HomeSweetHome -Brera Design Week 2022

Fostering synergies for biodiversity

Piuarch is once again taking part in this year's Milano Design Week, the most important international event in the world of design, with the project HomeSweetHome / Fostering Synergies for Biodiversity, which, thanks to an itinerary that winds its way from the courtyard at Via Palermo 5 to the Garden on the rooftop of the architecture studio, raises the issue of the importance of nature and its preservation.
Inspired by considerations on the current issue of the disappearance of pollinating insects, HomeSweetHome emphasises the importance of defending these precious beings that regulate the reproduction process of plants and perform a fundamental service for our ecosystem and for preserving biodiversity.

Reflecting on the concept of home and its various interpretations - home/building, home/city, home/planet - Piuarch has designed a bugs home, a module designed as a habitat to foster the life of these harmless and solitary species, in which they can find refuge and reproduce.

Each HomeSweetHome module is made with a 3D clay extrusion printer. Once dried and fired at a temperature of around 1000° Celsius, the clay turns into terracotta, a stable and resistant material suited for the outdoors. Thanks to the varying-sized openings on each side of the module, different species will be able to find refuge and reproduce within this home for bugs, helping to sustain biodiversity in the urban environment as well.
This refuge is designed to accommodate different species of pollinating insects, including wild bees, solitary and harmless to humans because they do not sting, and whose survival is endangered by pollution, climate change and the loss of their natural habitat compromised by urbanisation and intensified agricultural production.

The setting for this presentation is the Garden created in 2015 on the rooftop of the architecture firm's offices. A Garden within Courtyards is the title of the project that Piuarch created with the landscape designer Cornelius Gavril for Milano Design Week 2015, which has since become a permanent proposal. The Garden fuses many ideas into one: a project to improve building energy efficiency, a landscaping, decorative and self-producing food resource, as well as a new space for entertaining, socialising and co-working for those who do business in the building. This is where the HomeSweetHome prototype finds its natural setting.

To accompany visitors along this itinerary, Piuarch with the artistic direction of Caterina Roppo also proposes an interactive experience entitled TheDoors, four wallpapers visualised thanks to Augmented Reality: four visual metaphors that poetically depict the connection between human and animal systems revolving around the idea of home, of hospitality and of being protected.

The HomeSweetHome / Fostering synergies for biodiversity project was developed by Piuarch in partnership with Apicolturaurbana.it, a Milan-based organisation that has been working for years on environmental sustainability, biodiversity and the preservation of pollinating insects. By installing and maintaining beehives at farms, parks and schools, Apicolturaurbana.it provides an outreach and educational service, helping people rediscover nature and protect biodiversity.

To mark Design Week, the firm is also taking part in the event "An Italian architect in... / The City of Women", a commentary on the world of architecture proposed through talks and videos made in the most prestigious international architecture studios, led by Italian architects who have built their future abroad, including Piuarch itself.
Organised by Matrix4Design, a digital architecture and design magazine, and the journalist Laura Ragazzola, in the Superstudio Più spaces, the meeting will feature Monica Tricario, one of the founders of the Piuarch architecture studio, who is invited to talk about her point of view on the theme of the gendered city.

HomeSweetHome
A project by Piuarch created in partnership with Apicolturaurbana.it

www.piuarch.it