AT TERRAFORMA YOU EITHER MOVE OR LET THE CITY SWALLOW YOU WHOLE

Words by Diego Putto
Stefano Mattea
Video by Crema

 

Technology is the answer, but what was the question?
Terraforma Exo infiltrates the fabric of the city, not to impose new forms but to unearth and amplify the possibilities within the existing. In this sense, it’s less about creating from scratch and more about reimagining what’s already there. Building upon the practice of Cedric Price—who famously believed that “architecture is the most public of the arts” —Exo makes a bold statement by rejecting fixed, finished structures in favor of environments that can evolve and adapt. Price’s assertion that “architecture should not be a place for living, but a place for life to happen” finds a clear echo here: Exo is not an architectural product but a continuous event, a space where movement, sound, and thought collide in unpredictable ways.
Taking cues from Cedric Price, Exo embraces the idea that architecture should function as a tool for change rather than a static object. Price’s unbuilt Fun Palace was a radical proposal from the 1960s that redefined the role of architecture—not as a fixed structure but as an evolving system shaped by its users.

 

 

 Designed in collaboration with theatre director Joan Littlewood, it was conceived as an open-ended cultural and recreational space, where walls, floors, and entire rooms could shift and reconfigure in real time based on activity. There were no predetermined uses; instead, cranes and moveable platforms would allow for constant transformation. Price rejected the idea of permanence in favor of adaptability, famously arguing that “the building is not the object, the activity it provokes is.” Terraforma Exo takes this approach literally—its spaces are not static; they are constantly shifting, transforming, and reconstituting themselves. In this way the city itself becomes a catalyst, where the architecture—if you can call it that—becomes the medium through which sonic experimentation and spatial disruption collide, turning the city inside out, showing it not as a fixed entity but as something to be activated, altered, and redefined.
The second chapter of Terraforma Exo deepens this approach, expanding its reach both geographically and conceptually. It moves beyond Milan, embedding itself in new landscapes—both urban and natural—where the interplay between space, sound, and movement is constantly renegotiated. Price saw cities not as static places but as “systems of forces to be navigated and transformed.” Exo takes this to heart, recognizing that space, like the city, is never neutral. It is shaped by its histories, its users, and the infrastructures that organize it. To intervene in space is to challenge and rewrite those forces.

 

The journey extends into sites where the past is embedded in the physical textures of the environment. In Rome, Forte Antenne—a 19th-century military structure now reclaimed by vegetation—becomes a stage for performances that engage with its layered histories, shifting between decay and renewal. In Palermo, Villa Tasca—an aristocratic estate surrounded by citrus groves—hosts the closing chapter, reflecting on the tension between preservation and reinvention. These locations are not merely backdrops but active participants in the experiment, challenging the idea of permanence and stability in architecture and artistic practice.

★ MILAN, June 28-29, Parco Sempione, Triennale Garden & Gatto Verde Club A shift from open-air experimentation to the intensity of the club, exploring how sound reshapes urban space.

★ ROME, September 20, Forte Antenne A 19th-century military structure, now overtaken by vegetation, becomes a stage for site-specific performances engaging with its evolving material identity.

★ PALERMO, October 18, Villa Tasca An aristocratic estate surrounded by citrus groves provides the setting for the final chapter, reflecting on the tension between preservation and reinvention.

Each iteration of Terraforma Exo builds on its commitment to transformation—not as a spectacle, but as a process. It is an invitation to rethink, to unbuild, and to reassemble inherited structures into new possibilities. If technology is the answer, Exo insists on questioning—not to close loops but to keep them open, resisting the desire for definitive solutions. In an era obsessed with optimization, Exo seeks something else: an architecture that refuses to settle, a festival that never fully arrives, a city that remains unfinished.