Associate Lorenzo Mattozzi and Project Leader Cosimo Scotucci will be leading an intensive course in Venice, Italy for the University of Melbourne. The course called “Venice Studio 2023” comprises 5 leading international offices of architecture and urbanism convening in Venice to exchange ideas and develop new concepts related to the historical city and its surrounding. Over the course of 14 days, a series of public lectures and short design studios will see the participation of 60 selected students, coming from Melbourne and internationally.

The MVRDV course, named “The Halo Farm”, will research landscape, agriculture and food production within the Venetian lagoon and it will include field trips to directly experience nature, production and products. It will study limits, constraints, specificities and potentials of growing food in an environment surrounded by brackish water. It will use the MVRDV methodology to analyse the context, to study scale and typology and to produce a consistent project narrative that addresses sustainability by means of the UN SDGs.

Students will reach a basic understanding of the Venetian context, particularly the relation between Venice and its lagoon. The Studio will offer multiple channels for learning and experiencing the city and the surrounding landscape. The chosen site is Isola del Prà, the north-western island in the Mazzorbo archipelago (a group of four islands). The island is uninhabited, semi-abandoned and presents only a few vestiges of its agricultural history.

The island today is private and belongs to the Bisol family, owner of the nearby Venissa Wine Resort. The Studio, in collaboration with Venissa, will seek to develop its unexplored potential, focusing specifically on reconnecting it, physically and metaphorically, to the cycles of halophyte agriculture, food, farming, fishing, and tourism of the nearby islands. The project aims at producing a small masterplan for the island that will promote traditional farming and agriculture while also promoting enogastronomic tourism and the repopulation and refurbishment of the lagoon landscape. The project seeks to introduce Venetian residents and tourists to the lagoon’s traditions, products, and flavours in a modern, open, and social context. Furthermore, the students will also explore the potential of rammed earth building methods in their design, reviving a sustainable construction process that is suitable in the lagoon context.

• Dates: July 3th – July 14th.
• Location: Palazzo Michiel, Strada Nova, 4391, 30121 Campo Santi Apostoli, Venice, Italy.
• More information can be found here.

On July 12, Cosimo Scotucci will be presenting his lecture “gazing into the future” discussing the role of the designers today and in their impact into the World of Tomorrow to the students of the Venice Studio, hosted by the University of Melbourne. Through an exploration of MVRDV's most recent and past projects and its design methodology, Cosimo will show how today’s ideas can shape the world and the society of tomorrow.

• Date & time: July 12, 17.00 (CET).
• Location: European Cultural Academy - Castello 6668, 30122 Venice, Italy.