Happy birthday Salus W Space!

After a guided tour in the surrounding area of the old Villa, illustrating history and anecdotes, citizens and project partners spent few hours together, with animated readings and theatrical actions, to discover and better understand the project and its potentiality.

In the meantime, after going successfully through UIA financial and technical controls, the City of Bologna received the first tranche of funding, that is 2.500.000 Euro.

Then, Salus Space received the approval for the demolition of the main building, the old Villa Salus, and later the Municipality of Bologna concluded the public tender for the demolition works, that will start by the end of the year.

The first stage of the co-design process has ended: the designers of the Municipality of Bologna and the project partner ICIE, supported by all the project partners that participated in many meetings sharing opinions and suggestions all along the participatory process, finalized the definition of spaces based on future project activities.

The new and shared solution envisages two new structures, with a total floor area of 2,400 square feet, in addition to the old building called the "hyperbaric chamber", whose executive plan for the refurbishment is underway. The park will maintain the same perimeter, surrounded by large trees, to which the project will add an area dedicated to the gardens.

Finally, last 25 October, at the headquarters of the City of Bologna, the partnership organized a public event to present the final architectural project to the citizens, sharing the project vision with more than 100 people. The Mayor of the City of Bologna intervened to illustrate the progress of the project, several councilors and stakeholders attended the event.

Partners provided an interactive presentation of the Salus Space project through six stages of a guided tour, where citizens could walk together with each partner, on the map of the new spaces. Every partner had its own thematic corner and explained the participants the mix of activities foreseen in the Salus Space area. Partners answered to citizens’ doubts and questions, urged and collected through specific panels, where participant left also positive comments and suggestions.

Citizens had the chance to see the Salus Space mockup and to talk with the designers about the architectural project, to watch videos to understand activities and opportunities proposed by the project, while talking with the partners about the future of Salus Space.

Now the project entered the implementation phase: in addition to the physical regeneration of the spaces, partners are committed to the realization of the Think Tank, a laboratory dedicated to the social innovation dialogue and to the deepening of intercultural well-being. The Think Tank consists of a series of periodic meetings with national and international institutions and stakeholders on the topic of social innovation, in order to define a new model of social inclusion, both integrated into the socio-economic context of the city and exportable and replicable in Europe.

The Think Tank started on October 23, with a debate on anthropological transformations and intercultural welfare, led by Matilde Callari Galli, a famous Italian anthropologist.

Communication and evaluation activities are also constantly ongoing, thanks to the great job of the participatory editorial and evaluation groups, where citizens are directly and heavily involved.

Even the participatory staff involved in the garden co-design stared its activities. Up to today, for the different activities and events organized within the project, the participatory process involved more than 200 people.

All at work!

Author: SALUS project team