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ENTOFARM
ENTOFARMTurning dead malls into fully automated insect farms
Entofarm is a research project that proposes transforming FrecciaRossa — the latest in a long line of abandoned shopping centres in Northern Italy — into a facility for intensive insect farming.
Where the site's early-2000s renovation, from industrial facility to temple of retail, satisfied a collective desire for well-being and opulence, our proposal makes room for insects and larvae: the very creatures we depend on for survival, and at the same time a source of collective paranoia. Kafkaesque nightmares and domestic horrors have a price that contemporary progress needs to capitalise on.
The FrecciaRossa shopping centre in Brescia, once billed as the "largest urban shopping center in Italy," lived a curious parabola in just ten years. From retail behemoth to crisis, undercut by the larger malls rising nearby at an incredible pace, and finally shut down for good after the pandemic.
Shopping malls are the image of postmodern desire — the vice of those who rode the economic expansion of recent decades. Air conditioning and escalators fuelled the near-infinite growth (and land consumption) of these vast structures, manufacturing thermal comfort, seductive artificial landscapes, and a spatial continuity that echoes the urban boulevard.
The proposal
Entofarm proposes a radical transformation of the FrecciaRossa spaces, converting them into a facility for intensive insect farming — a function set in stark opposition to everything that came before. If the mall served affluence and opulence, Entofarm relies on insects and larvae: sickening monsters to most, indispensable allies for the future of the planet.
Imagine the food court lobby as a vertical, automated storage facility for earthworms, chameleons, cockroaches and grubs. Behind the empty windows of fast-fashion stores, natural landscapes filled with slugs, bugs and ladybugs — artificial dioramas that test species as companions in biological warfare.
Intensive insect breeding offers ecological, economic and qualitative advantages, with applications across the food, pharmaceutical and textile industries as well as local production. Ladybugs can protect vines from pests; mealworms can feed animals as a protein source. Europe is finally opening its doors — and its stomachs — to insect-derived foods.
Where the site's early-2000s renovation, from industrial facility to temple of retail, satisfied a collective desire for well-being and opulence, our proposal makes room for insects and larvae: the very creatures we depend on for survival, and at the same time a source of collective paranoia. Kafkaesque nightmares and domestic horrors have a price that contemporary progress needs to capitalise on.
The FrecciaRossa shopping centre in Brescia, once billed as the "largest urban shopping center in Italy," lived a curious parabola in just ten years. From retail behemoth to crisis, undercut by the larger malls rising nearby at an incredible pace, and finally shut down for good after the pandemic.
Shopping malls are the image of postmodern desire — the vice of those who rode the economic expansion of recent decades. Air conditioning and escalators fuelled the near-infinite growth (and land consumption) of these vast structures, manufacturing thermal comfort, seductive artificial landscapes, and a spatial continuity that echoes the urban boulevard.
The proposal
Entofarm proposes a radical transformation of the FrecciaRossa spaces, converting them into a facility for intensive insect farming — a function set in stark opposition to everything that came before. If the mall served affluence and opulence, Entofarm relies on insects and larvae: sickening monsters to most, indispensable allies for the future of the planet.
Imagine the food court lobby as a vertical, automated storage facility for earthworms, chameleons, cockroaches and grubs. Behind the empty windows of fast-fashion stores, natural landscapes filled with slugs, bugs and ladybugs — artificial dioramas that test species as companions in biological warfare.
Intensive insect breeding offers ecological, economic and qualitative advantages, with applications across the food, pharmaceutical and textile industries as well as local production. Ladybugs can protect vines from pests; mealworms can feed animals as a protein source. Europe is finally opening its doors — and its stomachs — to insect-derived foods.
Exhibition
Presented in Brescia, Visioni Per Un Futuro Presente, an exhibition investigating the past, present and future of architecture in Brescia, organised for Bergamo Brescia Capitali Italiane della Cultura 2023 and held inside the former Astra cinema.
The section on future visions, curated by Associates Architecture, gathered 22 emerging Italian offices under 40, each invited to imagine Brescia's future through projects ranging from object to urban scale.
Project team: (ab)Normal, Giuseppe Greppi
Presented in Brescia, Visioni Per Un Futuro Presente, an exhibition investigating the past, present and future of architecture in Brescia, organised for Bergamo Brescia Capitali Italiane della Cultura 2023 and held inside the former Astra cinema.
The section on future visions, curated by Associates Architecture, gathered 22 emerging Italian offices under 40, each invited to imagine Brescia's future through projects ranging from object to urban scale.
Project team: (ab)Normal, Giuseppe Greppi
