Studioartec
was born in 2005, when four designers with different skills met to
accomplish the entire process of building design, regarding both
architecture and engineering. The author of the present article is
head of architectural design in the studio. Artec means architecture
and technique, a name that highlights design as a series of processes
that require different skills and knowledge. We aim at a high design
quality with great care for sustainability and for a balance with the
landscape and preexistences.
We'd
like to design authentic architectures for the 21st
century, architectures that go beyond both modernism and
post-modernism, defining a new approach to design that tries to
transcend and include all the lessons of the past, while remaining
absolutely contemporary.
The
main theoretical basis of this approach are Peter Zumthor's buildings
and thoughts, the concept of critical regionalism as defined by
Kenneth Frampton, the contemporary research on sustainability, the
work of Juhani Pallasmaa on architecture and perception and of Peter
Buchanan on the need to redefine the discipline as a whole.
I
like to say that "Architecture is the name we give to all the
physical and mental feelings we have for being in a man-made place".
This is a phenomenological approach which highlights that it is not
form for form's sake that engage us more, but the ability of
architecture to create a place with a strong identity, to house our
lives in beauty, in the most proper and most apt atmosphere for our
gestures. This is the aim of architecture and in this way
architecture is the art of life. A complete art (not just visual)
that expresses itself through light, forms and materials reinforcing
our deepest feelings and gestures and giving them a home. An art
which enhances our awareness of the present moment and of our
actions.
A
good way to find a new way to define architecture is to start from
scratch for every idea or task, to ask ourselves why we build and how
we associate functions (physical and psychological) with forms. I'd
like to think each new building as an archetype that hosts human
activities and define functions.
Archetype
also as a way to interrogate ourselves on the deepest meanings of
architecture.
Archetype
as a way to build a new architecture without mimicking the past
(ancient or recent) but transcending and including it.
The
relationship between architecture and place is not just about
perception and social
interactions
but also cultural. A good building must be able to measure with local
culture. A correct
approach
to the use of materials, the critical re-invention of typologies,
development and
enhancement
of ancient building tecniques in a contemporary way are elements
which add
deepness
to a new building and that radicate it more in the cultural fabric
where it is located.
Architecture
is always related to a specific site, it is born in a place and is in
relationship with an
environment,
with other buildings, with the landscape. A good and simple rule is
to enhance the
quality
of a place with the new building. Like all simple rules it's
difficult to put in practice. Being
able
to put himself in discussion, being patient and perseverant are
essential qualities for the architect.
Both
the words city and civilization originate from the latin word
civitas. Is it really possible to
separate
the civic values of a community from the urban quality of the cities
where it lives? Or the
two
things are inextricably bound and inter-dependant? One of the roles
of architecture is to build
and
reinvigorate the civic values of human life through a strong
influence on the quality of the
spaces
where human actions take place. Good architecture has to try to
integrate with the
exixting
city, to build it, to connect and phisically interrelate with it.
It's
been too a long time that urbanism has actually forgotten the art of
designing places, as it's too a long time that we limit ourselves to
planning different areas in our cities instead of designing in detail
our urban realms, thus we have lost the ability to create pleasurable
public spaces comparable with the urban quality of historic cores of
our towns and cities.
A
new approach is needed for architecture and for governance systems
that regulate architecture. Without mimicking the past we should try
to learn from the great lessons of urbanism the past teaches us.
To
transmit a culture to the next generations essentially means to
transmit them all we know about
what
it means to be human. It is therefore not possible to think to give
them a know-how and a
culture
unless this is sustainable, for present and future times.
The
years we are living in and the next ones will be crucial for a
radical re-thinking of an approach
to
architectural design which has to be sustainable, and not just in
terms of energy efficiency.
To
fall in love with the place we live in is a necessary condition to
desire that this place endures in
the
future.
The
role of architecture can be a role of resistance. Good architecture
has still the possibility to tell the importance of mantaining a
value. Good medieval buildings, or of the reinassance, of the XIX
century, post-bellic or contemporary will remain such forever.
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