The article features an interview with the powerful thirty-year-old women behind Topolò/Topolove – The Village as a House project. The project won the NEB Prize 2022 Rising-star award in the category "Prioritizing the places and people that need it the most".  It celebrates the innovative idea to redesign a formerly abandoned village on the Italian-Slovenian border (Topolò) with a view to sustainability, creativity and intercultural exchange.

The article reminisces the origins of the village and the ideas behind the “Village as a House” project: a happy encounter between theory and practice. Within this “Village as a House” that apparently offers nothing, one has the possibility to invent everything. As a community, the young women retrace their daily lives where “people adapt to the surrounding environment, not vice versa” by extending the concept of a house. And new inhabitants are coming. The article suggests the replicability of the project: young people carrying out flexible and often creative activities can revive the many abandoned villages. The article (in the Italian language) is accessible here.

The NEB Prizes award exemplary initiatives linking sustainability, aesthetics and inclusiveness - the three complementary values of the New European Bauhaus. The third edition of the NEB Prizes is open for applications until 31st January 2023.