Sacha Hickinbotham Y5
Civic Palimpsest for Future Learning. Civic Palimpsest for Future Learning is a studying into the integration or migrants and refugees in Palermo, Italy. There has been a deep exploration into understanding the role or architecture and design to address issues of foreign integration at its core. The project proposes a tertiary school that aims to educate both foreign and local inhabitants of Palermo on the city’s rich cultural diversity. The goal is to integrate at an early age through reciprocal learning of farming, trades and services. The project is sited in a disused Church of Carmine Maggiore in historic centre of Palermo – Ballaro, lying adjacent to the ancient Ballaro Market that forms a cultural spine through the city. The school will attempt to reinvent the religious practice of teaching, where rising numbers of non-Catholic migrant arrivals are seeing Palermo’s churches turn to abandonment. As churches are historically one of the most dynamic architectures to exist in city – altered, deconstructed and reconstructed with every new colonisation, the project deals with designing into heritage, opening the building to its urban context and altering its function to serve a new purpose. This project poses the question; what is the next iteration of the church that will best serve the need of its community?
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