by: HORTALIA | data 25/05/2026
How many species live in an urban garden?
More than the contacts in your phone.
When you stop and observe, you discover a network of insects and organisms that connects plants, soil and human presence. A fragile balance, one that also needs you.
This is where HORTALIA begins: with slowing down, making visible what usually escapes our gaze, and using drawing as a way to observe, understand and tell the story of the life around us.
We will organise a series of workshops, a drawing contest and an exhibition to explore the biodiversity that surrounds us every day, involving children, students, citizens — and you too.
With your donation, you can make all this possible. Now.
It is all or nothing: without your support, we will not reach the goal. If we do, the University of Florence will double your donation.
Now it is your turn.
Slow down. Observe. Draw.
Support HORTALIA.
Because what you learn to observe becomes what you choose to protect.
A journey through Florence’s urban gardens, where drawing becomes a way to observe and explore biodiversity. The project will take shape through workshops, a drawing contest and a final exhibition.
With your support, we will launch a cycle of 10 drawing and environmental observation workshops, taking place between autumn 2026 and spring 2027, to follow the transformations of urban gardens over time.
The workshops will be held in Florence’s green spaces — including the Botanical Garden, the Giardino dell’Orticoltura, the Orti del Parnaso and other urban areas — and will be designed to welcome different audiences, with activities accessible to everyone.
The workshops are designed to be open and accessible to all. What matters is learning how to observe.
You will come into direct contact with the life of the garden: plants, insects and micro-habitats.
Through drawing from life, you will be invited to slow down and recognise what usually escapes the eye.
In this way, you will learn to identify the roles and relationships between different forms of life.
Each workshop is designed to involve different audiences:
Developed in dialogue with the Società Toscana Orticultura, the programme brings together direct observation, botanical knowledge and practices of care for urban green spaces.
At the end of the workshops, the work developed in the gardens will take shape through visual outputs made possible by what you helped activate.
The contest will take place at the end of spring 2027 and will involve students from the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore “Alberti – Dante”, the Liceo Artistico Statale “Porta Romana – Sesto Fiorentino”, and the School of Architecture of the University of Florence.
Participants will develop a visual project — their own way of telling the story of the gardens — starting from the experience carried out on site: field observations, notes and drawings from life.
The works will be evaluated by a jury composed of the project partners.
The most significant works will be awarded drawing materials provided by Artemiranda.
The selected works will become part of the final exhibition at the Botanical Garden. A selection will then continue beyond the exhibition, entering the urban space through the window display of the Moleskine store, Via degli Speziali 3/R, Florence. During the exhibition period, Moleskine will offer all store visitors special promotions and small drawing workshops inspired by the botanical world.
The contest is the moment when the work carried out during the workshops is transformed into artistic expression. The drawings become interpretations of the biodiversity observed in the gardens: different points of view that select, translate and reveal what often remains unnoticed.
These works will move beyond the gardens and enter the public space, reaching both the exhibition and the city.
The HORTALIA project will conclude with a public exhibition, open to everyone, held between late spring and early summer 2027 at the Botanical Garden of Florence.
Here, the journey will take shape and become visible, telling the story of urban garden ecosystems, the research and care practices connected to them, and the work carried out by participants through the drawings and visual projects displayed and shared with the city.
Your drawing, if you wish, could be exhibited in a museum.
The exhibition will take place inside the greenhouses of the Botanical Garden and will bring together different kinds of materials, creating an accessible narrative of urban biodiversity. It will include:
To make all this readable and accessible, we need to build a proper exhibition setup: information panels, display supports, physical models and communication systems designed to be accessible to everyone.
This is what will allow the research and experiences developed in the gardens to become understandable for those who visit the exhibition.
Part of the exhibition will be dedicated to the research activities carried out within Urban ElemenTREE (https://urban-elementree.eu/), an international project involving five European Urban Living Labs and developing data-driven tools to support the understanding, planning and management of the urban tree stock.
Through digital surveys, three-dimensional models, visual representations and 3D prints, the exhibition will illustrate how the morphology of the city and its green spaces are documented, and how these data can contribute to the creation of digital inventories, environmental modelling and the study of the relationships between trees, the built environment and the urban microclimate, with particular attention to heat stress.
The exhibition is the moment when the project gives back what has been observed, studied and created in the gardens, making it accessible to the city. We will give back:
This is where our research opens up and becomes shared beyond the walls of the university, bringing together scientific knowledge, direct experience and representation.
HORTALIA will unfold over the course of one year, from the workshops to the final exhibition.
With your contribution, you make the whole journey possible: from the workshops to the public exhibition.
The fundraising campaign lasts 60 days and follows an all-or-nothing model: if we do not reach the goal, all this will remain just an idea.
Once we reach €5,000, the University of Florence will double the amount raised, bringing the total budget to €10,000 and allowing us to launch the workshops and create the exhibition setup.
The DARWIN Experimental Research Laboratory will oversee the exhibition catalogue and the refreshments provided for the public opening of the exhibition.
The journey does not end here. The Municipality of Florence has already expressed interest in continuing this experience at the Giardino dell’Orticoltura, bringing the exhibition beyond the Botanical Garden and into other spaces across the city.
All supporters will become part of the exhibition: your name will be included among the contributors, and you will be invited to the opening at the Botanical Garden.
We have also prepared a number of participation rewards, directly connected to our research activities: artistic prints featuring our drawings, 3D-printed objects derived from the survey and modelling of green areas, and the exhibition catalogue telling the story of this journey.
An artistic print inspired by the imaginary world of the Horto Gang, created from the drawings produced during the project.
It is a small fragment of what we are building: something to keep with you and look back on over time.
We will see you at the final exhibition, where you will be able to collect it.
You guarantee yourself access to one of the workshops in Florence’s urban gardens.
The workshops are open to everyone, and with this reward you make sure you can take part.
Arrive ready: you will receive a voucher for drawing materials, so you can start working straight away.
We draw in the field. We follow what moves, observe what usually escapes us, and enter the rhythm of the garden.
Some of the drawings will become part of the final exhibition. Yours could be among them.
We will see you at the Orto Botanico, when everything takes shape.
This reward can take two forms: you can give it to someone as a gift, or leave it “suspended”.
In both cases, you make a complete experience possible: not only the workshop, but also a set of drawing materials that allows the participant to take part fully, with nothing to bring except their imagination.
If you choose to leave it suspended, the HORTALIA team will deliver it to someone who would not otherwise have the chance to afford it.
You will not take part directly, but you will make the experience possible for someone else. For this, you will receive a personalised thank-you from the team, together with an invitation to the final exhibition.
Choose who to take home with you: ladybird, bee, butterfly, bumblebee, ant, longhorn beetle or rhinoceros beetle.
Each small figure comes from our research: we observe, measure and reconstruct, then transform these data into an object you can hold in your hand through 3D printing.
Your Gang member will be waiting for you at the final exhibition, where you will be able to meet it in person and take it home.
With this reward, you also secure your place in one workshop and receive a voucher for drawing materials.
A book born from the gardens.
It brings together drawings, observations and materials produced throughout the project, transforming HORTALIA into something that remains.
You will be able to collect the catalogue at the final exhibition at the Orto Botanico, at the very moment when everything takes shape.
This is not a generic model. It is a real tree, growing inside the Botanical Garden of Florence.
We surveyed it, documented it and transformed it into a 3D print through our research work: from digital survey to modelling, all the way to the final object.
Together with the 3D-printed tree, you will receive a dedicated sheet with its position, characteristics and the information that tells its story.
You will be able to recognise it, find it and return to see it.
It is a way to take home a living piece of the project — and to know exactly where it comes from.
Your tree will be waiting for you at the final exhibition, in the same place where it was studied.
With this reward, you also secure your place in one workshop and receive a voucher for drawing materials.
Here is everything: the whole Horto Gang in 3D print, the tree from the Botanical Garden and the exhibition catalogue.
It is the most complete way to enter the project and take a part of it home with you.
You will collect everything at the final exhibition at the Orto Botanico, in the same place where it all takes shape.
With this reward, you also secure your place in one workshop and receive a voucher for drawing materials.
A tailor-made workshop for your group, set in the context of Florence’s urban gardens.
Whether you are a work team, an association or a group of friends, we will enter the project together: observation, drawing, shared time, guided by our approach to reading the landscape.
An experience designed to create attention, connection and a different way of looking at what surrounds us.
The workshop will take place in one of the HORTALIA sites and can be adapted to the group.
Thank you from the Horto Gang
Choose how you would like to take part.
Every contribution keeps HORTALIA going.
It is a simple way to be there.
See you at the Orto Botanico!
By now, you have seen the project.
At this point, it is only fair to introduce you to the ones who really keep the garden going:
The bee loves being at the centre of things: it arrives, pollinates, decides, and leaves. If something works, it probably had something to do with it.
The bumblebee does the same job… but in its own way: a little clumsy, always vibrating, sometimes apparently improvising. But please, no body-shaming: in the end, it works brilliantly.
The ladybird watches everything, like a tiny obsessive entomologist.
The ant builds non-stop, without asking anyone for permission.
The longhorn beetle is almost never seen, but it is always there: in the wood, inside the wood. It works calmly, asking for nothing, and by the time you notice it, it has already done everything.
The rhinoceros beetle is a different story. It is strength, presence, direction. It enters, moves things, decides. It is not there to go unnoticed — and that is exactly why we chose it as a symbol.
Then there are the butterflies.
The Red Admiral never stays still: it arrives, disappears, reappears somewhere else, always on the move.
The Scarce Swallowtail is the elegant one: perfect trajectories, precise movements, as if everything were under control. Perhaps.
The Swallowtail is the shapeshifter of the group: it changes form and reminds you that in gardens, nothing stays the same.
And that is exactly how it should be.
We called them the HORTO Gang.
With an H, of course: a small nod to HORTALIA, to Florence, and to the old Latin root of the word hortus — garden.
And no, not because they are troublemakers.
Because they are an organised crew — much better organised than we are.
During HORTALIA, we try to see the world from their level. It is not that easy: they do not stay still, they do not cooperate, and they often move exactly where you are not looking. This is precisely what drawing is for: slowing down enough to spot them and understand what they are doing.
HORTALIA is not just a project.
It is a team.
And, as you have seen, we are not the only ones who know how to work well together.
A network of people, institutions and different organisations working together.
An ecosystem, just like the one we are trying to observe.
Siamo un gruppo di docenti e ricercatori dell’Università di Firenze che lavorano tra disegno, entomologia e scienze ambientali. Il nostro lavoro nasce dall’incontro tra discipline diverse e dalla volontà di osservare e raccontare i fenomeni ambientali attraverso strumenti capaci di renderli visibili, comprensibili e condivisibili. Proveniamo dal Dipartimento di Architettura (DIDA), dal Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari, Ambientali e Forestali (DAGRI) e dal Sistema Museale di Ateneo (SMA), all’interno di un contesto interdisciplinare in cui il disegno diventa uno spazio di relazione tra saperi, capace di attivare processi di osservazione, interpretazione e costruzione della conoscenza. Il nostro lavoro si concentra sulla costruzione di linguaggi accessibili, che permettono di entrare in relazione con fenomeni ambientali complessi. In questo quadro, il disegno assume un ruolo centrale come strumento di accesso alla conoscenza e come pratica condivisa. HORTALIA prende forma come una rete che porta queste competenze nello spazio pubblico, mettendo in relazione istituzioni accademiche, enti culturali, associazioni, scuole e partner creativi. Ne fanno parte, oltre ai promotori universitari, la Direzione Ambiente del Comune di Firenze, la rete Nati per Disegnare, Urban Sketchers Firenze, l’Associazione Progress, la Società Toscana Orticultura, il Liceo Artistico Porta Romana – Sesto Fiorentino, Erasmus Student Network Florentia, lo European University Institute, insieme a partner culturali e creativi come Moleskine, Artemiranda e Cartoleria Lory. All’interno di questa rete, ricercatori, educatori, studenti, illustratori e professionisti lavorano insieme alla costruzione condivisa della conoscenza, attraverso pratiche che intrecciano ricerca scientifica, didattica, inclusione e produzione culturale. Se vuoi saperne di più, continua a leggere e scopri come puoi entrare a far parte di HORTALIA.
