“PROGETTI inCOMUNE”: DIDA Students' Ideas for a Sustainable Future in Minucciano

On Saturday, May 10, 2025, the C.I.A.F. "Pietro Ferri" in Gorfigliano hosted the event “PROGETTI inCOMUNE – The Ideas of DIDA Students for the Future of Minucciano”, organized as part of the Bauhaus4MED (B4M) European project – Interreg Euro-MED 2021–2027, in which Regione Toscana is an active partner.
It was a morning dedicated to participation, sustainability, inclusion, and innovation, where Minucciano became a small laboratory of ideas, dialogue, and vision.

At the heart of the initiative were the projects developed by students from the “Design for Sustainability” course at the Department of Architecture (DIDA), University of Florence, under the guidance of professors Giuseppe De Luca and Giuseppe Lotti. The proposals – all based on an in-depth analysis of the local context – addressed key themes for the area’s future: creative reuse of waste materials, social inclusion, environmental enhancement, and revitalization of inner areas.

The event opened with institutional greetings and included the participation of the Director of the Directorate for Productive Activities of Regione Toscana, who emphasized the importance of connecting universities, local authorities, and citizens to foster a shared ecological transition.

A particularly engaging moment was the introduction of the Crowdvocacy platform, which enabled attendees to vote on the projects and take part in an interactive discussion. This tool is designed to promote participatory democracy and direct community involvement in decision-making processes.

“PROGETTI inCOMUNE” was a pilot action within the Bauhaus4MED journey, giving tangible form to the principles of the New European Bauhaus – the European initiative that combines aesthetics, sustainability, and inclusion to rethink the way we design and live in our spaces. It was an opportunity to bring together academic knowledge, local insight, and everyday experience.

Open to the public, the event brought together citizens, students, institutional representatives, associations, and local organizations for a constructive dialogue, showing how even rural and peripheral contexts can become places of cultural innovation and social regeneration.