The L'Aquila Earthquake Workshop was a hands on collaboration with Italian architecture students at the University of Pescara. In 2009 the province of L'Aquila was devastated by an earthquake that left 300 dead and many others homeless. This workshop focused on the impact of the earthquake on the rural villages of Fontecchio and San Pio. The workshop integrated the diverse viewpoints and skill sets of Italian and Canadian architecture students to help envision a new future for these two villages.

Our approach to the workshop attempted to deal not only with the immediate impacts of the disaster but also attempted to address other social and economic problems that belied these villages. San Pio and Fontecchio were both faced with contractions in their populations as well as economies and the Earthquake only furthered these existing issues. As a result, instead of making unrealistic plans for near-term growth, our proposal focused on how to best consolidate the limited resources of these villages while rallying from the destruction caused by the earthquake.

Our intervention suggested a subsidized consolidation of the populations and resources of both villages into the core area of Fontecchio, where less damage had occurred and more robust infrastructures were in place. Additionally we proposed a re-conception of the semi-permanent disaster relief housing that was placed outside of the villages as a strictly temporary intervention encouraging the affected populace to reintegrate with the village and community as quickly as possible. In the meantime we proposed connecting to the relief camps and the heavily damaged San Pio with temporary mobile canopies capable of housing informal markets, shelters for events, art exhibitions or simply serving as landscape markers creating a visual connection to link the now fractured community.