PALIMPSEST project | 2nd Brochure

Creative Drivers for Sustainable Living Heritage Landscapes Email: [email protected] CONNECT WITH US palimpsestEU PALIMPSEST EU Project palimpsestEU PALIMPSESTEUProject Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. PROJECT FACTS Duration: 36 Months (2023-2026) EU Funding: 2.998.897,50 € Coordinator: DAStU, Politecnico di Milano (CALL Research Lab) Communication & Dissemination Leader: Institute of Communication and Computer Systems Project GOALS A living digital space for creative, sustainable interventions to environmental challenges. re:SCAPE is a virtual space envisioned as a storytelling hub that reflects PALIMPSEST’s approach to landscape regeneration. It serves as a dynamic repository, showcasing the essential “ingredients” and methodologies PALIMPSEST employs to address local environmental challenges. The repository reflects the PALIMPSEST’s concept that landscapes are shaped by multiple actors across time and space, continuously redefining practices, spaces, and meanings. We believe that creative actions can enrich social and cultural practices when deeply rooted in the unique identities of places and communities. re:SCAPE PALIMPSEST aims to imagine practices connecting human actions, landscape heritage and sustainability objectives and to bring architecture, design and art in dialogue with place-specific needs. In particular, it seeks to Explore heritage landscapes’ sustainability transition drivers, questioning the meaning and role of creative action and thinking. Leverage the social function of art, design and architecture for sustainable landscape generation, to connect human actions, landscape (as living heritage) and sustainability objectives. Develop and assess transdisciplinary co-creation processes involving artists, designers and architects in working collaboratively with technical partners, institutions and local communities in re(imagining) a new European way of life in line with the New European Bauhaus principles. παλίμψηστος < palimpsestos, ‘again’ + ‘scrape’ PALIMPSEST_BROCHURE_2_V4.indd 1 PALIMPSEST_BROCHURE_2_V4.indd 1 03/12/25 22:39 03/12/25 22:39 The PROJECT The city is undergoing a rapid and profound transformation: its vast industrial heritage is being renovated to attract new residents, tourists, and artists. Yet Łódź continues to struggle with severe air, soil, and water pollution, ranking among the most polluted cities in Europe. Climate change further exacerbates these challenges, bringing recurrent droughts, flash floods, and pronounced urban heat island effects. The very name Łódź, meaning “boat,” reveals how deeply the city has been shaped by its water system and how crucial water management remains today. In both the city’s agenda and the daily experiences of its residents, episodes of flooding and drought are ever-present concerns, disrupting everyday life and underscoring the urgency of sustainable action. To address these challenges through a diffuse, smallscale, community-based, and site-specific approach, two local creatives developed solutions rooted in local resources, knowledge, technologies, and traditions. Ceramic artist Magda Stecka created Rain Flowers, a ceramic irrigation device designed to retain and distribute water. Deer Garden, a landscape architecture studio, conceived Łódzki Meander (Łódź Meander), a blue–green infrastructure strategy that manages water flows by redirecting, distributing, collecting, and slowly releasing surface water into permeable soils. To empower the community to take proactive action in mitigating these critical events, a toolkit is being developed and will be introduced through workshops for residents. The practice of writing over papyrus—scraping away existing text, smoothing the surface, and inscribing a new one—offers a compelling metaphor to the construction of landscapes: a living heritage continuously shaped and reshaped through the interactions between people and their territories. PALIMPSEST is a three-year project that adopts this re-writing perspective and focuses on regenerating the lost “sustainability wisdom” in living landscapes. PALIMPSEST embraces the co-creation process as a methodology for setting up moments of creative collisions - i.e. Creative Dialogues, Residency Workshops and Prototyping - between PALIMPSEST consortium, creative actors, policymakers and local communities working in three Landscape Pilots - Milan, Łódź and Jerez de la Frontera - that currently face significant environmental challenges. Throughout the Project, artists, designers and architects will dialogue with place-specific needs and broad systemic challenges to imagine new scenarios and experiment with innovative practices connecting human actions, landscape heritage and sustainability objectives. 3 LANDSCAPE PILOTS A city known for its world-famous wines, fine horses, fertile countryside, and flamenco. Jerez also stands out for its unique natural conditions. For centuries, water has shaped Milan’s identity, economy, and ways of living. Over time, however, the connection between the city, and its waterways The project aims to rebuild the relationship between the river and the community through a collaborative process that leads to the creation of this somewhat magical device and to the production of a limited edition of glass carafes, each containing purified, drinkable water from the Lambro. From the poetic framework introduced by gethan&myles in the ACQUA LAMBRO project, two community-based and site-specific initiatives have emerged: IMMACCHINARIUM, a participatory creative process, and LAMBROGINO, an award celebrating civic environmental actions carried out along the Lambro River. has weakened, gradually obscured by rapid urban expansion and industrial transformation. The challenge set for Milan seeks to rekindle this bond by reimagining the city’s water heritage from the perspective of one of its rivers—not as a memory of the past, but as a vital resource for its future. What if we could drink the water of the Lambro? Starting from this provocative question, the ACQUA LAMBRO project by the artistic duo gethan&myles used materials recovered from the riverbanks of Lambro river to build a machine-sculpture capable of purifying the river’s water—both physically and symbolically—and helping us to see the Lambro in a new light. The region is notably windy, and the city lies within an extensive area of albariza soil—a type of terrain highly prized in viticulture for its exceptional capacity to retain water and nutrients. Another distinctive feature is the air temperature: the summer of 2025 was exceptionally hot, with Jerez registering Spain’s highest recorded temperature of 45.8°C. The city is seeking environmental solutions to enhance the liveability of its public spaces during the hottest months. SONE – Songs Of Nearby Earth, by Estelle Julian, explores the territory of Jerez by integrating local knowledge, landscape traditions, and cultural expressions. The project engages with the materiality and life cycle of a ceramic object (the zambomba musical instrument), the ritual and its lyrics (the zambomba celebration), and renaturalisation practices such as vinearbour canopies (emparrados). SONE creates spaces for reflection on pressing contemporary challenges—including climate adaptation, the energy transition, and landscape transformation — and translates these explorations into concrete actions. These include a contemporary reinterpretation of the zambomba, both as ritual and musical instrument, and interventions in public space through Nature–Culture Based Solutions that draw on the traditional know-how of vine arbours as devices for climate mitigation. Studio Magdalena Stecka Deer Garden, naturally Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection - University of Łódź Absolutely Turistic Environmental Management Division - Łódź Municipality Academic Design Center Cascina Biblioteca Arte da Mangiare, Mangiare Arte Carlo Cerada AIPo Osservatorio Lambro Lucente Legambiente Monza e Lombardia EuCliPa Assessorato al Verde, City of Milan Lost Movement CRAFT - Politecnico di Milano Escuela de Arte y Superior de Diseño Gresierra Zambombas Coca Belenish Moreno-Gil & Óscar Escudero Lucía Franco Corrales & Claudia GR Moneo Centro Andaluz de Documentación del Flamenco Emparrados Jerez/Amigos de los Árboles FabLab Jerez Bodega Luis Pérez Vara y Pulgar PALIMPSEST_BROCHURE_2_V4.indd 2 PALIMPSEST_BROCHURE_2_V4.indd 2 03/12/25 22:39 03/12/25 22:39