Villa Arconati sits in the middle of fields and tiny villages, north of Milano. Our project vision is to repopulate the borgo (village attached to the villa) and create an incubator of ideas and passion in which people, activities and experiences revitalize this sleeping beauty.  

Artisans with traditional Italian handcraft skills are slowly decreasing through generational change. This motivated us to identify specific target groups that are interested to learn and get involved with manual and creative work. We found this group, diverse in age, amongst the huge number of unemployed people living in Lombardy. To combine workforce with demand was not enough, there is a need for innovative collaboration to create strong and lasting relationships. For this reason, designers and others from the creative field join as third elements, alongside the unemployed and artisans in Villa Arconati in order to create something outstanding and new on the base of old traditions.