design competition

Since 2016 Myplant & Garden – in cooperation with Fondazione Minoprio – organises an annual creative green design contest.
The competition, called I Giardini di Myplant, is open to all operators in the green industry.

“After the first edition of the contest (Il Giardino Patio, 2016), which had a more theoretical take – say the organisers – in 2017 we have decided to create something more practical and tangible, thus mingling design and offer.
Each time we have selected socially engaged organisations in need of an improvement of their outdoor areas, thus choosing to unite the best energies of our country – creativity, sociability, assistance, voluntary work and nature – in order to create useful, practical and exemplary projects. Dynamo Camp with I Giardini Dynamici (Pistoia), Centro Maria Letizia Verga with Il Giardino della Sport Therapy (Monza) and Fondazione Archè with Il Giardino di Corte (Milan) are the helpful, social and medical organisations that have been involved up to now. To these organisations go our gratitude, respect and affection. The winning project of Sky Farm, the contest announced for Myplant 2020 edition and officially awarded in the 2022 edition, proposes a large green solution to transform part of the roof of the Caselle Open Mall (COM), a new generation destination center in Turin, into a large vegetable garden.
In February 2025, the winning project of the call for proposals called Uno Spazio di Vita (a Life Space) will be announced. This project involves rethinking the outdoor spaces of the Spinal Unit at the Niguarda Hospital in Milan: an area of 400 square meters managed by the social cooperative Spazio Vita Niguarda Onlus. The aim was to imagine a welcoming and functional environment, with expanded accessible spaces for users, patients, and staff of the Center and the Spinal Unit”.

The yearly competition is coordinated by arch. Umberto Andolfato (AIAPP) and it is accomplished in cooperation with Fondazione Minoprio, Politecnico di Milano, AIAPP Lombardia and Ordine Architetti Milano.

The subject of the creative competition is the design of the external areas of the Spazio Vita Center, adjacent to the Spinal Unit at Niguarda Hospital in Milan. To redevelop the intervention area of approximately 400 square meters, the aim was to imagine a welcoming and functional environment, with expanded accessible spaces for users, patients, and staff of the Center and the Spinal Unit. The external area will be used as a rest, pause, and relaxation zone, as well as a meeting place for patients and their families, and as a venue for group activities. The call included the provision of removable seating and tables, the creation of shaded areas, the maintenance of beds for horticultural therapy, the embellishment of a perimeter wall, and the redevelopment of the greenery.

The object of the competition is the design of a vegetable garden (SKY FARM) on a portion of the roof of the newly designed destination center Caselle Open Mall (COM) located in Caselle Torinese (TO) near the international airport of Turin, Sandro Pertini.

The aim of the contest was the design of a large green area (project area size: 3,900 square meters) equipped with educational, multisensory, rehabilitative, and convivial paths, which contemplated the presence of traditional and automated ground gardens-gardens and transparent structures for hydroponic, aeroponic and aquaponic crops.

The first prize winner was the landscape architect Elena Varini, assisted by the landscape architect Enrico Turini, the landscape agronomist Giuseppe Baldi and Planet idea srl.

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Protagonist of the competition is the outdoor area of CasArchè (North-West of the city of Milan), the new sustainable organisation dedicated to mothers and children with social distress, owned by Fondazione Archè Onlus.
The outdoor area will be a green path branched into ‘rooms’, and it will become a didactic playground for its guests.
The winning project was “Le stanze Verdi di CasArchè – Luogo di incontro, gioco e socializzazione” (Green rooms at CasArchè – Meeting place, playground and social hub) curated by Virna Mastrangelo and Jessica Pettinari. Works will start in October 2019 under the coordination of the designer, the cooperation of the students of Fondazione Minoprio and the supply of plants and materials by Myplant & Garden.

The area that involved the design competition was located within the Centro Maria Letizia Verga per lo Studio e la Cura della Leucemia del Bambino (Maria Letizia Verga Centre for the Study and Cure of childhood leukaemia) in Monza.
The hospital hosts areas for research, cure and the assistance of children and their families. There is also a gym, used to contrast on an osteo-muscular level the debilitating effects of the medications needed to cure the disease. This sport activity, called ‘progetto Sport Therapy’ (Sport Therapy project) presents significant benefits on a social, psychological and quality-of-life level.
The aim of the competition was to broaden the activities of the gym, situated on the uppermost floor of the hospital building, also in its outdoor spaces close to the gym itself, for a total outdoor surface of approx. 500 sqm.
The winner of the competition was the team composed of Marinella Spagnoli, Mariasole Donata Betti, Mariangela Borrelli, Valentina Satti and Sara Pacini who have designed a therapy garden that stimulates all the senses.

The realisation of the project was sponsored by Myplant & Garden with the contribution of the charity Associazione Onlus Il Giardino di Luca e Viola and of: Criplax, Dakot, Ecoplus, Euro3plast, Fertil, Consorzio Myplant & Garden, Kostplant, L’Ortofruttifero, Parcoplant, Rasconi, Vivai Meani.

The protagonist of the competition was an area of around 5,000 sqm within Dynamo Camp, the association near Pistoia that offers Recreational Therapy programs to children 6-17 years old who are affected by serious or chronic pathologies and are following a therapy or find themselves in the post-hospitalisation period.
The competition was won by arch. Luigi Serio – PRR architetti and it concerned the redevelopment of an area of approx. 5,000 sqm, with a particular care to themes such as fences for farm animals, a vegetable garden, a snack/leisure/relax area and access to the swimming pool. The area had to be designed so as to be accessible also to those with motor difficulties.
Myplant & Garden has been able to give life to this project also thanks to the cooperation of companies and organisations that have believed in the project: Consorzio Myplant & Garden, Bonfante, Cariboni Group, Criplax, Impresa Edile Cav. Ciatti Remo, Modularte, Tutor International.