About
THE FOLDING CITY
In southern Italy, between Foggia and San Severo, well hidden in the inhospitable landscape, there is a village, a ghetto housing up to 1,500 illegal migrant workers from Sub-Saharan Africa working the surrounding fields. The village grows and shrinks, adapting instantly to the number of workers hired on as field hands.
The pattern of symmetrical structures, all with the same structure, paradoxically answers not only basic urban planning criteria, but seems to reflect contemporary architectural functions and aesthetic drive. A road network connecting the housing converges around modular common areas where community life takes place. The area for gatherings, a few restaurants, shops, a discotheque, are all strictly “folding”. Even the concept of zero impact construction is cu- riously fulfilled; the buildings are made completely from recycled material, often discarded or leftover from agricultural work.
View of the external wall of the folding city. In the background the Gargano promontory.
Sample of symmetrical houses pattern.
A window. The house is coated with abandoned nylon used in greenhouses. The interior is lined with cardboard discarded from processing.
A wiseguy who lives in the house on the background.
The folding Restaurant of the city.
One of the city's public showers.
A big house like this can accommodate up to 10 workers. Each of them pays a monthly rent of €35.
A thermos like this can keep the water at an acceptable temperature throughout the work day.
An antenna. All electronic devices are powered by solar energy.
An inhabitant showing that also at the end of the day the water is still fresh.
Small plants grow up inside the houses.
The folding discotheque of the city. The night before Michael's birthday had been celebrated.
Yussuf come back home after field work.
The locking system of one of the houses.
The window of a building.
Not only the houses are been made from agricultural wastes.
The entrance of one of the houses.
Abdul smoking a cigarette after his work.
Holes are been opened in the walls in order to help ventilation.
One of the workers who lives in the Folding City.
In the fields that surround the folding city a lot of cultivation are farmed during the year.
The intimacy of a bedroom.
Some agricultural waste that will soon become a new folding house.