The results of the project competition for the realisation of two elementary schools, promoted by the Municipality of Prato (Italy) as part of its ongoing GO CIVIC program, are now official. We are glad to send you news about it.

The competition and its course of action registered a significant success. There were over 200 entries for the jury to evaluate. And also the public forum - organized at the end of March with the objective of answering to the questions the architects might have as well as of exposing them to the suggestions coming from teachers, psychologists and pedagogues- saw a very wide participation. The competition jury, presided by Herman Hertzberger , has now announced the winners: Andrea Stipa for the school in the Galcetello area and Mauro Frate for one in the Ponzano area. Second place are Giovanni Vragnaz and Franco Masotti; third place are Luca Lanini and Antonio Manuel Alves Ildefonso. Mention to Filippo Lambertucci.

Images of competition designs for the Galcetello school:

Images of competition designs for the Ponzano school:

According to the jury, the winning projects show a sensitive insight into the daily life within a school environment. The works are all capable of being part of the urban context like new cells of such an articulated and complex body as the social fabric of the city of Prato. These designs re-open and renew the debate on the value of public works in Italy, a topic which is at the core of GO CIVIC, the multi-annual program organised by the Municipality of Prato: they don’t pretend to be icons or new extraordinary urban landmarks; they don’t offer bold and spectacular solutions; rather, they are the clean expression of a careful and qualified architecture, one that is doable and sensitive, conceived so as to be built while at the same time capable of suggesting new visions. These new schools are capable of attracting and welcoming parents, grandparents, ants and uncles, who will not be mere chaperons for the youngest, but will be also actors and protagonists of functional and organized spatial systems, which have been conceived to enhance encounters, exchanges, social interaction. These needs are more and more important in cities like Prato, which in recent years have become the protagonists of a strong transformation towards cultural and ethnic heterogeneity. In this context, the concept of public work renovates its original meaning.