Changing with pleasure: the conference location
The Changing the Change conference will take place in a maison de plaisance (house of pleasure). Of course one more chance to get and boost inspiring results from the three days meeting. In fact, the conference will be housed in an ancient castle, located inside a 19th-century park. It is an amazing historic site by the Po river, something maybe unusal for meetings, rich of history, dipped in the green and really close to the downtown of the city. In short, something really special.
The arrangement of the conference rooms and spaces inside and outside the building has been designed in order to minimise the impact of the conference and try to offset the carbon emissions produced by the meeting in Torino. The stiff architectural structure of the castle was mainly considered as an added value to the new concept of the spaces. At the ground floor there will be the “knowledge platform”, an area with four networked conference-rooms ideally and phisically connected with the wi-fi “design square”. This is a temporary light structure, in the middle of the courtyard, intended as a social space, made for receiving people and facilitating exchange of experiences, knowledge, information and talks …and agreeable catering too. On the first floor there will be spaces for welcoming, relax, reading, an exhibition of the design researches and internet points.
The Valentino Castle (Velentino is the name of a settlement in that region even back in Roman times), is a building based on the French pavillon-systeme model constructed and restructured in several phases since the second half of the 16th century. This residence, because of its excellence and role, in 17th century became the maison de plaisance of Princess Marie Christine of France who married Vittorio Amedeo I of Savoy. Of course during the conference you will have enough time to visit the Valentino Castle and the other royal residences in Torino and surroundings. They are all sites declared “Heritage of Humankind” by Unesco in 1997. The Valentino Castle is today home to two architecture and design faculties (Politecnico di Torino).
The Valentino castle is located in the homonymous park, an immense green area dotted with installations, paths for cycling and jogging, play areas and some considerable architectural traces left by Italian and International exhibitions held in 1884,1898, 1902 and 1911. You will not have to miss a visit to the botanical garden, a canoe trip on the Po river or a lunch in one of the prestigious rowing clubs by the river.
