Paper City

At the end of 2017 I had the pleasure of meeting Fabio Prestini, illustrator, graphic designer and founder of Fabio & Giulia and Giulia Poli, Book Designer and founder of Fabio & Giulia with whom I created and designed the new Paper City project.

In December we brought Paper City, also with the help of Alice Fava, educator and founder of ALI Aperte , at the Maker Faire in Rome. An event full of inventions and creativity where makers meet to present their projects and share their knowledge and discoveries. 200 children joined our Paper city and had fun building houses and making them interact with the map.

Paper City is a project which, starting from simple elements, leads participants to reflect on aspects such as the ability to working on a common project, responsibility for one's own actions and the city as a place to live actively.

The choice to use paper, an ancient material, combined with innovative technologies such as conductive ink demonstrates how the dialogue between past and present is possible and desirable.

We chose the city because it represents coexistence, sharing, community and belonging, sociability and a place to live; in fact, creating your own city together makes you involved and responsible, and is a practical example of co-planning.

The first component of Paper City is the paper buildings: children can choose between different models and have the task of "assembling" them with scissors and glue. In this phase we work on the ability to move from 2 to 3 dimensions and on the children's manual skills.

The second component is the one that brings buildings to life: children can choose between different types of interaction and are guided in its creation. At this stage children discover new technologies and understand how they work by playing. This exploits the interaction between sound, light and movement. Some buildings, if placed on the floor, activate audio of the city, while others light up with an LED.

The third component of Paper City is the map, which children populate with newly constructed buildings and discover how they interact with each other.