TOEA
BA Hybrid Design Studio
2024
Toea reinterprets an abandoned parish complex in Venice as a hybrid gastronomic and cultural infrastructure, where food becomes a tool to rebuild community ties. The project emerges within the “Hybrid Space and Interaction Design” studio at IUAV and responds to issues of depopulation and social fragmentation by turning a disused patronato into a shared, programmable environment. Five spatial devices organise the experience along the existing building: an outdoor court, a bacaro, a market area, a performative campo, and a digital stage.
Each area is conceived as an interactive layer that links physical space with an evolving digital archive. Recipes, memories and stories of the Venetian lagoon are collected through an online platform and reintroduced into the space as events, workshops and shared meals. The TOEA goodies box, assembled from surplus food produced during activities, extends the project beyond the walls of the patronato and tests zero-waste practices at a domestic scale.
The project aligns with a broader ecosystem of responsible food initiatives in the lagoon, from itinerant kitchens to small-scale wine production and experimental gastronomy. Rather than staging a nostalgic image of Venice, TOEA frames the city’s culinary culture as a living infrastructure, connecting cooks, farmers, activists and residents in a distributed network of care. Space becomes a mediator between these actors, allowing uses to continuously adapt around temporary programmes and collective rituals.
Included in the publication “Designing Hybrid Spaces” by Franco Angeli, TOEA positions interior design as a catalyst for social and environmental responsibility. The project operates in the threshold between physical and digital, local and global, everyday use and curated experience. Through a precise yet accessible language of materials, graphics and interaction, it reframes a marginal parish space as a contemporary commons for the city.