Client: Trentino Federation of Cooperation
At the end of 2024, the Federazione Trentina della Cooperazione asked us to design a one off exhibition to celebrate 130 years of cooperative history. But as the conversations deepened, the brief expanded.
What started as a commemorative project grew into something more ambitious: a long term civic platform, designed to support the Federation’s evolving mission and serve the wider community.
With over 400 member enterprises spanning agriculture, finance, retail, and social services, the Federation is a central force in Trentino’s economy and civic life. Its network includes the Cavit wine consortium, the Melinda apple cooperative, and Cassa Centrale Banca, one of Italy’s largest cooperative banking groups. Together, they represent more than 300,000 members and form one of the most advanced cooperative ecosystems in Europe.
Yes, it was a moment to mark an anniversary and reflect on a shared legacy but more importantly, it was a chance to build what comes next.
“We treated this as a new kind of public infrastructure: narrative-first, functionally hybrid, and designed to grow,”
The Federation is one of Italy’s most active cooperative networks. Our goal was to build a venue that could match the diversity of its activities, and evolve with its needs over time.
For this reason we developed Piazza inCooperazione: a reconfigurable civic environment nested in the Dolomites, hidden beneath the Federation’s HQ in Trento.
Four core configurations: forum, exhibition, dinner, auditorium transform the space physically and functionally. With kinetic elements, programmable lighting, ambient storytelling, and rotating displays, this is a space built for participation.
Whether it’s a cooperative assembly, cultural event, or youth roundtable, the room reshapes itself to fit.
The core ambition is to turn a basement into strategic infrastructure for civic imagination. To create a system people can grow into. A story that keeps unfolding.
Auditorium
Coference
Exhibition
At the heart of the space is a kinetic narrative system made of rotating periacti, vertical triangular columns that act as projection surfaces, dividers, and storytelling tools. Some display video interviews. Others serve as ambient light sculptures or projection mapping canvases. Together, they anchor an ever shifting narrative grid.
The periacti act as modular scenic units that help us manage transitions in a very controlled way. By rotating, they let us change the visual environment quickly and precisely, shifting the visitor’s focus and adjusting the atmosphere without stopping the flow. Each face can hold a different cue: graphic, color, light treatment, or texture, and the rotation becomes a simple mechanical gesture that quietly moves the narrative forward. They’re essentially our way of reshaping the space in real time, guiding the rhythm of the experience and giving us a flexible tool to switch tone, direction, or interaction whenever needed.
The result is an immersive experience structured around a custom narrative matrix: five cooperative values (like adaptability and mutuality) intersect with six themed zones. These animate the space through ambient shifts every six minutes, a museum without a fixed shape.
The multifunctionality of the Periacti allows it to take on different roles within the space. From unfolding to displaying physical artefacts during one of the Exhibition Modes, to using its LED or reflective sides to amplify a specific narrative across the space.
The periacto will have a finish of different materials to give us the visual effect of a folded or unfolded structure.
When it is open, it can feature 2 or 1 shelf, depending on the size of the artefact/object we want to display. Along with it, we can have 2D graphics and text along the side walls to describe and give further detail of the object(s) on display.
We treated the entire venue like a living interface. Interactive buttons are embedded across the space, triggering content loops, lighting transitions, and storytelling variations. Touchpoints invite visitors to shape their own experience.
Closeup Peepholes
Pendulum Projections
Gesture Reveals
The space can be filled with stories of cooperation. The individuals who define the Cooperative speak of Mutual Benefit and Solidarity, Community Focus and Social Impact, Democratic Participation and Shared Responsibility, Adaptability and Innovation in a Changing World and The Importance of Values and Identity.
These stories can be discovered and explored throughout the space via pockets of engagement, which can be triggered through a wide range of interaction that give each visitor the feeling of discovering something by themselves. Unlocking each individual story that defines the collective.
We have explored the concept of bringing to life a story in the palm of your hand through a short throw mini projector inside a pendulum installation, or a textured panel that has to be clear through a hand gesture to trigger the telling of the story of that particular cooperative member.
Most civic venues are built around fixed programs. We flipped that. The story isn’t something that happens in the space.
During a topic takeover the entire space can go through a visual transformation leveraging the media server controlled lighting system, sending a ripple effect across the environment, interconnecting ever Zone under a new Topic umbrella.
This is how we connect the entire space like an organism, allowing every digital component to react to new stories being added or the shifting behaviour of visitors within the space.
The physical build combines high-spec AV with raw textures: mirror, basalt, brushed aluminum, concrete. The visual language stays rooted in the local while gesturing toward the future.
The movable walls are treated with natural textures so that we have control over when we want to bring these natural elements into the space… closing the walls to either hide or reveal them when the occasion requires them.
Again creating a flexible system that allows the space to be reactive to a wide range of requirements. Using these feature walls when and where required without the cost of time or additional space, providing the client with a flexibility that fosters creativity.
Foilage finish
Stone Finish
Wood Finish
Rock Finish
Material choices are driven by weight, durability and how quickly each component can be fabricated and installed. Most elements follow a modular approach so pieces can be built off-site, transported easily and assembled with minimal on-site tooling. The main friction points come from the heavier structures—anything that requires reinforcement, counterweights or lifting equipment tends to slow down the schedule and limit how much we can reconfigure once we’re in the space.
There are also trade-offs between speed and finish: some materials install quickly but give us less flexibility for detailing or integration. All of this sits under timeline pressure, so defining what must be custom and what can be standardised is key to keeping the build predictable.
Piazza inCooperazione opened to the public in December 2025, but it’s designed for the next ten years.
The inaugural program included a civic roundtable, symbolic performances, and the premiere of Cooperation is Present, a new film that tells the Federation’s story through the voices of its members.
What started as a one off turned into a prototype: a civic engine, a cultural platform, a place for the future to gather.
This was a true cooperative effort, concept to completion, daydream to delivery.
