Close to Cloister: creativity and regeneration

What does it mean to interpret a neighborhood and a community through design?

Young designers from the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli are interpreting the concept of urban regeneration through creativity and craftsmanship, supervised by the team of Sovrappensiero Design Studio. One year after the first "Close to Cloister" workshop, the students have developed projects, taking inspiration from the Porta Capuana area, which will be presented during 2024 in Made in Cloister Foundation.

Output of the workshop Close to Cloister made with Sovrappensiero Design Studio at Officina Vanvitelli

The program of activities "Close to Cloister. Living and Producing with Design Communities" carried out as part of the initiative "Creative Place Making: architecture, design, craftsmanship for the city," stems from a teaching and research initiative carried out as part of the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" Master's course in Design for Innovation in collaboration with Made in Cloister and Adi Campania on the theme of manufacturing in urban and suburban contexts in the city of Naples.

Through Jan. 27, 2024 at the Cloister Store an exhibition combining nature-inspired domestic objects by Sovrappensiero Design Studio and the Formamadre project that reflects on a question: how many forms does bread have in the world?

Sovrappensiero

Sovrappensiero is the Design Studio of Lorenzo De Rosa and Ernesto Iadevaia, listed among the Best Italian architects and designers under 40 in 2020, which entrusts the narrative component to the method of their design making.

For Made in Cloister, the design duo conceived an exhibition that combines objects from five collections: Carousel, Ale & Sandro, Al buio, Mediterraneo, Furnature. A condensation of reflections that moves from the shaping of products to the enigma of use, developing attention in the user, intrigued by the combination of technology and inspiration, precision and randomness, innovation and tradition.

Sovrappensiero looks to the "transparency" of the masters-such as Achille Castiglioni and Enzo Mari-to the logical rigor that links expression to content, ethics to aesthetics, and that denies consumption, affirming care.

The collections synthesize reasoning about the environment, the nature of things, the expected horizons of organic, inorganic and artificial matter.

Revolving mirrors, contemporary lies, unveiling candles, bewildered ceramics, unfinished artifacts become protagonists of living environments in which significant traces of the behaviors to come thicken in the enchanted and absorbed dimension of overthinking.

The first step, from Made in Cloister, of a longer journey of presenting projects developed during the Close to Cloister workshop by emerging designers from the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli.

Formamadre

Formamadre is the result of the work of a team of young designers composed of Marino Amodio, Michela Carlomagno, Alessandra Clemente, Ibtissam Jayed and Stefano Salzillo.

A concept that is outlined starting from the ritual of bread making, in the context of the Made in Cloister Foundation canteen and the peculiar instances of integration, aggregation and sharing expressed by it, in which bread becomes an intercultural medium.

The elements are designed to accompany and facilitate the ritual gestures performed in the stages of bread making: kneading, rising, breaking, forming and baking. The design derives from respect for the traditional recipes of the different cultures present in the Porta Capuana area.

The realization of the individual components involved artisans historically working in the neighborhood and other localities in Campania, formulating an unprecedented productive and relational network.

Each of the tools on display in the Made in Cloister Foundation responds to a specific function in bread making and at the same time and only together with the others configures the unique, totemic and maternal form from which the name of the project originates.