken distinct paths in terms of their development over the years, driven by the rediscovery of a cultural heritage rooted in agriculture and food and wine traditions. Since the 1980s, the Bassa Langa has forged a strong economy, propelled by viticulture and foreign investments, reversing depopulation and gaining international renown. However, this success story is now showing cracks under the pressures of over-tourism and eco-gentrification — issues exacerbated by its 2014 UNESCO designation.

By contrast, the Alta Langa, after decades of depopulation and abandonment, is now experiencing a late revival, leveraging its natural resources. Yet its development priorities are different, informed by the lessons learned from the experience of Bassa Langa. The challenges of urban depopulation, accelerated by the pandemic and the climate crisis, call for a return to certain traditional values — but with a forward-looking approach that addresses the needs of local communities and promotes sustainable resource use. This divergence formed the basis of the design studio’s work, which sought to spatialise these new practices through proposals and design strategies.

KOOZ Focussing on agriculture, your research directly explores the use of sustainable agricultural practices to regenerate land. What is regenerative agriculture and what are the opportunities which can arise in moving away from modern agricultural systems for places like Monti Prenestini?

ALESSANDRO GORI Regenerative agriculture requires a shift in mindset and practices from conventional paradigms, focussing on the provision of ecosystem services and enhancing the fertility of soils. This approach also aims to regenerate communities around local food production and consumption; by contrast, modern industrialised agricultural systems cause a big disconnect between those who produce the food and those who consume it.

I am convinced that the leveraging of regenerative farming can open ways forward for traditional agricultural landscapes. The development and stewardship of food producing systems that harmoniously integrate into changing landscapes like Monti Prenestini — rapidly turning into an unmanaged, and soon unmanageable, forest — can offer progressive examples. This was part of the thinking that we built up through Transitioning a Landscape, in which Liminal engaged with the local community and other regional actors to imagine new relationships and interactions with the landscape of Monti Prenestini.

KOOZ The assembly brought together a number of voices with diverse expertise. How important are these differing fields of expertise when working within such rural territories as that of Monti Prenestini? What can we look forward to in terms of your next steps?

NDA / LIMINAL When we were in academia, we heard a lot of talk about multidisciplinarity, but it felt like a buzz-word mostly because of the abstract ways in which it was discussed. I have to say that our experience at Liminal has completely changed this perception. At first, it was hard to gather a designer, a planner, a mathematician and a business strategist and actually get something done. Everyone brought a unique perspective to the problem at hand, which enhanced our larger understanding of the issues faced by rural territories. However, once we started looking for specific solutions, we would quickly run into gridlock. Everyone could come up with an idea that their field of expertise was designed to deliver, but not necessarily one that suited to the practical problems of local development facing us; harder still to find one that would best capitalise the breadth of talent in the room.

Today, things are different, which is one of the most exciting aspects of what is ahead for Liminal. The disciplinary makeup of our membership has grown, from people in robotics and computer science, to agroecology and climate adaptation. So too has our culture of collaboration; when we are working on action-research projects, each of us gains a layer of maturity and perspective within our field of expertise. We approach issues with an open mind and we let ourselves be humbled by the pragmatic realities that define them. We then let the expertise gathered in the room be a palette with which to construct bespoke solutions to a narrow aspect of a larger issue. Sometimes that involves performing small-business facilitation to encourage historic building reuse. Other times, it's about gathering granular data on rural settlements, used to improve the wayfinding tools that utility providers rely on to guarantee basic services to citizens. There’s usually a thesis of how we can be useful from the beginning, but the real potentials tend to reveal themselves on the go.

Bios

Nicolás Delgado Alcega is the vice-president of Liminal, supporting young change makers shaping the future of rural Italy. He is a principal of Alliata /Alcega, an architecture practice based in Rome. Nicolás holds a Master in Architecture from Harvard University, and received his Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami. He recently edited Large, Lasting & Inevitable (Park Books: 2024), a monograph on Jorge Silvetti's architectural pedagogy and practice over the last fifty years.

Hannah Leung is a Master in City Planning and Master of Science in Real Estate Development student at MIT, with a background in landscape architecture and economics. Informed by experience in design practice and interest in nature-based solutions, Hannah is interested in the valorization of peri-urban landscapes to advocate for equitable and resilient communities.

Alessandro Gori has a background in natural sciences and holds a Master's in Agroecology. He specialises in grazing management and forage crops and gained hands-on experience as a trainer and field coordinator through his work with the Ecosystem Restoration Camp at La Junquera, a regenerative farm in southern Spain.

Paolo Bianco studied at Polytechnic University of Turin, where his 2021 thesis analysed the dynamics of Italy’s inner areas through a study of the Bormida Valley in lower Piedmont. He is a PhD candidate and a member of Transitional Morphologies, a joint research unit and works as a teaching assistant at the Polytechnic University of Turin. In 2023, with the Contrasto editorial project, he was selected by the ADI Museum in Milan for Italy: A New Collective Landscape.

Federica Zambeletti is the founder and managing director of KoozArch. She is an architect, researcher and storyteller whose interests lie at the intersection between art, architecture and regenerative practices. In 2022 Federica founded KoozArch with the ambition of creating a space where to research, explore and discuss architecture beyond the limits of its built form. Prior to dedicating her full attention to KoozArch, Federica collaborated with the architecture studio and non-profit agency for change UNA/UNLESS working on numerous cultural projects and the research of "Antarctic Resolution". Federica is an Architectural Association School of Architecture in London alumni.