A DUT Partnership Project on Circular Urban Economies
Community reclaiming of the city through the lens of participation and circularity_Building a new corpus of knowledge on Circular Urban Economies
*corpus \\ noun [plural corpora]
a. all the writings or works of a particular kind or on a particular subject
b. a collection or body of knowledge or evidence
CORPUS so far
300 m²
reclaimed municipal space
76
workshops, sessions & public events
~515
recorded citizens participated in two cities
16
organisations engaged beyond the consortium
12
types of public space intervention under construction
CORPUS carries out research on alternative processes for retrofitting public space at neighbourhood level, grounded in Circular Urban Economies (CUE) and built through the sustained involvement of local stakeholders and citizens. Its starting challenge — the revival of degraded public space on the periphery of the city — is being addressed through the concept of the Urban Living Lab (ULL), tested simultaneously in two very different neighbourhoods.
Since 2024, two ULLs — a public housing park in Aigaleo and a network of civic and cultural organisations in Turin — have turned that concept into practice through participatory action research, a method that gives residents the tools and knowledge to connect with, and change, their own built environment, rather than simply asking their opinion of it. Workshop by workshop, reclaimed materials are finding a second life in a community makerspace, residents and schoolchildren are co-designing interventions for their own square, and a growing circle of citizens, schools and organisations is sharing tools, time and materials across both cities. What is emerging is not only two local projects, but a replicable model, carried between neighbourhoods through a shared pattern language — for how circularity, participation and civic technology can cultivate CUE and communities of making.
project consortium
collaborators
Co.R.Pu.S. will investigate how Urban Living Labs (ULL) could become demonstrators of behavioural and systemic change, with respect to the above mentioned components, starting from the use of materials with impact on the public space of the neighbourhood. The research will expand knowledge on the activation of public space through the circularity of materials, the active involvement of the community in the design of the small scale interventions, and the support of civic technologies. It will test the capacities of such an orientation to create a sense of belonging to citizens and ensure a long-term sustainability of the place, and the effectiveness of civic blockchains in supporting the creation of decentralised value exchange systems.
