Beauty – Sustainability – Inclusion: The Pillars of the Future European Community
In June, Materially hosted the first Italian “Living Lab” of the UP2NEB project. The activity, held in the form of a workshop, aimed at exploring the daily experiences, point of view and needs of youth communities in terms of sustainability, inclusion and beauty. The meeting saw the participation of young people from peripheral areas, youth workers and third sector actors and gave Materially the opportunity to expand its network in the context of social entrepreneurship.
UP2NEB – Interdisciplinary, youth-centred upskilling path leveraging on the New European Bauhaus toward peripheral communities
The UP2NEB project, co-financed by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, has the ultimate goal of enhancing the skills of young adults with an interdisciplinary approach, focused on the transfer of the principles of the New European Bauhaus – beautiful, sustainable, inclusive – towards the participatory development of rural and peripheral communities. The New European Bauhaus, in short NEB, is a creative and interdisciplinary initiative of the European Commission that connects the European Green Deal to our spaces and life experiences.
Materially is part of the UP2NEB consortium as it offers a space for research and experimentation in the socio-cultural field to better understand and implement its impact as a social enterprise.
The partnership is composed of youth organisations and associations active in the world of education and training as well as actors in the creative industries spread across eight European countries: CIAPE – Centro Italiano per l’Apprendimento Permanente (Italy – project coordinator), STEP Institut (Slovenia), Materially S.r.l Impresa Sociale (Italy), Quiosq (Netherlands), Innovative Education Center (Austria), Eco Logic (Northern Macedonia), Pod gradom (Slovenia), Fundación Santa María la Real (Spain), Ankara Aks (Turkey), Group of the European Youth for Change (Romania).
The aim of UP2NEB is in particular to engage, connect and provide youth workers from peripheral rural areas of Europe with training content, practical tools and updated co-design skills to accompany young people from their communities in becoming active designers of a beautiful, sustainable and inclusive Europe.
The Living Labs are a series of meetings organised in the eight countries represented in the consortium and are the first activity of the project launched in spring this year. The information gathered during the Living Labs will allow a deeper understanding of the ambitions and expectations of young people and will help to develop an extensive training programme, designed to foster positive change in local communities.
Materially, thanks to its experience in transferring knowledge related to design-thinking and material-driven design, acts as the leader of the Living Labs’ execution and developed the methodology and tools to run the workshops. Materially will further contribute to the project by defining the contents of the training programme that will be translated into a toolkit as the final product of the UP2NEB initiative.
The meeting in Milan was also an opportunity to share the founding values of Materially, namely the facilitation of the use of sustainable materials and the implementation of circular processes in manufacturing and architecture in order to contribute to a sustainable future in accordance with the 2030 Agenda, conveyed through a presentation on the sustainability of materials and processes by Anna Pellizzari, Head of advisory. Furthermore, the participants had the opportunity to delve into the concept of aesthetics in terms of sensorial experience thanks to the contribution of Valentina Ventrelli, StudiOvale, as well as to approach an experience of inclusion through the testimony of Carlo Raffa of the Cooperativa Lo Specchio, an organization in the outskirts of Milan that has been active in the field of education and social inclusion since 1995.
For Materially, being part of the UP2NEB network consolidates its position in an ecosystem of actors dedicated to a 360° vision of sustainable innovation and in line with the pillars of the New European Bauhaus.
As an observatory and supplier of material solutions, Materially has always played the role of a connector between knowing about and working with materials. For this reason it proposes itself as curator for exhibitions and installations dedicated to materials, but also as a partner for dissemination projects that contribute to spreading the culture and knowledge of materials.
