REAWAKENING MONTERUGA

Monteruga was once a vibrant commune, constructed in the 1930s as part of a wider initiative of Autarky tied to Italian Nationalism at its peak it reached 800 permanent inhabitants. Until isolation and a societal shift towards urbanity led to Monteruga's total abandonment by the 1980s. A fate shared by many communities in Italy’s ghost town epidemic. However, a wave of Reawakening Projects across Italy has seen such forgotten spaces remembered, populated by collectives of New Rurals. A movement catalysed by technology negating the previously experienced isolation and a desire for the authenticity found in rurality. The reawakening of Monteruga looks to encapsulate this movement, building upon the relevant values of the original community including self-sufficiency and localized industry. The fluctuating nature of such a community will be answered by the formation of a transient vernacular housing achieved through a re-understanding of Monteruga’s first industry, tobacco. This time in the form of a bio-composite building material, utilized to create a series of architectural interventions that exist alongside and within the original architecture, consisting of spaces to, produce, learn, share, and live, once again reinstating a self-sufficient community within the colonnades of Monteruga.