Cinghio in Comune is a project to transform and enliven the public space of Cinghio Sud, in the Montanara neighbourhood of Parma, running from June 2026 to September 2027. It sets out to make two areas of Cinghio Sud more lively and more welcoming, working on the spaces themselves and on the way they are lived in every day.
At the centre are the people who live here, their experience and the resources the neighbourhood already holds. The project therefore brings together listening, co-design, physical transformation, cultural activities and shared care, opening up new occasions to spend time together and to live the neighbourhood.
Cinghio Sud is a mostly residential area on the edge between the built city and the countryside, where public housing sits alongside new construction and where people live with very different histories and origins. There are few services nearby — a bar, a tobacconist — and doing the shopping, running an errand or simply spending time out of the house usually means going somewhere else. Economic hardship and poverty are present in the neighbourhood, and they weigh most heavily on those already in a difficult position: older residents, families with a migration background, the households the Emporio Solidale supports every day.
Over recent years some of the public spaces here have become less lived in: people cross them quickly and rarely stop, especially in the evening. Around this a sense of distance, of unsafety and of weak belonging has grown.
At the same time the neighbourhood holds a considerable resource: a network of associations, groups and individuals who build relationships and look after the area day after day.
Cinghio in Comune grows out of the meeting between the need to inhabit some public spaces again and the wish to start from the energies the neighbourhood already has.
The project concentrates on two spaces in Cinghio Sud, chosen to try out new possibilities for meeting, sociability and collective life.
A wide, tree-lined square in the heart of the neighbourhood, sheltered by greenery and surrounded by housing. A place with everything it takes to be lived in, which today often stays empty and is mostly crossed on the way to somewhere else. Cinghio in Comune sets out to bring life back to the square, making it a place to meet and spend time in, with cultural activities, workshops, performances and moments open to the whole neighbourhood.
A place that welcomes many people every day and is already part of daily life here. Today, though, it is somewhere to pass through, with little that invites anyone to stop and stay. Cinghio in Comune wants to make it more welcoming and more comfortable, turning it into a place to meet, spend time and share activities.
Cinghio in Comune takes shape together with the people who live here, beginning by listening to their experience, their needs and their ideas about the spaces. Meetings and conversations with young people, women and older residents will be the starting point for the co-design workshops, where residents and designers will work side by side to imagine the transformation of the two spaces in concrete terms. What emerges from co-design will then take shape in the spaces themselves, through new furniture, seating, planters, shaded areas, colour and flexible fittings made to host people and activities.
The process continues with activities for telling, interpreting and changing the neighbourhood: a videomaking course with teenagers, a street art workshop and the collective making of a mural, through to the work on the spaces with new furniture, seating, planting and fittings.
Concerts, open-air cinema, theatre, readings, dinners, markets, activities for children, meetings and workshops will then bring these spaces to life during R-estate al Cinghio [Summer at the Cinghio], from late April to late September 2027.
From listening to design, from building to daily life: every part of the project is an occasion to make something, learn something and build something together.