Village as House
by Robida Collective
Topolò, Italy
Team credits
multi disciplinary team
- Robida Collective -
Janja Šušnjar,
Vida Rucli,
Elena Rucli,
Dora Ciccone,
Aljaž Škrlep,
Laura Savina,
Antonio Frederico Lasalvia.
contributing partners
New European Bauhaus
The Village as House project redefines what restoration can mean in a rural context. Rather than a singular architectural intervention, it is a collective, long-term process of inhabiting, caring and coexisting. Robida Collective imagines the restoration of Topolò through the everyday act of dwelling – using spatial, cultural and artistic practices to reimagine the future of a fragile mountain village. Public cultural programmes, publishing experiments, renovation works and learning moments all contribute to the same goal: restoring the relationship between the place and its people. The project combines architecture, maintenance and care into a single, ongoing practice of living together.
Topolò is a remote mountain village of 25 inhabitants on the border between Italy and Slovenia. Most members of Robida Collective, like many of the village’s residents, belong to the Slovene minority of Friuli Venezia Giulia, whose culture and language were nearly erased in the 20th century. Today, this community reclaims and sustains its identity through small, continuous acts of care for its territory.
The concept arises from an aesthetic and ethical interpretation of local architectural heritage. The village is composed of small stone houses, once suited to peasant life that unfolded mostly outdoors. Instead of adapting these structures to contemporary spatial demands, Robida keeps their size and form intact, assigning collective functions to a few larger buildings. This approach preserves the morphology of the village while creating a new way of living together. Residents maintain private spaces within existing homes but share communal rooms for cooking, learning and gathering. The project thus transforms the entire village into a shared house, where interaction, trust and mutual support can thrive.
Communal programmes are distributed across several empty houses and shared spaces, creating a network of care that extends into streets, courtyards and thresholds. Public spaces, gardens and paths are treated as vital connective tissues – not boundaries but links between people, buildings and the landscape.
Rather than one single construction, the project is a constellation of small-scale renovations and maintenance works. Each intervention uses locally available materials – stone, wood and existing fabric – to preserve the vernacular character of barns, dry-stone walls and paved paths. Together, these fragments form a collective architecture at the scale of the village.
Robida’s work strengthens and empowers the community through dedication and presence. Permanent and temporary inhabitants become stewards of the place, engaging in caretaking of both public and abandoned private spaces. By opening new communal venues, the project enables shared dinners, events, workshops, residencies and spontaneous gatherings that reinforce social ties.
The ecological dimension is equally central. The collective’s method challenges capitalist models of expansion and consumption by reusing existing spaces and adapting needs to what is available. Restoration replaces construction; sharing replaces ownership. Through these acts, the project reduces waste and energy use while reactivating the social and ecological systems of the village.
The project redefines renovation as the restoration of relationships – between people, between generations and between inhabitants and the built environment. It proposes a model of architecture rooted in dwelling and care, one that values slow transformation over visible change.
In Topolò, the boundary between architect and resident dissolves. Through everyday maintenance, shared meals and cultural programmes, architecture becomes a living practice. The project inspires a broader reflection on how to sustain small rural communities through design that listens, restores and coexists.
Robida is a collective and association composed of architects, artists, educators and thinkers. Active since 2014 and based in Topolò/Topolove, a mountain village of 25 inhabitants on the Italian-Slovenian border, the group is largely formed by members of the Slovene ethnic minority in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Robida’s work spans spatial, cultural and editorial practices, rooted in the belief that architecture and culture can sustain communities through care. Their activities include publishing the multilingual magazine Robida, running a community radio, and organizing Academy of Margins, an educational platform exploring life in peripheral territories.
Since 2017, the collective has tended the abandoned terraced landscape surrounding the village through workshops and collective labour. In 2021, Robida opened Izba, a communal space for residents and visitors, and since 2022 has maintained Juljova hiša, a house for residencies, workshops and seminars.
The prize money will fund renovating and transforming the chiosco structure in Topolò into a year-round, multifunctional community space. The upgrade will include roof repairs, transparent sliding panels, movable counters and improved facilities, making it suitable for workshops, cultural events and artist residencies throughout the seasons. The design will be developed through participatory processes with residents and collaborators, continuing Robida’s collective approach to restoration. By expanding the chiosco’s role as a social and cultural hub, the project will strengthen the community’s capacity for self-organization and reinforce the idea of the village itself as a shared house – a place where living, learning and making are deeply intertwined.
- Information for the project text was provided by Robida Collective -
Image gallery
Advisory Committee Statement
‘Village as House’ receives the award for Local Scale for reimagining the restoration of the mountain village of Topolò – one of many depopulated and remote settlements across Europe – as a slow, communal practice of inhabiting rather than radical transformation. Rooted in the region itself, the collective employs small, continuous interventions: renovating homes, caring for public spaces and organizing cultural programmes that rebuild relationships between people and place. This ongoing process has sparked new life in a village that has recently begun to attract new residents. By addressing the urgent challenge of rural abandonment, the project offers a powerful model for revitalizing fragile communities through care, cultural engagement and shared stewardship. It demonstrates how architecture can work as a social and ecological practice, fostering resilience and belonging in landscapes often overlooked by contemporary development.