Events

Lecture by Stefano Pujatti (ELASTICOFarm).

1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Stefano Pujatti,architect and principal at ELASTICOFarm, will lecture on Tuesday October 25 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

ELASTICOFarm is an architecture and product design studio founded by Stefano Pujatti, Alberto Del Maschio and Sara dal Gallo in 2005, based in Chieri and Pordenone (Italy) and Toronto (Canada). 

Stefano Pujatti was visiting professor at the University of Toronto from 2014 to 2016, at the Faculty of Architecture of the Politecnico di Torino from 2005 to 2014 and has been invited as a speaker at numerous university institutions including RMIT in Melbourne, Hosei University in Tokyo, Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, IUAV Venice. 

In architecture, ELASTICOFarm’s research focuses on the relationship between the forces and elements of nature, their impact on man and the built environment. Every new project is an opportunity to study and experiment with materials, technology and geometry. Their buildings and products have won important acknowledgements at national and international exhibitions, awards and publications. These include the Venice Architecture Biennale (2006, 2010, 2014, 2021), the monographic exhibition Form Matters at the Italian Cultural Institute in Toronto (2015), the in/arch-ANCE award (2006). Elastico Farm was a finalist of the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2013 and nominated in 2019 and in 2022 with two projects: Le bâtiment descendant l’escalier and Houses of cards. In the field of product design in 2019 ELASTICOFarm won first prize at the RED DOT Award, the LF design Award and the Green Design Award. 

The monograph Architettura al sangue was published in 2008. In 2019 ELASTICOFarm was guest-editor of an issue of the IQD magazine titled I Don’t Know. 

Lecture by Alberto Iacovoni (ma0).

1024 345 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Alberto Iacovoni, architect and founding partner at ma0, will lecture on Tuesday october 18 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

Alberto Iacovoni, architect, is a founding member of the architecture firm ma0/emmeazero (www.ma0.it), which started in 1996. Between 1999 and 2004 he was a member of Stalker/Osservatorio Nomade (www.osservatorionomade.net). Constantly drawing upon the feedback between theory and practice through commissions, competitions, lectures, and workshops, each project becomes for ma0 an opportunity to explore the relationship between form and social role of architecture, which is, by choice, an open, interactive and process-based device.

The built projects are at present the Maria Grazia Cutuli School in Herat, Afghanistan (finalist at the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013), the new library for the Lombardi School, Piazza Risorgimento and the public garden in via Matarrese in Bari, a square with underground parking in Macomer.

The most relevant unbuilt commissions are the Pincetto garden multifunctional complex in Perugia (1998-04), a masterplan for the city of Almere in The Netherlands (2007), the detailed design for the facades and public spaces of the Xi’An Milan Park Mall in Xi’an in China (2015) and a recent feasibility study for a museum for Acea in Rome (2021).

The work of ma0 has received several awards in national and international competitions, and was featured in important exhibitions, such as the 10th, 11th, 12th and 14th Architecture Biennale in Venice. Their projects were published in the most prestigious magazines and publications of architecture. 

Alberto has lectured at various universities and institutes, such as INARCH – National Institute of Architecture, Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, NABA in Milan, and Cornell in Rome. Since 2000 he has taught at IED – Istituto Europeo di Design (www.ied.it) in Rome, where he was Director from 2009 to 2012, and later Scientific Director. Currently he is coordinator for the Master course in Exhibit Design at IED in Rome. 

Among his publications are Game Zone. Playgrounds Between Virtual Scenarios and Reality (Birkhauser, 2003); Playscape (Libria, 2010); and Il libretto rosa di ma0. Teoria e pratica del realismo utopico / Ma0’s Little Pink Book. Theory and Practice of Utopian Realism (2016).

Lecture by Annalisa Metta (OS/A).

1024 597 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Annalisa Metta, founding partner at OS/A (OPEN SPACE / ARCHITECTURE), will lecture on Tuesday September 27 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

OS/A (OPEN SPACE / ARCHITECTURE) is a design studio, founded in 2021 from the previous experience of Osa architettura e paesaggio, already established in Rome in 2007. OS/A deals mainly with the design of open spaces, elaborating projects for parks of various kinds and scales, public and private gardens, squares, playgrounds and urban spaces, temporary installations, recovery of historical gardens, archaeological and monumental areas, infrastructures, reclamation of abandoned or under reconversion industrial sites. Its focus is landscape as an agent, in relation with the behaviours of human and not human beings.

Lecture by Filippo Bricolo (Bricolo+Falsarella).

1024 597 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Filippo Bricolo, founding partner at Bricolo+Falsarella, will lecture on Tuesday September 20 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

Francesca Falsarella and Filippo Bricolo studied at IUAV in Venice where they graduated together with full marks and honors. After some experience, in 2003 they set up Bricolo Falsarella associati based in their studio house on the Morainic hills of Garda Lake (Verona). Their works have received important awards in Italy and Europe. In 2015 they won the Architettiverona Prize for the restoration of Villa Saccomani in Sommacampagna, a prize they won again in 2021 with the Brolo della Cantina Gorgo in Custoza. The latter project was included in the exhibition “Nuove Cantine Italiane. Territori e Architetture” produced by Casabella, for which they also curated the installation at Palazzo Balladoro on the occasion of Vinitaly 2022. In the field of museography they have curated several installations at the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, where they finally restored the East Wing, working in the spaces left unfinished by Carlo Scarpa. Their works have been published in important magazines such as Casabella and Abitare. With reference to their intensely contextual and humanized architecture, they have been invited to hold conferences in Italy and abroad. Filippo Bricolo holds a PhD in architectural composition from the IUAV in Venice and has been continuously teaching for several years. He currently teaches at the Mantua campus of the Politecnico di Milano with Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan, with whom he has a long-standing collaboration.

www.bricolofalsarella.it

Lecture by Davide Rapp (-orama).

1024 732 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Davide Rapp, architect and video artist, will lecture on Tuesday March 8 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

Davide Rapp (1980) is a Video Artist. Architect and Ph.D in Interior Design at Politecnico di Milano, he works across the fields of architecture and cinema producing mixed-media installations, movie montages and video-essays. In 2014 he participated as a contributor in the 14th International Architecture Exhibition – Fundamentals (Biennale Venezia, 2014) with ‘Elements’, a 32 minutes long montage of short architecture-related clips specifically conceived for the exhibition ‘Elements of Architecture’ curated by Rem Koolhaas, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2021 he participated in competition at the 78th Venice International Film Festival with the virtual reality montage film “Montegelato”. His montage films and video essays have been screened in international museums and film festivals. The Milano Film Festival hosted his first retrospective in 2016 and the magazines “Cahiers du Cinéma” and “Sight & Sound” have included his montages among the most interesting video essays online. He is founder and creative director of the Milan-based creative agency ‘-orama’.

www.dashorama.eu

Lecture by Simone Gobbo (DEMOGO).

1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Simone Gobbo (founding partner at DEMOGO) will lecture on Tuesday March 1 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

DEMOGO was founded in 2007 by Simone Gobbo, Alberto Mottola and Davide De Marchi.
In 2009 they won the Europan10 international competition for the new Gembloux Town Hall in Belgium, completed in 2015 and awarded with the IQU Award for Innovation and Urban Quality. In 2010 the studio was invited by Europan Europe to participate in the international forum “Inventing urbanity” in Neuchâtel in Switzerland. They were awarded second prize in the under35 YIA “Young Italian Architects” selection and participated in the related traveling exhibition. They were part of the international exhibition “Backstage architecture” on the occasion of the Venice Architecture Biennale “People meet in architecture”. In 2012 DEMOGO was invited to the international forum “European urbanity” in Vienna to present the process of urban implementation and transformation of the new Town Hall under construction in Gembloux.
In 2015 DEMOGO won the competition for the reconstruction of the Bivouac Fanton on the Forcella Marmarole (at 2,667 meters above sea level) in the Dolomites. The project was completed in 2020 and published in the main international architecture magazines with a photographic narration by Iwan Baan.

 

 

In 2015, the Italian National Council of Architects awarded DEMOGO with the “Young Talent of Italian Architecture” prize, testifying the value of the architectural research developed by the studio.
In 2016 DEMOGO was runner-up for the YAP 2016 “Young Architects Program” competition, an initiative promoted by MAXXI Architettura in partnership with MoMA / MoMA PS1 in New York, the cultural association CONSTRUCTO in Santiago de Chile, the Istanbul Modern museum and the MMCA in Seoul. In the same year, the studio was invited as Visiting Professor for the W.A.Ve. 2016 at the University of Architecture of Venice, IUAV. In 2017 they were awarded the “Dedalo Minosse” prize. In 2018 DEMOGO was selected among the 40 emerging European studios for the 40under40 award. In the same year, the Bivouac Fanton project was selected for the “Arcipelago Italia” curatorial program exhibited at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale in the Italian Pavilion. In the same year DEMOGO won the Gold Medal for Italian Architecture TYOUNG with the project for the Bivouac Fanton, on display at the Milan Triennale.
The studio constantly feeds an intense research activity. Its partners are visiting professors at the IUAV in Venice, the Polytechnic University in Genoa, and the University of Architecture in Ferrara.
Projects by DEMOGO  were published extensively, in Italian and international magazines, such as: L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Domus, Area, Abitare, Modulo, L’Arca, A10, B1 Magazine, A +, Mark.

www.demogo.it

Lecture by Erika Gaggia (act_romegialli).

1024 768 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Erika Gaggia (partner at act_romegialli) will lecture on Tuesday February 15 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED. Her lecture, titled “do here do elsewhere / do there and not elsewhere”, will be introduced by prof. Federico Grazzini.

The firm, founded in 1996 by Gianmatteo Romegialli and Erika Gaggia, deals with architecture, urban design, interior design, object design and communication.

The cultural value of making architecture, the sense and feeling of a place, its history; these are the aspirations that establish the design of the office. The research of the essential characteristics of a site, interpreted and made contemporary to enhance and revive the history, identity and culture of a territory.

During these years act_romegialli has participated and won many architectural competitions. Its partners were invited to lecture at numerous institutions, among them Politecnico di Milano, Accademia Belle Arti Brera, Ecole d’architecture de Grenoble, Canberra University Department of Landscape Architecture, RMIT Melbourne, Accademia di Mendrisio and Universidad Politecnica de Valencia.

www.actromegialli.it

Lecture by Alessandra Rampazzo (AMAA).

1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Alessandra Rampazzo (co-director at AMAA) will lecture on Tuesday February 8 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED. Her lecture, titled “WHAT’S ALREADY THERE? Designing in-between old and new”, will be introduced by prof. Paola Giaconia, Kent State University Florence CAED coordinator.

AMAA was founded in 2012 by Marcello Galiotto and Alessandra Rampazzo, after their professional experiences with Massimo Carmassi and Sou Fujimoto. They couple their professional practice with academic research and teaching: they both graduated from IUAV in 2010 and completed their PhD in Architectural Design (Galiotto, 2015) and History of Architecture (Rampazzo, 2017).

They are used to work at a variety of scales, from small details to global designs, thanks to their multidisciplinary team and to collaboration with consultants, both in their private commissions and in the national and international competitions they participate in. Architecture is indeed a collaborative attitude rather than the expression of a personal voice.

They have received several national and international awards. In 2015 they were selected as finalists in the Federico Maggia Award 2015, and as Architects of the Year Under 36 – New Italian Blood. In 2019 they received the Special Mention in Europan 15 competition (Graz, AT) for the project Island (e)scape. In 2019, AMAA won first prize for the design and construction of a 9-apartment housing building for IPES in Bressanone (Bolzano) and for the extension of the ‘Rosa dei Venti’ nursing home in Borgo Chiese (Trento), both currently at the final design stage. In 2020, they were awarded first prize for the design of Verdi Theater in Terni, Italy. In 2021, in team with DEMOGO and Angelo Renna, AMAA won first prize for the urban renovation project proposal “Polo Civico Flaminio” in Rome.

The restoration of the Santa Croce Convent in Venice received the honorable mention in the Cappochin Award 2015 (regional section), while the renovation of The [B] Zone was selected among the 10 best regional works in the Cappochin Award 2017 and selected as finalist in The Plan Award 2018. In 2020, AMAA’s ‘Final Outcome’ project was awarded first prize in the Young Italian Architects competition.

Their main office is in Venice, and since 2015 they have a branch office in Arzignano (Vicenza).

www.amaa.studio

Fall 2019, lecture by Christina Seilern.

Lecture by Christina Seilern.

1024 684 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Christina Seilern (principal at Studio Seilern Architects in London) will lecture on Tuesday November 12 at 7 pm at Palazzo Vettori. Her lecture, titled “Light as a Building Material”, will be introduced by prof. Paola Giaconia, Kent State University Florence CAED coordinator.

Christina Seilern established London-based creative practice Studio Seilern Architects in 2006. Applying her unique style across a range of building typologies, geographies and scales she re-engages in an approach that carefully addresses each project from an in-depth consideration of the detail to the overall massing strategy. She tackles a range of projects from large-scale city masterplans, down to the more intricate scale of furniture and light fitting design, both in the emerging and developed markets.
Prior to establishing Studio Seilern Architects, Christina Seilern was the founding director of Rafael Viñoly Architects (RVA) and was responsible for key projects such as the 20 Fenchurch St. office tower in London, the Curve Performing Arts Centre in Leicester, Mahler 4 tower in Amsterdam or Wageningen University Plant Research Centre in the Netherlands.
SSA was established with the intent of continuing the strong design ethos developed during Christina’s time at RVA. Her diverse portfolio includes RIBA-award winning projects such as Gota House in Zimbabwe, Ansdell Street in Kensington, a world-class concert hall in the Swiss alpine village of Andermatt, award-winning Wellington College Performing Arts Centre in Berkshire, and Boksto 6 masterplan – a UNESCO heritage site in Vilnius, Lithuania
Christina is a frequent panellist and guest speaker both in the UK and abroad and is also a regular juror for the AR MIPIM Awards, World Architecture Festival, the RIBA EyeLine, LEAF Awards and PAD London.
Christina grew up in Switzerland and then moved to the States to study architecture at Columbia University in New York (GSAPP ’96). She is very much influenced in her work by her early years spent in the mountains, connected to nature of awe-inspiring scale. Studying and working in the States in her twenties gave her a new perspective to scale and a bold approach. She was very much touched by the buildings of Louis Kahn and Eero Saarinen who combined poetry, simplicity of details, and clarity of thought throughout the projects, something that she tries to emulate in her own work.
www.studioseilern.com

Fall 2019, lecture by Ila Bêka.

Lecture by Ila Bêka (Bêka & Lemoine).

768 1024 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Ila Bêka, founding partner at Beka & Lemoine, will lecture on Tuesday 22 October at 7 pm at Palazzo Vettori, His lecture, titled “The Experience of Space”, will be introduced by prof. Marco Brizzi.

Video-artists, producers and publishers, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine are two of the foremost architectural artists working today. They have been working together for the past 10 years mainly focusing their research on experimenting new narrative and cinematographic forms in relation to contemporary architecture and urban environment. Focusing their interest mainly on how the built environment shapes and influences our daily life, they have developed a very unique and personal approach which can be defined, in reference to French writer Georges Perec, as an anthropology of the ordinary.

Presented by The New-York Times as the “cult figures in the European architecture world”, Beka & Lemoine’s work has been widely acclaimed as “a new form of criticism” (Mark) which “has deeply changed the way of looking at architecture” (Domus). Selected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (the Met) as one of the “Most exciting and critical design project of the year 2016”, elected “Game Changers 2015” by Metropolis Magazine, selected as one of the “100 most talented personalities of 2017” by Icon Design, the complete work of Bêka & Lemoine has been acquired in 2016 by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York for its permanent collection.

Their films have been widely presented in major biennials and international cultural events such as The Venice Architecture Biennale (2008, 2010, 2014), The Oslo Architecture Triennale 2016, the Seoul Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism 2017, Performa 17 in New York, among many others. Their films are also frequently exhibited in some of the most prestigious museums and international cultural institutions, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art in Bordeaux, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul, or the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montréal, Canada. Bêka & Lemoine’s films have also largely been selected and awarded by some major film festivals such as CPH:DOX (Copenhagen), DocAviv (Tel Aviv), Chicago International Film Festival (Chicago), Torino Film Festival (Turin), among many others.

Bêka & Lemoine are regularly invited to lecture in some important universities: GSD / Harvard University (USA), GSAPP Columbia University (New-York, USA), AAP / Cornell University (USA), AA / Architectural Association School of Architecture (London, UK), Bartlett School of Architecture / UCL (London, UK). They have also been invited as guest professors at GSAPP Columbia University (New York) for the New York / Paris Program, l’Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland), Domaine du Boisbuchet (France). In 2018 Bêka & Lemoine have been laureate of Villa Kujoyama, French residency program for artists in Japan, and Ila Bêka has been laureate Italian Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

www.bekalemoine.com