The Slow Food Pillars Area project, created for the Terra Madre – Salone del Gusto 2022 event, represents a significant example of outdoor exhibition setup. Located in the picturesque context of Parco Dora in Turin, specifically in the Vitali area, the setup was designed to illustrate the main thematic activities carried out annually by Slow Food. The Vitali area, once dedicated to sheet metal working, offered a unique setting for the installation with its impressive metal canopy derived from an industrial stripping line. This strongly characterized environment allowed the designers, Giancarlo Zucca and Marco Zummo of Unoazero Studio, to create an innovative setup using a single construction element: the European pallet, expressly requested by the client.
The large walls built with the pallets were designed to serve several fundamental functions: identifying thematic areas, interacting with the park, ensuring unity and coherence, and providing flexibility and adaptability. The walls delineate three main thematic areas that illustrate Slow Food’s activities, guiding the flow of visitors and integrating it as a compositional element of the setup. The installation intercepts key structural elements of Parco Dora, recovering and enhancing further aspects of the context through a visual counterpoint. The walls ensure the unity of the overall configuration, generating a perceptual tension towards the complex metal structure of the canopy and other surrounding visual elements. The setup provides a backdrop capable of accommodating highly heterogeneous presences, both planned by the project and of an extemporaneous nature, ensuring the continuity of ongoing activities and pedestrian traffic.
The temporary installation of the Slow Food Pillars Area not only enlivened the public spaces of Parco Dora but also updated the ways of using these spaces, infusing them with a different atmosphere and leaving traces of interpersonal relationships and rituals. These aspects constitute the premise of architecture and urban continuity, even in the contemporary “Onlife” dimension, where online and offline life merge. In conclusion, the Slow Food Pillars Area is an excellent example of how a temporary setup can enrich a public space, making it not only functional but also aesthetically and socially significant.
CREDITS
Project: Slow Food Pillars Area, Turin
Studio: Unoazero Studio
Year: 2022
