GUIDELINES CALL FOR IDEAS
FORMER SEMINARY OF SAN MASSIMO
From a place of vocation to the vocation of the place.
1. ORGANISER
The Organiser of the contest is the Diocese of Verona, ecclesiastic entity with recognised legal status by virtue of Decree of the Minister of the Interior no. 363 of 20/10/1986, with head office located in Verona, Piazza Vescovado 7.
2. OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF THE CALL FOR IDEAS
The purpose of the initiative (hereinafter, “Contest”) is to choose the best ideas and proposals to set out a project to redevelop and enhance the former Seminary of San Massimo of Verona, owned by the Episcopal Seminary, ecclesiastic entity of the Diocese of Verona and part of the same Diocese.
The site of about 17 hectares is located in the west quadrant of the city of Verona, near the district of San Massimo. It was traditionally built as a large single-function structure and is arranged in a complex of buildings that are highly independent and separated from the surroundings.
The development of the infrastructure system has now made this area very accessible with respect to the “long” networks of the motorway, railway and airport system, but poorly serviced by the local access system, remaining inside a low density urban fringe compartment.
For a better understanding of the framework of reference, visit the website “Mappe, Materiali e memorie”.
All buildings that were previously used by the Seminary, including the large church, are located inside the owned area (Exhibit 1). The structure of the spaces and buildings, as well as their intended use, their arrangement and relation are outlined in Exhibits 2 and 3. The extract of the applicable Regional Planning Scheme (PAT) in Exhibit 1, shows that the area is crossed by two power lines where there is a buffer zone as first approximation, identified during the planning process. There are no additional restrictions on the buildings.
The purpose of the Contest is to promote a reflection on the possible transformations and forms of use for this place, subsequently setting out opportunities to involve the local community, institutions and a place for dialogue with potential partners interested in its regeneration.
While giving Participants utmost liberty for ideas to come up with the best possible solutions for development, they are asked to consider the following topics in the preparation of their proposals:
- The relationship between “the legacy and memories of the past” and the ability “to take on challenges and see potential for future development”.
- The relationship between “inside and outside” and hence the level of openness/contamination rather than protection/closure of the area with respect to the context and the surroundings.
- The (internal) relationship between “solid and void”, between the constructed part and the open spaces, between the buildings and areas still unoccupied.
- The search for a new functional layout that can vary between the search of a “new single-function” with a stronger identity or on the contrary an “integrated system of activities”, even diversified, that awards the diversity of transformation.
- The “scale of reference” option and the timeframe by which the idea finds its meaning; if local, within the city/territory of Verona or if global, regionally or nationally.
Along these terms and within the limits of these relationships, Participants are asked to focus their ideas by taking a position on possible development, reuse and transformation scenarios.
It must pre-emptively be noted that the owners are interested in the following:
- Ensure that the “vocation” that lived for decades in this place, namely its social utility, is not lost. The collective interest and social utility remain the principles to which the ideas should measure themselves by finding new contemporary forms of translation.
- Keep the large church building (where mass is no longer celebrated and no longer used as a place of worship for years) imagining it could remain as a spiritual place, a place of research for men and women, a place of thought and of silence. It must be noted that there is a large hall beneath the church (auditorium theatre).
Proposals aimed at the construction of waste disposal centres or dedicated exclusively to business activities will not be taken under consideration.
3. DURATION
Participation to the Contest will be possible from 1 December 2023 until 11:59 am of 27 of March 2024.
4. PARTECIPATION
The Contest is open to those who wish to share their project ideas to redevelop the area of the former Seminary of San Massimo.
Those who may participate to the Contest include, school institutions, universities, educational and research institutes, companies, consortia, various organisations, public and private entities or associations, as long as they are entities formally established and have a legal status.
Participation can take place as a single organisation, (hereinafter, “Participant”) or in aggregate form (a group of two or more organisations, hereinafter “Group”).
In case of participation as Group, a lead partner must be chosen (hereinafter “Lead Partner”) to act on behalf of the Group and all the organisations pertaining to the Group must likewise be identified, as described in section 4 (Participation Conditions).
Proposers or Participants may not submit more than one proposal; if this happens, none of the proposals submitted by the organisation will be considered admissible.
5. ACCEPTING THE RULES OF THE CALL FOR IDEAS
Participating to this initiative requires the acceptance of these rules.
6. PARTICIPATION CONDITIONS
Participation can take place by registering online at https://exseminariosanmassimo.org/en/participate/ and will be possible from 1 december 2023 until 11:59 am of 27 March 2024 by filling out the documentation described hereafter.
Any proposals received outside the above website will not be considered or admitted.
Questions or requests for clarification during the opening phase of the Contest shall be made only through the website www.exseminariosanmassimo.org under the section “Contacts“> FAQ. Both questions and answers will be visible to everyone.
As the documentation and proposals consist of ideas and not technical projects,the interested area cannot be visited or inspected. Therefore, any request to do so during the validity period of the Contes will be denied
In particular, the following is required:
- Filling out the online form “application to participate” present online.
- Uploading the “Idea Prospectus” with the predefined layout (Exhibit 6 “Idea Prospectus Template”) summarising the entire proposal, prepared according to the conditions described in Exhibit 5 “List and description of materials for participation”.
- “Technical Report” of the idea submitted (a maximum of 20,000 characters, spaces included, in PDF format) (Exhibit 5).
- In case of participation as a Group, the Lead Partner will be required to register by filling out the provided registration form (Exhibit 4) with the required data, specifying the list of all members of the Group. In order to complete the registration process, the Lead Partner must upload the idea prospectus according to the same conditions outlined above.
Each Participant, Lead Partner or Group member may compete in this contest with just one participation.
The Organiser reserves the right to request a supplementation of the material received if considered necessary to assess the project idea submitted.
The following documents can be freely consulted from the website to support the Participants:
Technical exhibits (which constitute an integral part of the tender):
- Floor plans indicating the area using Orphophotos, CTR (Regional Technical Charter) or Cadastral data;
- Summary sheets outlining the characteristics of the properties that are part of the compendium;
- Town planning certificate of the area;
Supplementary appendices (which can be consulted and downloaded under the section “maps, materials and statements” on the website:
A – The territory;
B – Images and stories;
C – Photographic survey divided into functional blocks.
The following will not be considered admissible:
- Proposals that are received after the specified term;
- Proposals that are incomplete (even if missing just one of the required documents, as per Exhibit 5 “List and description of materials for participation”);
- Proposals received in different ways than those specified above;
- Proposals in which an entity that competes, individually or in aggregate form, has more than one idea.
7. PRIZES
Winners will receive the following prizes:
Il first selected: Euro 25.000,00 (twenty five thousand)
Il second selected: Euro 15.000,00 (fifteen thousand);)
Il tehird selected: Euro 10.000,00 (ten thousand)
The overall prize money amounts to Euro 50.000,00 (fifty thousand).
The prizes offered by the supporting entity, the San Zeno Foundation, will be paid out by the Organiser in a single payment by no later than three months after the announcement of the Contest results. The prizes include social security and tax expenses (any VAT included) and any other contributions that shall therefore be paid by the wining organisation. If a project idea submitted by a Group wins the Contest, the entire Group will be considered the winner. The prize will be paid to the Lead Partner and will be distributed by the latter according to the agreements made within the Group, without involving the Organiser in any way, except for the above charges and contributions.
8. JURY
The project ideas will be evaluated at the sole discretion of an authoritative Jury with multidisciplinary experience.
The Jury will consist of the following members:
PRESIDENT:
- Mons. Domenico Pompili, Bishop of the Diocese of Verona
MEMBERS:
- Don Luca Albertini, Rector of the Episcopal Seminary
- Arch. Giacomo Borella, Architect and co-founder of the Albori studio
- Dott.ssa Ilaria Borlotti Buitoni, Vicepresident Fondo Ambiente Italiano
- Prof.ssa Alessia de Biase, Anthropology, professor at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris
- Dott. Marco Morganti, Impact Director at Banca Intesa Sanpaolo
- Dott. Sandro Veronesi, President of the Foundation San Zeno and of the Calzedonia Group
The Jury will take into consideration for the assessment, projects that meet the following criteria:
- quality of the proposed solution and consistency with the targets and topics of the initiative (40%);
- level of innovation, originality and peculiarity of the idea (30%);
- feasibility and environmental, social and economic sustainability (20%);
- ability to represent and describe the idea, clear illustration of the contents (10%).
The Participants and Groups may not under any circumstance make their own project ideas public before the decision of the jury, scheduled by 30 June 2024.
The Jury will also choose an equal number of project ideas as reservation in case the prize cannot be assigned to one winner.
The duties of the Commission will be completed approximately in the month of May 2024 with a ranking that will choose the three wining ideas.
The decision of the jury will be unappealable and final.
CONDITIONS FOR EXCLUSION
Organisations whose members, directors or presidents are family members or relatives of the members of the Jury, of the promoter entity of the project or of entities that sponsor them will be excluded from the participation.
Project ideas that are considered unfit or non-conforming to the rules will be excluded from the participation.
NOTIFYING WINNERS AND PUBLISHING THE RESULTS
Winners will receive a winning notice by email to the email address provided during the registration process.
In case of participation as Group, the notice will be sent to all members of the Group to the respective email addresses provided during the registration process.
Winners of the prize will receive a message by email or by phone with all the operating conditions to be awarded the prize.
The prize will be given to the winners when they give a response by sending their acceptance of the prize, accompanied by all the required information for the proper awarding of the prize.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND PUBLICATION RIGHTS
The Participants to the initiative represent and warrant that the project idea and its representation are theirs, unique and expressly developed for this Contest. Therefore, the Organiser is exempted from any liability and claims regarding the originality and authorship of the work or property rights on the part of third parties.
By participating to the Contest, all Participants grant the Organiser exclusive rights to publish, distribute, reproduce, even partially and disseminate the project ideas with any means and through any channel, free of charge and without any geographical or time restriction with their authorisation to use said project ideas (including photographic materials, digital images, project documents) without claiming any copyrights. The Organiser will acquire the material and intellectual property rights of the project ideals submitted by the wining Participants to the Contest.
The Organiser may use all the materials submitted by the Participants to the Contest (by way of example, but not limited to drawings, reports, images) with the purpose of promoting the initiative or in any case for marketing purposes using any hardcopy or electronic means, even through social media, without having for this to imply any economic claim or the suchlike on the part of the Participants to this call.
PERSONAL DATA PROCESSING
The personal data provided in the special registration form will be gathered and processed to manage the participation to this initiative. Providing said data is mandatory in order to participate to the Ideas Contest (fulfilment of such obligations constitute the legal basis of the processing). The Data Controller is the Diocese of Verona, with head office located in Piazza Vescovado 7 – 37121 Italy (VR) telephone no. +39 045 8083711. The Data Controller has appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO), who can be contacted at the following e-mail: dpo.diocesiverona@pec.chiesacattolica.it . The gathered data will be kept for the entire duration of the initiative and will not be transferred outside the European Union.
The following entities will have access to the data: i) personnel of the Diocese of Verona in charge of managing the initiative as Data Processors; ii) suppliers and consultants of the Diocese of Verona and Supporting Partners, as Data Processors. The data will not be disseminated.
Each participant of the initiative may contact the Diocese to exercise their own rights regarding their personal data, as envisaged in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) EU 2016/679, in particular:
a) the right to rectify the data; b) the right to erasure;
c) the right to limit the data processing in the cases envisaged in article 18 of the GDPR;
d) the right to access the data;
e) right to portability.
Moreover, each participant has the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority whenever a personal data right is breached. The request to exercise said rights may be filed by contacting the Data Controller or the DPO by email or by registered letter with advice of delivery with the subject: “request by the data subject”; the right to be exercised must be specified (erasure, rectification, access, limitation to processing, portability), along with a valid email address or certified email address.
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Participation to this initiative is free of charge.
The online uploading service of materials will be active until 11:59 am of 27 March 2024.
The Organiser shall not be held liable for any access issue, impediment, malfunction or difficulty regarding technical instruments, computers, cables, the electronics, software or hardware, as well as the transfer and connection, the telephone line or the Internet connection that may prevent the user from accessing the website to fill out the questionnaire, etc.
Those who according to the sole opinion of the Organiser or third party in charge thereof, show to have used means or instruments to evade the system or in any case considered suspicious, fraudulent or in breach of the normal realisation of the initiative, will be excluded from the initiative.
The winners will be responsible for paying all the due taxes related to the prize. The prize should be considered inclusive of all charges and contributions that each organisation must pay, based on their tax regime. If a withholding tax must be applied, the amount paid will be net of said withholding.
The Organiser or the companies in charge of managing the initiative, reserve the right to take the necessary measures to limit or prevent any actions aimed at bypassing the devised system in compliance with applicable laws.
Any disputes shall be resolved based on these rules.