A playground in Lugano designed by students of the Academy of Architecture

The new playground in Molino Nuovo, adjacent to the kindergarten, is the outcome of an unprecedented experiment for Lugano. Both the design and layout of this play and recreation area were developed thanks to the collaboration of the City's Culture and Public Works Departments with Atelier Blumer of the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture and the artist Umberto Cavenago.

During the 2021/2022 winter semester, Professor Riccardo Blumer conducted a special workshop to create design proposals for the playground area under consideration, also involving Cavenago, who gave a presentation of his artistic journey to the students. The workshop resulted in fifteen projects that were the subject of an exhibition at the Academy, and were then analysed and evaluated by representatives from the Culture and Public Buildings divisions. A selection of projects from the students' proposals, all of which were of high quality, emerged to form the backbone on which a rhythmic structure of chestnut poles was built. These artistic installations are all 'playable' and are interconnected by ropes and acrobatic walkways, designed and constructed with a focus on safety, and are further enhanced by 'Erratico - souvenir di montagna' (Erratico - souvenir of the mountains), a Corten steel sculpture that Cavenago created and donated to the city. The new Molino Nuovo playground is a celebration of childhood imagination and fantasy, an art trail that in its simple complexity will become a special place for daily adventures and for new stories to be invented.

Architect Blumer said: "This project is a tremendous gift that the city of Lugano has given us, because it has provided the students with the opportunity to work on a real project. The engagement with the city is a highly valuable and responsible training for the architect. Taking part in this exercise on the theme of play also allowed us to reinforce the relationship between technique and result, when the result is not speculative but purely educational and therefore founded in sociality. For us at the USI Academy, this is the first important law of why architecture should be performed well".