THE PASSAGES OF TIME
Lucilla Borio describes how a small group restored a beautiful Italian mountain
village and have found their own green gold.
I
n the late 1980s Torri Superiore was
a fascinating, deserted and almost
hopelessly deteriorated medieval
village in the hinterland of Ventimiglia,
Liguria, Northern Italy. A local couple
felt magnetically attracted to this amaz-
ing legacy of the past and after long,
complex negotiations, bought the first
few rooms and started networking to set
up a cultural association. A group of
enthusiasts, including myself, soon came
together to accept this life-changing
challenge. We moved away from cities
to settle here, passionate to start a
sustainable and communal livelihood
together. After years of struggle and
hard work, the settlement has become a
GEN ecovillage and hosts a resident
Italian and German community of 15.
Built completely in local stone and lime
over the last 700 years, Torri Superiore
(which means ‘upper towers’) presents
a unique urban layout with several five-
story buildings and an exceptionally
intricate and compact structure. This
has preserved the hamlet and helped
it survive the injuries of time. Narrow
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Photos by Lucilla Borio & Massimo Candela unless stated otherwise.
passageways and staircases create a
magical labyrinth, a web of rooms and
corridors intricately interwoven which
spread with unusual connections and fas-
cinating, original architectural solutions.
Its 162 rooms, half of which belong to
the Cultural Association and half to
individual members, are placed on eight
levels and have been redesigned to create
a cultural centre with an attached guest-
house, and 20 small private apartments.
FOOLISH IDEALISTS OR PIONEERS?
The renovation of the village posed
enormous challenges right from the
beginning. The complexity of the build-
ing and the absence of any detailed map
forced us to spend the first three years in
observation, study and map-drawing to
understand what exactly we were buying
from the multitude of different owners.
Most of the buildings had big cracks
in the walls, some vaults were damaged
or fallen, heaps of debris and rubbish
were blocking the access to half of the
rooms, and the general picture was
rather discouraging.
No. 41
Early in the project, the decision was
made to renew the buildings, following
ecological principles and materials wher-
ever possible, and to respect at the same
time the original character of the village.
This was a major innovation in the valley,
since the local mentality associates stone
houses with a past of harshness and
misery, something to be ashamed of that
must be hidden at all costs. Local stone
on external and internal walls, non-
tropical wood for windows and doors,
natural lime plaster and washes, insul-
ating cork and wood panels, and locally
made terracotta floors, were introduced
as non-negotiable options with the local
Top:
Torri Superiore,
a complex of
tall towers
connected by
a labyrinth of
passageways.
Nina Freund
Right:
Lucilla Borio.
Permaculture Magazine 27
 stone masons who helped us get started
in the early years. Banning cement
plaster, styro-foam panels, aluminium
windows and synthetic paints made us
look like foolish eco-idealists, but it
paid off in the end.
Our local stone came mainly from
nearby natural quarries, and to a lesser
extent from the local Bevera river.
Stones can tell us the age of buildings,
as the more river stones contained in
the block, the older the building is.
The most common type of quarry-
stone here is a fairly brittle schistose
marlstone of no particular quality, a far
cry from the beautiful sandstone used
in Tuscany, but having the advantage
of there being a large quantity available
on site. Its best mate is natural lime.
This was once extracted from river lime-
stone through a process of cooking in
underground ovens that were commonly
built by the whole village once a year
and allowed to cure for months before
use. Natural lime takes close to a year to
solidify completely and the carbonation
continues until the process is practically
reversed and the lime becomes stone
again. It can last thousands of years, as we
can see from the many Roman aqueducts
and monuments still standing today.
Old stone and lime walls are, by
nature, full of moisture which needs to
move freely according to indoor and
outdoor temperatures. With our breath
and daily activities (cooking, showering
etc.) we emit large quantities of water,
which need to travel through the walls
and leave the room. Lime plaster can
Manuela Cerri

breathe well, allowing this movement,

so that walls and ceilings remain dry

Above:
One of the 700 year old alleyways
which link a web of narrow passages
and stairways, connecting around
200 rooms across eight levels.

Right:
These pipes will be plastered over to
create a low level heating panel in
the wall.

Opposite page top:

Working on the extremely narrow
and steep terraces which form much
of the community’s productive land.

Opposite page bottom:

A typical renovated room with its
multi-vaulted ceiling.

28 Permaculture Magazine No. 41 www.permaculture.co.uk

even in Torri’s central kitchen where we
normally cook for 30 people. The use of
cement plaster would trap the humidity,
allowing mildew and mould to form on
the ceilings, and in the corners.
We don’t cook our own lime but
purchase pallets of natural lime at a
reasonable price from a firm that we
found in central Italy. The plastered
walls are normally painted with lime-
wash, to which we add some milk or
egg white to prevent the lime from
pulverising at the touch. One can also
add clay and other natural dyes to get
nice, warm colours.
Our choices in terms of appropriate
energy were dictated by a number of
limiting factors. The windmill option is
not viable in this valley, given the scarcity
of persistent winds. Photovoltaic panels
were also researched and discarded,
given the limited roof-surface available
compared to the total volume of the
village. We do have some low-tech solar
panels for hot water production, coupled
with a central heating system that runs on
a combination of solar energy and fire-
wood, with a small back-up gas heater.

THE LOCAL GOLD

Torri is surrounded by an ancient agri-
cultural environment, covered with
abandoned, man-made stone terraces
that reach almost to the top of the
mountains. On the countless narrow,
steep, fragile terraces we have found
real treasure, the local gold: hundreds
and hundreds of old, overgrown olive
trees, planted all along the valley. In
an effort to make the best use of local
resources and to close the circle, we have

focused our attention on what nature

has to offer, and have created ‘the olive
tree cycle’.
Once the basis of the local economy,
olive trees fell into disuse when the
price of olive oil drastically dropped as
a consequence of the globalised market.
In this part of the world, all farming work
is done by hand, and people’s shoulders
are the only means of transport. It is non-
sensical to try to compete with large
farmers in southern Italy and other Med-
iterranean countries that run enormous,
flat and tractor accessible groves.
So, the olive tree has become the cent-
ral element of this cycle in which all its
many riches, and not just the olive oil
alone, are put to use. Initially, a radical
pruning of the half-dry tree from 15m

www.permaculture.co.uk No. 41 Permaculture Magazine 29

(50ft) down to 1m (3ft) gives about one
ton of timber, firewood, carving wood,
smaller branches and leaves. Olive timber
is extremely beautiful with intricate grain
and dense fibre and can be used in house
restoration and high-quality furniture. It
is a nervous wood that requires long cur-
ing, but it is a very decorative material. We
mostly cut the wood into planks to rein-
force passageways and window openings
but we are also experimenting with mak-
ing furniture, such as benches and tables,
and plan to expand this craft in the future.
The central heating system, is a
specially designed energy-saving device
that will heat the guesthouse through
low-temperature panels, placed either
under the terracotta floors or on the walls.
It also good for baking bread, pizzas and
other delicacies, and produces hot water
for bathrooms and the central kitchen.
The combustion of firewood gives ashes
(partially used as soil fertilisers) and a
mild lye (used for house cleaning).
Branches and leaves, derived from the
annual pruning, are fed to our rabbits
and goats (which in turn give manure,
meat and goatsmilk). The inedible
parts are chipped in a woodchipper to
produce much needed mulch. Under the
olive trees, green manure crops are
grown (mustard, peas, fava beans and
oats) to increase the soil fertility, and feed
some of the animals, chickens included.
Four or five years after the first radical
Above:
A beautiful olive wood bench.
Centre:
Harvesting olives on the mountain side.
Top right:
Home produced olive oil soap.
30 Permaculture Magazine No. 41
pruning, the olive trees are back in prod-
uction again and the famous ‘Taggiasca’
organic olives are being harvested. Ex-
cellent extra-virgin olive oil is produced,
as well as delicious olives in brine (from
which we can make olive paté). The olive
oil is not sold on the inflated market, but
is used in the guesthouse and community,
and also as a precious ingredient in our
homemade cosmetics (herbal extracts,
creams and soaps). Our next dream is to
buy our own small olive press, so that we
can not only press our own oil but also
collect and use the olive wastewater
(useful for compost) and olive pits, which
can be fed to the chickens or burnt.
THE FUTURE
Our solar energy will be increased in
the future to balance the use of fire-
wood, which is an abundant carbon
neutral resource but, in the long run, not
unlimited. Every year many new trees are
planted, especially nitrogen fixers like
alder, black locust and albizia. We are
experimenting to find the ones that adapt
best to the local, dry climate.
Although we do not claim to have
invented anything new, we have put
together, in a complex environment, a
number of solutions that are both eco-
logically sound and economically viable.
Nowadays, most of the building work
is done directly by Torri residents, with
high quality results and lots of personal
satisfaction. Our social structure is also
inspired by permaculture principles, and
caring for each other and the earth is at
the core of our philosophy.
Patience, endurance, humour and the
ability to dream as we go along have
saved us and the project in many difficult
times. Restoring the village is not a bed
of roses, and we have invested huge
amounts of personal money and energy.
But we believe it is all worthwhile, and
if we could go back in time, we would
certainly do it all over again. No pain, no
gain, and as long as we have fun and enjoy
our daily life, all the rest will follow
COURSES AT TORRI SUPERIORE
Torri Superiore hosts a wide range of
courses throughout the summer months.
Subjects include renewable energy, eco-
villages, permaculture, cookery and
pottery. For information on 2004/5
courses use the contact details below.
CONTACT
Associazione Culturale Torri Superiore
Via Torri Superiore 5
18039 Ventimiglia (Imperia), Italy
Tel: +39 0184 215504
Fax: +39 0184 215914
Email: info@torri-superiore.org
Web: www.torri-superiore.org
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lucilla Borio is a founding member
of Ecovillage Torri Superiore, and has
served as GEN-Europe’s Executive Sec-
retary from 1999 to 2003. She presently
is a member of GEN’s Board of
Directors, and also an IIFAC
(International Institute for Facilitation
and Consensus) associate. She is UN
delegate for GEN, writes for several
magazines and recently contributed to
the Encyclopedia of Community.
She devotes most of her time to
organising training courses and
cultural activities, and also enjoys
farming and cooking. Her favorite
hobby is home production of soaps
and creams with natural ingredients.
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