The Conference, The Next Day

Therefore, yesterday, in the space of the Agorà Theater of the Triennale di Milano, we met for the Freedom Room conference, organized to discuss and expose the history, process, outcomes and free reflections on the project. Like the physical vision of the space in the rooms of the Triennale, discussing the topic was a source of intense personal participation. In particular, some interventions underlined the key values ​​of a project that aims to be a watershed in defining the role and tasks of design on the one hand and of society and the ‘public’ on the other.

In particular, Aldo Bonomi underlined how a real call for responsibility is now necessary for the public administration in interpreting new roles if it is true that projects like Freedom Room were born and financed without resorting to any public funds.

The proposal, provocative in some ways, formulated by Lucia Castellano was important in requesting that we imagine an entire prison wing based on the use of housing modules like the one designed here. Joost Beundermann, urban designer and author of the book ‘Compendium for a Civic Economy’, recalled how a new ‘porosity’ between public and private is required to overcome times in which the official economy has lost its ability to provide answers, favoring the spontaneous participation that is emerging in different forms from citizens, thus preparing the new paradigms for what in the United Kingdom already has the name of Big Society. Lastly, we must thank Cecco Bellosi for his valuable interventions and participation in his stories of a prison that is a laboratory of humanity; Luisa Della Morte, for her testimony on a project aimed at guaranteeing dignity to women in prison; Thomas Bialas, for the story of a new economy free from the need for ownership but entirely oriented towards guaranteeing the use of goods; Andrea Margaritelli brought the voice of the corporate world which, in overcoming moments of extreme difficulty, must not lose the ability to look at society and ask it to consider entrepreneurial heritage as a collective value; Michelangelo Patron closed with the testimony of the work of the association, CFMT, called to train new professional figures capable of supporting the many new companies that are entering the market.