Cascina Falchera
About this good practice
Cascina Falchera was in a state of decay until recent years. The budget shortcuts gave no chance to the City (the legal owner of the building) other than leaving Cascina Falchera 20 years ago. While the crop fields were still in use, the main building was guarded but not employed for any activity. In recent years many public tenders were launched but nobody had the financial resources to consider running the place. That’s why the Municipality launched a unique public tender for a private-public partnership where the winning bidder would have had a strong discount on the rent in exchange of setting up activities for the citizenship of this area. This solution gave the opportunity to a group of local NGOs (KAIROS) to win the bid and start taking care of Cascina Falchera. The role of the Municipality is to cooperate as a partner both in local and international projects, with the aim of upscaling the potential of the Cascina as an innovator in urban farming, social inclusion and NEB. KAIROS has also developed agricultural workshops and public common gardens for bringing back sustainable agriculture, and its benefits, back in the City boundaries.
The wide variety of activities that Cascina Falchera can offer vary from Community building activities, to biodiversity enriching projects (such as pollinators repopulation) and migrants inclusion initiatives. Young scholars are often also involved in didactic activities while elderly groups often gather together for dancing and singing.
Expert opinion
Resources needed
The Cascina is a huge complex that requires constant funding and a dedicated number of people working. It’s difficult to give a precise figure for the maintenance and the organization of the activities but the dedicated personnel inside only are made up of around 10 people.
Evidence of success
The practice can be considered successful because both the physical building and the outdoor space has already been renovated. Beyond that, the number of activities taking place is huge, only didactical laboratories in 2024 have been around 100, in the same year 84 public garden lots were inaugurated and 2500 trees were planted, in the meanwhile Cascina also hosted more than 40 public events. These lively results are even clearer compared to the state of decay that the Cascina was living in.
Potential for learning or transfer
Cascina Falchera can be an interesting case for other regions starting from its process of renovation. Looking for alternatives to the usual public tenders helped to solve a problem that, considering the financial difficulties and the challenges created by the pandemic, would have been really hard to overcome. Another lesson learned from this experience is that often the suburbs are considered only for being the furthest from City Centers, from services and infrastructures, but, if you change perspective and start considering suburbs as the closest ones to the surrounding nature they instantly become a valuable asset, and Cascina Falchera is the best example on how to turn nature into a precious asset.
Even though there are still many challenges related to the management of such a big complex, KAIROS and its employees showed how working on many different projects (European and National) helps to implement and vary the source of financing, helping them to improve even further the space.
Further information
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.
