New concepts of flexible, transformable, eco living space, in order to understand the new, functional and structural needs of the individual
The philosophy behind the studio’s work
altro_studio was founded in 1998 by a group of people prepared to work in an interdisciplinary environment. From the very start, altro_studio began to research movement as applied to the home, ranging from temporary housing to major urban projects. We mainly addressed new concepts of flexible, transformable, eco living space, in order to understand the new, functional and structural needs of the individual. For this and other reasons, altro_studio focused its research on new technologies (mainly linked to automated systems) and innovative materials, and investigated the problems of environmental sustainability.
Our aspirations Whereas architecture is considered a perfect synthesis between art and science, we aspire on the one hand to facts and phenomena close to the real world surrounding us (expressed by new techniques and materials) and, on the other, to interdisciplinary studies involving music, philosophy, literature and, above all, the figurative arts. Art has always expressed political, cultural and social thought and has always been considered as avant-garde compared to architecture. Figurative art has always been an essential part of architecture. Our ambitions come from closely observing the world around us and projecting it into the future. Our objective is to offer concrete
answers to the numerous problems, which affect the real world in which we live. We are speaking of phenomena, which involve the entire planet, such as immigration, mobility and complexity, or of natural phenomena due to climate change, such as desertification, hurricanes and the rise in water levels, or even events, such as virtual communication via the creation of networks, computerisation and the computer. Lastly, we aim to concentrate our observations on the transformations produced by social change in recent decades, and on new ways of living public and private, collective and individual space.
Research by altro_studio
Our architecture can be defined as experimental in the sense that we analyse the perceptive and emotional aspects applied to architectural space. We work in “extreme” spaces, placed “outside” traditional, architectural rules. These are spaces, in which the concept of phenomenon is contaminated by some fundamental, philosophical ideas (of Foucault, Deleuze and Merleau Ponty), based on the bond between environment-subject-individual, but also by mathematical or scientific rules, which have always been the tools of architecture. We work on spaces characterised by antinomies, which are part of the written and spoken language, such as: open-closed, inside-outside, visible-invisible, chaos-order, rational-organic, up-down. These contrasting terms (a time-honoured subject of philosophical studies) never achieve the typical equilibrium of tradition, an aspect which gave the individual emotional security (classicism searched for equilibrium between proportions, between empty and full spaces, etc.). On the contrary, they actually find a reason to exist in the most extreme conflict and contrast, by creating new, different tensions, capable of arousing rather disorientating conditions for the individual, as disorientating as the world in which we live.
