So, nature is cyclical, it lives according to cycles.
This butterfly is feeding on the nectar of a flower,
the first butterfly was a caterpillar, then it had a “crisis”: chrysalis, pupa,
she became a butterfly, and then she will die.
And his remains will feed a flower.
We are not used to living according to cycles,
or rather we have lost a little thanks to technology
this ability to think cyclic;
especially the males, they have absolutely no cyclical thinking,
they have a predatory directional thinking, if we want to.
Here is that if we refer to this sentence
taken from a poem, a beautiful song,
“Via del campo”, by Fabrizio De Andrè, and we read it well:
nothing is born from the diamonds, the flowers are born from the manure.
But we, with all our technology …
the technological manure we produce
it is not a manure that falls into a cycle
look at this box, a photograph you could do …
I did it in March, now I will explain to you why
we enter the upcycle and the theme of skiing,
how much stuff we throw
of what we transform and manufacture.
And if we look at it at the end of the season,
ski season, over the winter, after the snow,
here we are a bit ‘of skiing, look how many you see,
7/8 pairs in a large box.
Why, why am I there in the big box?
Because they are composites,
made of many materials and therefore not recyclable,
let’s say, according to the way that leads them
towards steel, iron, or other metals … aluminum;
but they have more materials,
and once we have used them,
we had fun, we went down from the mountains,
we no longer know what to do with it
and throw them in a box.
But these materials if we flay them,
and then we analyze them well, they are invaluable:
a ski is made of titanium, aluminum,
lamellar woods, carbon, piezoelectric materials,
so that they become rigid according to the stresses
and make us go out in the corners very fast.
So precious materials that we use how old?
On average three or four.
If you are an athlete, you also use many more.
I was an athlete, a small athlete,
I used two pairs for each specialty,
I was light, however, so I did a giant, special, a bit of super G:
they are already six pairs, more those from “battle”,
they are seven pairs changed every two or three years.
Apart from the costs, so you can think about how much …
but it means a lot of matter;
for so many years, because it is a passion that maybe goes on for so many years,
so you can understand that this matter accumulates,
and each of you …
on the hand how many ski here, someone is there.
Eh, see? You have some in the cellar, eh?
So, what can you do with these materials?
They burn badly, they are composite;
sure, I can put them in a blast furnace
in a steel mill, but in reality they burn badly
and therefore a lot of technology,
really a lot of engineering that,
finished the fun just …
what do you do with it?
Here’s what you can do with this – let’s say – subject:
this fulleriana structure if we want to the cathedral,
in reality it is not the result of our work of invention.
In this case in the photograph
we also see Professor Dominique Daudon, of the University of Grenoble
here we are at the Lecco Campus of the Milan Polytechnic,
and with her and with Yannick Sieffert and her students,
together with my students, my best students,
we have reconstructed one according to their idea,
after they had tested these materials extensively, the connections, the skis …
so they had been engineeringally analyzed
the potential of a second life,
a bit ‘buddhistically, no? of these tools.
And then together we touched the material,
we understood it, we connected it,
no scaffolding is needed, it is a diameter of 8 meters and a radius 4,
so it’s a rather important structure,
built very fast,
very resistant, behind you see the Resegone,
we are at the Lecco Campus.
And so in reality the potential is considerable,
to give a new “upcycle” life,
better than before,
then enter a cycle,
imagine a new use,
therefore a new function, with new features.
The second experience of the dome structure
we did it on request instead
of a small school in Nonantola,
who had a project on recycling materials,
he heard us why
this history of re-used skis, etc.
she went on TV,
on Kilimanjaro and on SmartCity on Radio24,
and then they contacted us and we said
“Come on well, let’s do a bit of a Montessori method
along with the students, the boys,
so the kids from this middle school
and to the elderly, we put a little ‘all together,
the skis have been recovered
from a ski resort near the Modena Apennines,
and then the second cathedral was built,
once again with a fulleriana structure,
therefore a shell;
here you see the processing on the tips of the skis
with some of our artists
to regularize the dimensions a little,
and then all the boys together,
which then also came from all over the world,
to share this project.
This image is beautiful because
in the dome you also see two Olympic sails
give us a gift from Professor Ratti, from the Department of Design,
that shaded to the south.
But actually the work done
on the dome structure from the Grenoble group,
from which the contact started,
because Dominique Daudon and I were part of it
of a Lifelong Learning Program of the European Community,
which was called Android, on disaster resilience,
so the idea started from there … let’s say,
the structure did not cover anything we say, a pavilion,
but it does not have a shell, a skin and therefore a function
in addition to becoming an aggregative element,
to demonstrate its potential.
The theme then that I introduced in Android,
in this research, it is the theme of the emergency,
of “resilience” in the face of natural disasters,
which is a theme that has always been dear to me
that with my group of experts, researchers, etc., we follow …
See here what usually happens when there are calamities:
more or less at the level, say, economic value intervenes.
It intervenes and this is the time of televisions ,:
the television arrives, shows the curtains, etc.
Then the event is over, the television goes away,
a tent of the blue ones of the UNHCR lasts an average of one year,
then you have to redo it, you shred it, it cooks.
The problem then was to imagine, according to us
the uses of the most durable emergency facilities,
more resistant, even more spacious,
and maybe heat reflective, because the curtain
it is very cold in winter and very hot in summer,
therefore improve the envelopes and structures.
Why Guinea-Bissau?
Because now I bring you to Africa on skis,
so I do something daring,
but I immediately stated that the will
it’s not to bring the skis in africa, okay?
So it was a request,
and now I’ll explain why we did it,
and why, like this little butterfly,
Guinea-Bissau looks like a little butterfly,
with its islands and its conformation, if you want.
Because Guinea-Bissau was a part
of the Islands, Sea and Food Cluster that I coordinated
in Expo from the design point of view.
In that pavilion there was also Guinea-Bissau.
We have come across a group by chance
of volunteers from the Oblate Fathers of Mary
that are in Passirano, but by pure chance,
that they had a mission there,
and from there the story that I am telling you is now born.
So, in this area of Guinea-Bissau,
we are in Cacine, Equator,
people live in these huts made of straw and raw earth,
raw earth that must be widely protected
because otherwise with the equatorial rains it melts, it disintegrates.
So, from so on, this is the idea,
of this yurt, called the fisherman’s yurt;
the symbol is that sculpture you see,
this sort of fisherman with fish on his head,
because a statue six meters high of steel
made by Guido Scarabottolo
was lent to the Islands Cluster,
has been sold and with the proceeds
we financed what will stay near the tent
that you will see later, at the yurt,
which is a part of a mission
which has educational and educational goals
inside the equatorial forest.
See some major partners,
Politecnico di Milano,
Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble
the ESPE, the building school of Lecco,
in which the prototype was made
that you see here before being disassembled
and shipped to Africa,
and the Oblate missionaries of Mary.
So this is the first sketch,
if you read the name,
on an airplane, see,
this idea came to me
to imagine a yurt made of skis.
So I involved three artists with whom we worked,
and you see that the structure has a central pillar
on which there is a zenithal light, a zenith opening,
and then there is a cloth in tension,
so the structure is in compression,
the skis work in compression and the sheet in tension.
So, the idea developed then
from three talented artists, Federico, Ilaria and Elisa,
it was that of imagining and accomplishing
this sort of tents aggregated even in Lampedusa,
in the void where there is the “boat cemetery”,
right in the center of the town,
to make a first reception that would keep families together.
Here you see some studies that concerned
first, let’s say, the functionality,
the thermia of the spaces, and also the structures,
that you see have been analyzed
even in an idea of placement with snow load,
rather than with very strong wind,
rather than later we will see in Africa.
The tests on the structures were done with colleagues from Grenoble, in Grenoble
there you see a piece of the yurt structure
that was loaded so …
see the professors Daudon and Sieffert …
in order to have the character – let’s say – real
of a portion of this structure and its resistance.
The tests were done on skis … of different types,
the skis put on flat, the skis put on the coast,
and our invention was to aggregate,
to make a pillar of these skis;
see the composite: here it is laminated wood,
Titanal, for this ski,
make them work coupled
both in situations we say pillar,
so, pillar and beam.
So the skis are cutting, they have a remarkable stiffness coupled,
and they have been tested both in the form we say united, and then we will see, individually.
So in Grenoble there have been tests of breaking load on various skis,
and therefore the behavior was characterized
of these materials compared to important forcing,
the wind above all.
So: the constructive system you see it,
there is a cloth in tension
which is a superior blackout sheet,
we have also studied heat-reflecting coupled sheets
of aerospace derivation
used however also in building architecture,
that are those with which the airplanes are isolated,
to reflect the heat,
instead the cloth at the bottom is a cloth,
let’s say with a certain transparency of light.
Here you see the realization of the first module
at the building school in Lecco,
in here we have pre-assembled the structure,
the upper cloth, the internal image,
and then with the students, you see, we even designed,
let’s say according to the model of Enzo Mari,
the furniture, you see, these chairs are nothing else
that the revival of the famous drawing by Enzo Mari.
And then these skis got them to the Equator,
and you wonder why.
First of all because there was a request,
and then because the wood there is not good,
the termites are so big,
then you will see two termites … if they eat it.
In this case, instead, these materials
gave a guarantee, even of future disassembly
and then they enter a world where, you will see,
the concept of transformation and also of re-use is present.
I must say that currently the very strong presence of China
it means that there are a lot of materials,
and that these materials often accumulate, are thrown away.
While instead imagine the potentials
even of such alien materials as these,
to be used and to resist,
is very important.
Keep in mind that
a famous project by Shigeru Ban,
that was to make the pipes of the structures in Rwanda,
of cardboard emergency tents,
became that project precisely because
the first UNHCR supplies in aluminum
were disassembled, aluminum was sold,
forests deforested,
imagine what a refugee camp means
of ten, twenty thousand people,
and therefore I imagine that at the Equator
skis can not use them
still for a long time I think, I hope, on Kilimanjaro;
so at this point this structure remains, it is present.
Here we see it coming say on the spot,
see the fatigue of these people
to dig two meters to find the pebbles,
to then make the concrete parts
and the audience of the real mission,
which is what you see higher up
with that big roof in sandwich panels
and pillars we have, say, supported with the whole operation,
and which is then buffered in raw earth,
and therefore also helping to re-learn
and use a known and applied technique.
Then in this case you see the realization
of the yurt, let’s call it that,
of this structure therefore resistant, pushing
and with the upper cloth;
in the meantime, the mission grows,
and so you can also see some raw bricks
which will then wrap the envelope
and here you see, if you look in the image, the termite, you see it there,
see the size of a termite nest,
and then when it rains you see it melts,
the termitaio, and in the meantime all the raw earth
has filled the structure; the yurt is here, here it is,
and serves as a support for the construction site,
and will serve for some activities.
So in the end, let’s say, the idea is that
to define a resistant casing,
use an already used material,
bring it to a second life.
Kazimir Severinovič Malevič used to say
“Give us new forms, it’s the cry of things”, no?
And so this kind of potential,
of constructive hypothesis was if you want
also disruptive from the point of view of the image,
because we have done so many things,
but it has never happened to us so much interest
for this type of structure;
even here you see the Rector
which presents, among the various activities of Polisocial,
in which this yurt has been inserted, the case
and here the President Mattarella
which then sees it live
with the then Minister of Education Giannini.
And then, coming to the end of my talk,
I know what they looked at my eyes
the first time I won a ski race,
and I was 6 years old, and with those eyes
let’s say a champion did not become a ski
but stay children and be able to look at objects a few times …
when I was twenty years ago now
to be part of my doctorate in Paris
I bought this little car, in the Marais,
this is a 2 CV made from a casing
that was metallic of an insecticide,
see here there is a mosquito,
and that becomes an object, a toy, right?
So the transformation …
comes from Africa, just from those equatorial areas, and …
the beautiful design, made by a migrant,
it was called Flaminio Bertoni, it was Italian,
he made one of the most revolutionary machines of all time,
a car, which was previously an object for the rich, for a few,
became a mass object,
making a huge success
to, say, the French production house in this case.
And so with those eyes,
and I hope those eyes are the eyes you find in you,
I would like to close, because those eyes
they are the eyes of this child
that probably through that school,
not so much the yurt,
will have the opportunity to study.
He helped build it,
because he collected those pebbles,
and I believe that what Henri Matisse says
It’s very interesting,
that we must look at all of life
with the eyes of a child,
so I wish you a good life
and a good vision.
”
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