programme: “New place marketing for SMEs based in the mountainous region in the Vicenza province” – exhibition and seminars.
client: confartigianato vicenza
team: sophia los, luca fattambrini, massimo meggiolaro
collaborators: renza mara calabrese, matteo pollani, paola de rosso
city/area: asiago (VI) – italy
status: completed, 2008
The Craft Workers Association for the Vicenza Province launched a project titled: “New place marketing for SMEs based in the mountain region in the Vicenza province”. The initiative was backed by the Eu regional development fund to promote economic growth and entrepreneurship within businesses in the mountainous areas.
The plan included activities aiming at boosting productions and local source materials from the Asiago Plateau, particularly marble and wood. With this goal in mind, the program featured a small exhibition dedicated to this topic and three supporting seminars to get a deeper look.
The talks sought to bring private and public entities’ experiences in the realm of regulations and entrepreneurship to professionals from the sector and local organizations’ representatives, thus aiding the community’s economic growth.
Both industries, wood and marble, represent two areas with great potential for economic growth in the Asiago Plateau, but they are currently in a crisis. The competition is intense from raw processing, making it hard to employ local resources. The lack of syndicates limits the scope of shared policies, while the loss of identity of the cityscape enables the spread of incoherent stylistic features and materials.
It is not just about boosting entrepreneurship but also about acting to safeguard the environment by increasing the appreciation of the local materials’ specific qualities, using them in the community, coordinating and grouping the entire supply chain. This approach would help recover the historical architecture typical of this area, returning the Plateau and its landscape to its original appearance.
The exhibition titled: “Notes for a Portrait. Architecture in the Seven Municipalities” presents a preliminary examination of stylistic features, now almost completely gone, typical of the local architecture, to make them recognisable to locals and foreigners alike.
The implementation of incentives for sustainable construction in building regulations could affect not just energy-saving technologies, bio-compatible materials, bio-climatic design but also reward the use of local materials as an ecologic action (it would reduce transportation-related pollution).