FOLLY 02 "Cultivate", 2025

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Honoured to contribute with my article “Canals of Resistance”, which explores the vernacular hydraulic architecture of Sant’Erasmo; where hand-dug canals regulate salinity and sustain the Purple Artichoke. Read against centuries of imposed interventions on the Venetian Lagoon — from Napoleonic closures to MOSE — these minor infrastructures emerge as living architectures of care, carrying local knowledge and ecological resistance to top-down control.

This second edition of Folly is dedicated to the theme of cultivation: to establish and develop, to nurture and form — whether of plants or culture. Agriculture and architecture have always grown in dialogue, from the grain stores of the Neolithic to Varro and Vitruvius, from country gardens to industrial farming.

The issue begins with an extract from Varro’s On Agriculture and unfolds into essays on Andrea Branzi’s vision of agricultural architecture, the canals of Sant’Erasmo, Aldo Rossi’s cleaning equipment, Superstudio’s myth of farmer Zeno Fiaschi, Lisbon’s Ajuda Palace gardens, kozolec barns in Slovenia, and the architecture of fire lookout posts in North America.

Massive thanks to editors Rosie Ellison-Balaam and Francesco Fiammenghi for steering this issue with such care and vision, and to everyone who joined the launch last night at the AA.

Featuring contributions by Marco Terentius Varro, Francesco Fiammenghi, Evan Pavka, Riccardo Rizzetto, Rosie Ellison-Balaam, Marta Rocha Moreira & Ana Sofia Pinto, Antônio Frederico Lasalvia & Renzo Rucli, Benjamin Mehigan.

FOLLY 02 Launch
30 September 2025
AA Bar and Front Members’ Room, 36 Bedford Square

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ISBN 978-1-0687090-1-2

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FOLLY 02 launch at AA School

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