Software-ing Spaces Winter School 2023 was a spatial experiment aiming to collectively cultivate all those things an urban communal place needs to render it inviting, usable, perceptible, and autonomous. It’s an occasion for an on-site living and learning-by-constructing experience, envisioning objects we can design inside of a place – the software inside of the spatial hardware – through experiencing, soft-waring, the space together.



For the duration of one week, the Winter School participants  lived and worked together inside the historic spaces of the former prison and monastery Sant’Agata (ExSA) in the Old Town of Bergamo – creating space while inhabiting it. Presenting itself as a nearly empty, shell-like environment, the challenge of the Winter School was to collectively envision ways of actively inhabiting this spatial hardware through the means of designing and constructing physical objects, a multifunctional software. Having to meet the prerequisites of modularity, reusability, and re-application, the designed objects did not only serve the immediate use of a space for the community of Bergamo, but became a manifesto for a way of reappropriating our urban commons in a more dynamic way, as the objects to be designed, same as ourselves, need to be able to migrate to other spaces.



In this sense, the workshop can be seen as an experimentation for future projects of temporary occupation of common goods and participative design. The design projects, then, will support and accompany the creative community of ExSA in the future projects of engaging with our urban commons and open them to the public, in Bergamo and elsewhere.

The Winter School is originated from and based on the work developed since 2015 by Associazione Maite, an association that promotes socio-cultural initiatives. In the last years Sant’Agata has been collectively managed by different groups and individuals coordinated by Maite and So.No. - Società Nomade. These associations are the official hosts of the Winter School and the main collaborators for the activities.
Francesca Gotti and Yona Catrina Schreyer (architect, researcher at Politecnico di Milano, and member of So.No.) are the Organizers and coordinators of the Winter School.

The workshop was divided into four studios, led by four different design collectives: Studio Cucina led by Mascha Fehse&Licia Soldavini (Berlin); Studio Salotto led by Guerilla Architects (Berlin); Studio Corridoio led by Camposaz (Italy); Studio Parole led by Collettivo Franco (Bologna). Tutors included artist Janela Kostova (Milano) and architect Giuseppe Greppi from Zattere (Milano).

Software-ing Team: Giulia Baccetti; Pietro Bailo / So.No.; Francesca Baratti; Sophie Bäumlin; Mykyta Bunin; Alessia Cerruti; Gaia Ciciarello; Sara Consoli; Caterina Corti / So.No.; Chiara Di Guardo; Selin Doganer; Paolo Failla; Mascha Fehse; Bendix Feldstein; Yuxiao Feng; Anja Fritz (Guerilla Architects); Giovanni Emilio Galanello; Chloé Ganne; Mariella Gentile (Camposaz); Silvia Gioberti (Guerilla Architects); Enno Gloyna; Kimia Godarzani-Bakhtiari; Kristin Heußer; Annika Hölderle; David Kirchmann; Myriam Lemberger; Tatiana Levitskaya (Camposaz); Maren Lickert; Federico Manzone / Collettivo Franco; Mario / ExSA; Ernesto Martellaro / So.No.; Lara Monacelli Bani; Valentina Monari / Collettivo Franco; Mattia Moro / Collettivo Franco; Grete Ohlendorf; Edwin Pfeffer; Andrea Previtali; Francesca Pucci; Edoardo Quattrucci; Marielle Scharfenberg; Yona Kathrina Schreyer / So.No.; Deborah Schultheis; Licia Soldavini; Julia Bianco Sommer; Anna Stevenson; Valentina Vecchi; Maximilian Vogel.

Pictures by Giovanni Emilio Galanello g-e-galanello.eu and Yona Catrina Schreyer.