Favorita’s Waters is a week-long Summer School, from 5 to 11 July, envisioned as a multi-layered journey into the visible and hidden waterscapes of Palermo in Sicily. Between the gardens of La Favorita on the slopes of Monte Pellegrino and the city square surrounding Teatro Garibaldi, the Summer School will set out to explore and understand the needs and challenges of the local community of people, plants, and places in the face of the hot and dry summer months, and to collaboratively create speculative design objects intended to inspire, draw forth, collect, disseminate, and play with water and imagination for a Mediterranean city in amidst transforming climate conditions.

Considering water as a cultural, social, and environmental resource, Favorita’s Waters will draw inspiration from the ancient irrigation heritage of Palermo – its Arab irrigation systems, Baroque fountains, to Roman cisterns – and learn of innovative methods and strategies to reinvent space and water across design.
The workshop is organised and led by Flavia Saggese (USI Mendrisio) and Paolo Failla, Francesca Gotti, Lara Monacelli Bani, Yona Schreyer and Michele Zadra (Wunder Collective), with the participation of Prof. Muck Petzet (USI Mendrisio), Prof. Giuseppe Barbera (University of Palermo) and invited guests.

Favorita’s Waters culminates in a public closing celebration at Teatro Garibaldi, where participants will share their archi-botanical surveys and present the collaborative design interventions developed throughout the week. The event offers an opportunity to experience and discuss the outcomes of the workshop in dialogue with the public.