The city of Turin has been recently hit by an international wave of visitors.

It happened on September 20th-23rd for the Open Living Lab Days (OLLD) 2022 organized by ENoLL, (European network of Living Labs), the city of Turin and the House of Emerging Technologies of Turin, CTE NEXT. During these days FUSILLI was featured through presentation of the project and the results about a year after the beginning of the project and future objectives.

The main topic of the event, “The city as a lab, but now for real” addressed all potential stakeholders in the process of green, sustainable and digital transformation of cities: politicians, companies, entrepreneurs, academics , representatives of Living Labs and innovators.

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OLLD 2022 in numbers

To summarize, the Open Living Lab Days in Turin were a real success: 4 days of events, over 40 sessions, 14 workshops, 36 selected research papers, but above all, more than 350 participants from 5 continents.

 21st September:

Nature Based Solution Workshop

For FUSILLI it all started on the 21st September with the workshop “Instant nature: Nature Based Solutions (NBS) thinking” organized by Urban Lab Torino and Links Foundation. The workshop had a very operational approach and in fact, the participants left the teaching room used to host the session and visited the location OGR TORINO, to explore some of the nature-based solutions implemented in the city thanks to the EU project proGIreg. Subsequently, they returned to the teaching room where the FUSILLI project and some of the ‘green’ implementations in Turin were introduced. At the final round table, the participants were asked to imagine other ‘green’ solutions both in Turin and in their cities of origin.

 

22nd September:

Living Lab Research Presentation

FUSILLI held the floor on Day 3 of the OLLD with the presentation of the research “Identifying Challenges of Food Living Labs in Food System Sustainability Transformation in Finland” by Sanna Luoto, Senior Lecturer, Head of Degree Program at Tampere University of Applied Sciences.

In this still ongoing research, conducted as part of the FUSILLI project, the researchers aim to:

  • broaden the scientific understanding of the living labs in the agri-food system towards consumers, citizens and the food experience.
  • explore the potential challenges that food living labs and participating stakeholders have to face in their innovation and development processes.
  • discover the strategies and tools that food and hospitality laboratories need in transforming the sustainability of the urban food system.

Finally, on the basis of the data collected from the interviews, the researchers aim to contribute to the transformation of the urban food system and to promote sustainable solutions for the daily nutrition of citizens.

 

 23rd September:

Site Visit – The Green Line

Around 50 international innovators participated with great interest to the site visit “The Green Line” on the last day of the Open Living Lab Days 2022.The site visit touched both the “green sites” of the city and the so called “food route” strongly connected to FUSILLI.

In particular, the participants visited the Spazio WOW with the kitchen garden of the Locanda nel Parco, dedicated to circular cuisine and urban food policies; Orti Generali (General Gardens) with its circular kiosk that uses and produces seasonal dishes only with the products of the gardens and, finally, the Mitte Garten greenhouse, which produces salads and basil through the aeroponic cultivation technique, saving 90% of water and providing extremely organic products that respect biodiversity, without the use of pesticides and insecticides.

This and much more made up the Open Living Lab Days for FUSILLI.

 
Author: Valeria Tarallo, City of Turin