Tales of Consonno. Rediscovering a lost landscape of happiness

Tales from Consonno rediscovering a lost landscape of happiness Abstract: At the foot of the Swiss Alps, in the heart of the province of Lecco, lies a peaceful and remote North Italian town called Consonno. For centuries its residents had sustained themselves through farming and agriculture, by growing and harvesting produce from the local soil as well as chestnuts from the fertile trees which grew on the mountain slope all around them. Due to its location the place had been a little paradise for cultivation of mulberry trees to feed silkworms and obtain the precious silk thread. In 1960s life for the farmers of Consonno would radically change, when Mario Bagno, an Italian wealthy entrepreneur, bought all the land of the village, forcefully displaced all residents while demolishing all their homes and cutting down most of the surrounding trees to clear the path for the building of an entertainment park under the name "city of toys". It was aimed for both the elite and tourists in the city of Milan, located only an hour away from Consonno. The town would have an extravagant Las Vegas-feel, complete with a shopping mall, restaurants, ballrooms and a luxury hotel, influenced and conceived as a mixture of architectural styles from all over the world, all located in a beautiful hillside, exposed to an incredible view. The adult playground was opened to the public in the late 1960s, when it firstly welcomed families and weekend visitors eager on spending their extra money on accessible emotions. But in 1976, a few years after the opening of the "city of toys", nature took revenge and a landslide due to deforestation, wiped out the only road into the town as well as Bagno's fircefull dream. Ever since the place was abandoned all the buildings were left to decay to this day. With this project we are envisioning an alternative future of this forgotten place by picking up the leftover pieces. By closely examinig all that can be found and learned about Consonno we picture a place where architecture adapts lightly to the environment – both natural and manmade, without any significant impact on the life-giving soil. Human identity and natural diversity go hand in hand in this proposition where a small local community and the fertile land are seen as catalysts for development. For us this is the process of rediscovering this forgotten landscape – so rich in all basic resources which life requires. With our design we encourage picking up from where all local small scale production stopped in the 1960s in combination with envisioning dwellings that allow human settlement within the process of growing food, culture creation and general commonwealth