Steeping

Piedmont, Italy — September 2026

To steep is to saturate someone or something, such as soaking leaves, grapes or herbs in liquid. From a different root, the adjective steep denotes a gradient, an incline, as in a learning curve that cannot be climbed without effort and duration. Common to both definitions is the condition of time, and what time does to things that are willing to be changed by it. The tea leaves swell up, the traveller returns home steeped in the aromas of the mountains. This Inquiry takes that process as its subject. Can this kind of transformation be anticipated and cultivated? Steeping raises questions about quantities, qualities and temporalities: What we’re bringing to the host environment, how long we should be steeping it in the new surroundings, and how both ingredient and state might be transformed.

At Banca del Fare, an educational farmhouse in rural Italy, where visitors share knowledge, traditional building techniques and design activities through “learning by doing”, DesignInquiry will be exploring the topic of steeping.

Fourteen inquirers will gather to work with local residents and artisans around materials (stone, wood, honey) and the questions: what activity or skill would you be happy to share, what might be transformed by this steeping, and how?