We-Z Urban Diary – Chapter 1

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Vigne Nuove is a social housing complex developed in the 1970s in the Third District of Rome-Montesacro. Immediately recognisable by its imposing reinforced concrete structure, which recalls a modernist design, the complex was initially planned as an innovative, experimental living model, featuring mixed housing typologies, a network of pedestrian pathways, public spaces, and commercial units.

However, due to a series of circumstances, the social and commercial dimensions of the project never succeeded, and the complex fell into a cycle of institutional neglect, isolation, and degradation.

Today, the complex hosts approximately a thousand inhabitants and is affected by various socio-economic and security issues. Most of the commercial units have been illegally occupied, some hosting unregistered businesses (e.g., a blacksmith) or being used as storage facilities, while many have been converted into informal housing. The area’s isolation and the availability of numerous hiding spots have also created opportunities for certain criminal activities (e.g., drug dealing, parking of stolen vehicles) and the emergence of an informal network overseeing and controlling local activities.

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In this context of neglect, degradation, and isolation, local young people seem to pay a very high toll. An overall lack of opportunities and perspectives often turns into critical mental health issue, that manifest themselves in different behavioural and emotional conditions, spanning from introverted attitudes, self-harm and suicidal tendencies; to more extroverted attitudes, aggressive and violent behaviours.

Against this background, the We-Z project seeks to tackle mental health through a de-medicalised approach, prioritising participatory engagement with local communities to actively involve them in the physical and social regeneration of their neighbourhood.

The project’s strategy unfolds through two main strands: community-building and physical interventions in the urban environment.

The first strand – and main element of innovation introduced by We-Z – focuses on establishing a Healing Community: a diverse group of at least 60 individuals committed to taking direct care of their neighbourhood. This group will participate in a series of co-design events aimed at fostering community-driven regeneration and enhancing social cohesion.

The second strand consists of several physical interventions across the area. The first step involves creating a living lab within the Vigne Nuove complex, serving as a hub for community activities, workshops, and thematic discussions. Following this, the project plans to develop a green space called the Progressive Park, designed to act as a natural corridor connecting the Vigne Nuove complex with the neighbouring Tufello district. This park aims to restore physical connectivity between different parts of the city, integrating nature into the urban landscape while also enhancing accessibility. Doing so, the Progressive Park will offer – particularly to young people – opportunities for social interaction as well as the development of small work-oriented activities. 

Significantly, parts of the park will be co-designed with the Healing Community and the broader public, ensuring local ownership and relevance. Additionally, the project will undertake the redevelopment of public spaces, promoting community engagement through activities such as street painting events that revitalise the area’s aesthetic and social appeal.

All these actions are underpinned by a comprehensive programme of workshops and meetings held at the living lab, designed to involve the wider community and generate shared solutions and concrete thematic action plans.

Specifically, in the first year of implementation, the priority was threefold: clearing the space and activating the Living Lab; engaging stakeholders and participants to join the Healing Community; and launching of participatory and co-design activities in the neighbourhood.

In its first year, the We-Z project made a strong start, fully aware of the complexities of engaging with a context that had been neglected by institutions for years. The project team understood that entering such a challenging environment required a careful approach, involving both establishing a continuous presence and creating a visible landmark within the neighbourhood. The aim was to demonstrate to residents that the project was a genuine effort to engage with the community, understand their context, and initiate a dialogue.

Opening the Living Lab

The first concrete step was reclaiming and opening the Living Lab within the Vigne Nuove complex. As mentioned in my first analytical article, this intervention was a fundamental milestone, anchoring the project within the neighbourhood and ensuring a consistent presence of the project and its partners.

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Institutional presence is indeed a key factor, and it was crucial to have – beyond the municipality and the university – a regular presence of ATER, the regional agency for public housing. As the entity responsible for maintenance and contracting, ATER’s involvement was essential. In a context marked by neglect and decay, ATER’s presence in the neighbourhood signalled to residents the possibility of finally opening a dialogue with the owner of their apartments – a large bureaucratic organisation typically perceived as distant and difficult to engage with.
However, there is also a more challenging side to having a strong institutional presence in an area that has been neglected for years, where distrust in public authorities is prominent and informal networks and control dynamics have taken advantage of this void. This renewed interest and attention from ATER and the Municipality towards the area has indeed destabilised certain dynamics and undermined the power and activities of influential local leaders. In this respect, project partners have opened channels of dialogue to manage potential conflicts from the outset, yet throughout the year there have been ups and downs in this complex interpersonal relationship and establishing a stable equilibrium is proving to be extremely challenging.

Establishing the Healing Community

After the opening of the Living Lab, the second crucial task for We-Z was establishing the Healing Community. This endeavour proved particularly challenging on many levels, starting with the identification of target participants, followed by designing and implementing the engagement strategy, managing administrative, bureaucratic, and legal requirements, and ultimately retaining and securing participants’ long-term commitment.

The primary target groups identified were young people receiving care at the Mental Health Protection and Rehabilitation Service for Developmental Age of the local health authority (ASL-TSMREE) and students from local high schools. High school students were mainly engaged through the establishment of Pathways for Transversal Skills and Orientation (PCTO) agreements between the project (specifically the university) and each school. Through these agreements, students are required to spend a set number of hours per month participating in project activities, a strategy that successfully secured the vast majority of the current members of the Healing Community.
However, this approach is not without its challenges, particularly due to lengthy and time-consuming bureaucratic procedures for establishing agreements, recruiting participants — who can choose from a wide range of PCTOs offered by various organisations — and the need to renew the agreements every school year.
Regarding young people from the TSMREE, the initiative began with approximately 60 participants, but eventually, only 12 to 13 continued to participate. It was acknowledged that adolescents require immediate feedback, and a lack of clarity in the initial planning posed a significant challenge. The language used and the presentations were difficult for them to engage with. However, some workshops, especially those focusing on emotions, places, problematic situations, and expectations, received positive feedback.
These sessions revealed recurring themes such as feeling out of place, loneliness, uncertainty about the future, and the need for belonging, friendship, and support networks. The importance of sharing experiences emerged as a crucial aspect of the process, suggesting the need to rethink the format and focus of co-design and participatory activities to better address the needs of the target participants.
Additionally, aligning with families’ schedules — both in terms of children’s other commitments and families’ availability during the week to bring children to activities — proved particularly challenging. This prompted the project to reconsider the original calendar, frequency, and, to some extent, the format of activities.
Another challenge when interacting with underage participants (whether from PCTO or TSMREE) relates to data protection regulations, which significantly complicate communication between the project and participants. Practically, this issue is evident in the inability to have collective chats with young people under and over 18 years old together — a crucial limitation when working with teenagers. To address this, the project opted for creating a one-way WhatsApp channel, enabling project partners to share information and communicate while limiting interactions to simple in-app surveys.

Engaging with the local community

Towards the end of the first year of implementation, the project initiated a series of community engagement activities, ranging from a shared caldarroste (roast chestnuts) evening and pottery classes to urban and botanical explorations of the district.

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These initiatives aimed to establish a connection between the project partners and the local community, and to foster stronger bonds. However, they were met with varying degrees of success and engagement, highlighting the need for internal reflection on how to better calibrate the scheduling, focus, and, at times, even the language and communication style, to more effectively cater to the availabilities, needs and interests of, and capture the attention of, the target communities. This will be particularly important as the project moves into the next stage: the co-creation laboratories for the four thematic action plans (green infrastructure, public spaces, welfare spaces, and services and products). At this point, it will be essential to reach and engage a critical mass of participants from the local community who will embrace and take ownership of the projects and actions to be implemented in Vigne Nuove.

Making innovation happen

Lastly, an important procedural achievement relates to the establishment of an innovative approach to procuring services and investments for the project. The rationale behind this lies in the fact that a significant portion of the investment – particularly in the park and in the public square designated for the art intervention – will be co-designed with the community. As such, the specific features of the final designs, and consequently the exact nature of the required investments, are not yet defined.
To address this, the project adopted an innovative procurement strategy by establishing a framework contract with potential suppliers. Rather than launching a conventional tender for predefined works and quantities, the municipality agreed on a price list for various types of items and services – such as different species of plants, trees, shrubs, and construction materials. Suppliers submitted unit prices for individual items and for works per square metre. These unit costs can then be applied at different stages of the investment: initially to the preliminary works across the entire green area, and subsequently to the final design outputs once co-design is completed. This flexible procurement method represents a significant innovation, allowing the city to integrate community-driven and evolving project elements into a typically rigid and codified bureaucratic system. It not only required careful study and preparation but also paves the way for the implementation of actual works and investments once the designs are finalised through the participatory process.

Establishing meaningful institutional presence

It is essential to anchor locally by establishing a physical space where project partners maintain a constant presence. Equally important is ensuring that the Living Lab is not just a functional or symbolic space, but a truly welcoming environment—one that encourages local residents to take initiative, propose ideas, and implement activities aligned with their own interests. This highlights the need to carefully balance and align the expectations of project partners with those of the community. Crucially, the Lab should provide a meaningful institutional presence, not merely bringing institutions back into the area, but creating real opportunities for residents to engage with the city administration and ATER.

Designing for immediate and tangible outcomes

Immediate and tangible gains for participants, particularly for young people, are essential. While long-term impact remains important, the success of expert-designed activities depends on their ability to deliver visible, short-term outcomes that resonate with participants. For youth, this immediacy is even more critical: each activity should culminate in something concrete and actionable—a learning takeaway, a small hand-crafted object, a decision, or a small achievement. These immediate results are key to motivating continued engagement and fostering a sense of ownership in the process.

Scheduling that respects everyday realities

Participation fatigue is a real risk, especially when working with families and underage participants. Activities must be planned with sensitivity to the diverse schedules and commitments of families, balancing personal, professional, and recreational demands. This includes coordinating with parents or guardians who often need to accompany children. Inevitably, there will be scheduling conflicts, and this is where the quality and relevance of the activities become essential. To win participants over, activities must be compelling enough to compete with other demands on their time, offering clear value and appeal that make engagement a meaningful and rewarding choice.

Adapting language and tone for effective communication

The bureaucratic tone of public administration and the specialised jargon of academia are rarely effective when engaging with local communities. Clear, accessible, and relatable communication is essential, which requires understanding how best to connect with residents on their own terms. For example, one activity carried a title inspired by a lyric from a song by Fabrizio De André. While De André holds a significant place in Italian music history, it is questionable whether his work resonates with the youth of Vigne Nuove today. This highlights a deeper challenge: communication strategies – including references, tone, and cultural cues – must be tailored to the audience, not the speaker. Effective engagement requires shifting perspective and aligning language and symbolism with the lived experiences, interests, and identities of the community.

Reaching out through trusted intermediaries

To address low turnout among local participants, it is important to engage intermediaries, such as trusted actors or stakeholders who already have a strong presence in the neighbourhood and enjoy the confidence of local residents. These intermediaries can serve as vital bridges between the project and the community, helping to build trust and increase participation. In Vigne Nuove, for example, the Comunità di Sant’Egidio was active in organising cultural and music-related activities for youth with disabilities. Although not formally involved in the project, collaborating with such actors – even informally – can be a valuable strategy for broadening outreach and connecting more effectively with the project’s target group. Building these alliances, even outside the official partnership structure, can significantly enhance inclusiveness and impact.

Dealing with existing local dynamics

In contexts marked by long-term institutional neglect, such as Vigne Nuove, parallel informal networks and power structures may have taken root, with individuals or groups exerting considerable influence over community dynamics. Introducing a new project in such settings risks disrupting established balances and may trigger tensions or conflict, particularly if the project is perceived as threatening entrenched interests. It is crucial to anticipate and manage these dynamics through careful mediation and dialogue. Identifying potential friction early on and seeking compromise, always within legal boundaries, is essential to ensure the sustainability of the intervention.

Encouraging external contributions to counter isolation

One way to break the physical and social isolation of the area is by encouraging the presence of people from outside the neighbourhood – bringing in new energy, facilitating exchange, and fostering a sense of vibrancy between Vigne Nuove and the wider urban context of Rome. However, this must be approached carefully. External input can be valuable, but it should never come at the expense of the local community’s well-being or risk initiating gentrification. The involvement of outsiders in community events, workshops, or co-design sessions must ultimately benefit the neighbourhood. Crucially, any outcomes or designs emerging from these participatory processes must be endorsed, embraced, and owned first and foremost by the local community.

Enabling innovation through flexible procurement

The project’s innovative approach to procurement is particularly effective. The adoption of a framework contract structure – specifically one based on unit costs – enabled the integration of innovation and co-design within the otherwise rigid administrative systems of a large municipality. This model offered the flexibility needed to adapt to evolving community needs and project dynamics while remaining fully compliant with public procurement regulations. It demonstrates how thoughtful procurement design can serve as a strategic enabler of participatory and adaptive urban interventions.