2023
INCLUSIVE DESIGN. ETH Exhibition at House of Switzerland - Milano Design week 2023.
The Exhibition Inclusive Design at Milano Design Week is designed as an architectural prosthetics made by hacking existing top Swiss products to showcase leading research and development on inclusive design strategies.
2023
TEMPIETTO R. Cork Oak Nursery for the Ramarro Association Caltagirone, Sicily, (under construction).
Near Caltagirone in Sicily, there is a forest of cork oaks. Historically, this was a buffer zone between various urbanised areas and the forest was maintained as a collective resource that allowed the less well-off to roam.
Today, the forest is a protected natural area often subject to malicious and criminal encroachment. Bosco Colto (@boscocolto) is an initiative that transforms the forest into a place of permanent research, a campus to experiment with new living arrangements for “men, plants and animals”.
As part of these architectural experiments, I was invited to reflect with the students on the possibility of building a nursery (in progress) to replicate oak trees undertaken by the Ramarro association that was destroyed in a fire in past years.
We, therefore, built a reticular wooden structure made entirely of wooden profiles with a cross-section of 24x48 millimetres. The project was a "didactic construction site" for 1:1 scale design.
The pavilion is designed as an open-air classroom to house the nursery, managed by the Ramarro association, protecting the oak seedlings from the harsh southern sun. The structure is conceived as an "architectural brace" that will act as a framework for the creepers that, in time, will replace it, favouring a perfect integration between nature and architecture.
2023
VERDICHTUNG ODER VERDRÄNGUNG? Wenn Neubauten ersetzen*. Exhibition Scenography, ZAZ Museum Bellerive, Zurich.
The exhibition "Densification or Displacement? When New Buildings Replace" at ZAZ Museum Bellerive puts social and structural aspects of urban densification through replacing new buildings up for discussion.
The exhibition scenography is conceived as an artistic installation using an "as found" strategy to reduce waste and provide a conceptual and poetic approach: the global case studies are showcased inside window frames from a demolished building in Zurich, and all the furniture, produced explicitly for the exhibition were auctioned afterwards.
2023
OPERA APERTA, Countless Cities, Biennial of the City of the World", Farm Cultural Park, Favara, Sicily.
"Opera Aperta", designed together with Beatrice Fontana and Frank Dittmann, is an installation that reflects on the Baugespanne, a distinctive tool of the Swiss building process used to visualise any architectural volume preceding its construction.
Decontextualised and stripped of its primary function, the Baugespanne installation of Opera Aperta shows its strong sculptural essence by hacking the exhibition space and seizing the exhibition venues of Palazzo Miccichè.
2023
IN PIÚ D'ORA. Seven Drinks from the End of the Night.
The seven drinks describe a trip down memory lane "to the end of the night" to steal a bit of paraphrase from the title poem of Céline's novel, to describe the passing through a difficult period, accompanied to the edge of the city where my studio is located and where these seven vertigoes were composed and then matured between 2019 and 2023, taking this form. Each of them has been given the name of a song, inspired by the taste and situation that each of my potions should capture.
The recipes have simple steps and lend themselves to the interpretative variations, even professional ones, of those who decide to perform them. Still, in their nature, they have been imagined to be composed at home, in the countryside, in a meadow, at the seaside.
2022
THE INNOCENT CHAIR (and Other Stories). Installation at Konzepthaus Laboratorium, Thun, Switzerland.
Two men meet in an abandoned countryside in the shade of an olive tree, or perhaps in the shadow of a rusty sheet metal roof. The first man is a farmer. The second is a lawyer. The farmer needs help, and the lawyer works as a volunteer for an organization that reactivates land confiscated from the mafias and is there to advise the farmer on how to start a path to legality.
This scene is fictional, from Antonio Scarponi’s imaginative design process. But it is a clear image, resurfaced as he was working on a project for a mobile pavilion that could host this kind of activity in southern Italy, imagining this kind of encounter and this kind of relationship between two men or perhaps two brave women rebelling against their fate.
Scarponi wondered about the symbolic form of a chair, dropped into this context that he designed and where those two men or those two women, were supposed to meet. In this place, the Innocent Chair was born as a symbolic way not to accept the world but to transform the small part of it into our hands.
2022
THE INNOCENT CHAIR AND OTHER STORIES. Milano Design Week 2022, Installation at Isola Design District.
An abandoned seller was activated for the installation as a place of fantasies and memories. The installation, infact, consists of a mere composition of ropes, bare wood, and shadows.
2022
TRANSFORMING SPACE. Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK)
The participants of the CAS explore different categories of spatial knowledge, learn about new tools and technologies and can apply targeted strategies for designing, changing or mapping space to address complex spatial transformation projects professionally. Through a transformation of the working environment, artistic interventions, participation processes, and development of new services or entrepreneurial initiatives.
2021
TRANSFORMING SPACE CANVAS
Commissioned by the Zurich Center for Creative Economy (ZCCE) in 2022 for the first convention on Creative Economies and "Cultural Heritage", the space transformation canvas is a flexible design tool to involve, collaborate and manage goals and vision with different stakeholders simultaneously.
2020
JERICHO ROSE.
Concept for Festspiele Zurich.
The Jericho Rose is an event concept strategy for the involvement of the public during the Festspiele Zurich. The project consists of mobile and modular grandstands which could host workshops and temporary stores underneath. The modules can be assembled and create an arena to host the public for concerts or theatre shows or used independently as urban types of furniture.
2020
UDATEGIA.
Temporary Greenhouse Pavilion, Institute for Basque Architecture, San Sabastian, Spain.
Udategia, in basque, means the place where summer is produced and kept.
This temporary pavilion was built in two and half days of pandemia in December 2020, with the help of a small group of talented, dedicated young architects on the Institute of Basque Architects terrace for the Food Hack Lab. The Pavilion will “produce” the “summer” and its products via automated hydroponics.
2020
DIGITAL WALDEN.
Resilient Strategies In The Digital Forest: A Pavilion Built With "As Found" Materials From The Zurich University Campus, By BA Design Students.
Based on the literary archetype of Walden by Henry Thoreau, students reflects on the meaning of freedom and the impact of digitalization on the future of work: the "digital forest" of our times.
The workshop focuses on designing and constructing a "hut" made of waste material found in the Zurich University Campus as a symbolic second "nature" of the digital era.