THE NETWORK

Municipality of Florence, Department of Youth Policies, Department of Education, Tuscany Regional School Office

PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND CONTEXT

The renovation project of the San Firenze building is an operational condition for the development of the ABF Globalab educational programme: a container of projects in the field of school, career and vocational guidance characterised by the adoption of a practical-experiential methodology, which is embodied in training opportunities and experiences essentially in the form of workshops and of an interactive-cooperative nature, aimed at empowering and guiding subjects in the broadest and most meaningful sense.

This is part of a wide-ranging conceptual paradigm, in which centrality is given to the emergence and enhancement of transversal competences (and in particular to the area of social and emotional competences), to personal pro-activation, enhancement and empowerment, aiming at supporting orientation and self-training of the individual. 

The design of the spaces is guided by three key words – Sustainable, Hybrid, Relational – and is aimed at giving young people in the Florentine area environments capable of promoting autonomy and agency, responsibility and participation, motivation and interest, welcoming questions and interrogations, new approaches and solutions, reflective and interactive processes, and open to different cognitive and relational styles, with the aim of promoting conditions that foster the acquisition and consolidation of social, emotional and relational skills.

To this end, three workshop spaces are planned within the project: digital, musical and multifunctional.

OBJECTIVES

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

* Population aged 16-25 years resident in the Metropolitan City of Florence

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Stage 1: Identification on the basis of the need that emerged during the first years of the ABF GlobaLab project and the need for redevelopment and regeneration of the San Firenze spaces;

Stage 2: Design by a multi-disciplinary team (educational experts, lawyers, architects, engineers, administrative staff) dealing with both the spaces and each stage of the design (preliminary, pedagogical, final and executive);

Stage 3: Execution managed directly by ABF and supervised by the multidisciplinary team with strict attention to project timelines and budget;

Stage 4: Evaluation using the indicators defined in the design stage;

Stage 5: Reporting through the “ABF Suite” platform, developed for the global design and management of real estate projects in Italy. Regular reports from the working group.

IMPACTS ON THE COMMUNITIES

The renovation of the spaces aims to give back to the 16-25 population an innovative relation environment, where to acquire and consolidate transversal skills, nurture the emergence of an empowered and proactive self, experience collaboration and cooperation, teamwork, problem posing and problem solving, emotional, management, organisational and planning skills, leadership, creative thinking, communication skills, self-narration, self-reflexivity and conscious acting, in order to build a positive, effective, generative and transformative self-image. 

This environment is created with the aim of forming a true vocational school that – in harmony with the main EU and national legislation on the subject of training, education, continuous learning, transversal skills, and lifelong learning – generates the opportunity to experiment and co-construct plural possibilities for self-exploration and empowerment, with the key objective – and general background of the ABF Globalab programme – of undertaking life orienteering and life design, self-development and self-fulfilment paths.