Rescripted Neapolitan Realities

Vele di Scampia, a brutalist housing complex in Naples, faces demolition due to urban decay and its association with organized crime. This project challenges its fate by transforming it into a cultural archive and participatory film festival space. Inspired by Commedia dell'arte, the project creates mask-like buildings that incorporate performance, craft, and community spaces. By reconnecting the Vele to the city through ongoing engagement, the project offers a model for adaptive conservation, providing an alternative to demolition and a way to breathe new life into neglected urban spaces.

This project transforms the Vele di Scampia from a symbol of decay into a cultural hub through a dual strategy: architectural interventions and a participatory film and arts festival. By addressing the Vele’s social isolation and physical deterioration, the project restages it as both a site of production and engagement, to reconnect it with Naples. The first aim focuses on physical and social interventions within the Vele. New communal spaces—such as a library, market, aviary cinema, bar, gardens, and a public stage—reintroduce the vibrancy of Naples’ streets into the fortress-like Vele. Carvings in the facade correct the short comings of the original design, creating much-needed public spaces. Inspired by Neapolitan Commedia dell’arte, these interventions take on character-like forms, acting as catalysts for social renewal. The second aspect is a participatory film and arts festival, promoting community-driven filmmaking and performance. A film and craft school at the Vele serves as the festival’s foundation, producing films, set designs, and performances that are later projected throughout Naples, fostering cultural exchange. Drawing from the Theatre of the Oppressed, the festival turns residents into active participants rather than passive spectators, helping them regain their social identity. A cycle of material exchange recycles architectural elements, such as gangway beams, into festival pavilions, street furniture, and cinema structures. The festival follows a route from Scampia to central Naples, symbolically and physically reintegrating the Vele into the city’s social sphere. This approach offers an alternative to demolition, transforming the Vele from a failed modernist site into an evolving cultural landmark that provides a model for urban regeneration.