HELD GROUND: the extension of Bologna’s civic collective | Bologna, Italy | Unit 21 | 2026

Held Ground, a civic production and research facility is located in the heart of Bologna’s University District, reframing participation as a learned, collective, and spatial practice. Replacing the former university library, the project draws from Bologna’s tradition of collaborative governance and considers existing policy structures, to build an infrastructure where students observe, articulate, prototype, and negotiate urban change, treating civic engagement as a form of social reproduction.   Built on deviated “paths”, data derived from a process that grounds collective movement is used to inform spatial organisation, circulation and topography of the roof overhead. Held Ground explores a space that is open and communal; but one that still holds your privacy and agency through adjustable thresholds and moments of pause.

The Basis: Developing a Notational System for Intuition In response to “Recipe and Agency,” my initial investigation towards the components of psychogeography and arts-based field research attempts to ground the individual as an instrument by finetuning one’s consistency as a qualitative way of measuring intuition. This digital-analogue becomes the basis towards the extraction of deviated ‘paths’, as a way of considering the collective footprint and spatial configuration.

Deviated Paths Mapped The difference in paths from individuals is the key to the definition of the building’s collectiveness.

Process of Collective Path Extraction and Topography Formation

Held Ground’s Plans and Sections

A Walk Through Our HELD GROUND