Stefano’s Work

Insight on Nature, Time, Materiality, and Form

Ashley Aurand: You often discuss using errors and mistakes as an actual material in your design process. How do you determine when an error is going to be beneficial to your project versus when it is something that just needs to be fixed in order to keep moving forward in the process?

Stefano: It is always: if it happens and can be solved, it is no big deal. If it happens and can’t be solved, it is no big deal either. It can’t be solved; so, you have to find a way to live with it. So, the first thing is understanding if it really is an error, or if it is something that looks like an error and actually is not, or can be solved. I consider it an error when it can’t be solved. Since it can’t be solved, my attitude is not ‘try to solve it,’ or ‘try to live with it.’ It is easy to say ‘you make a mistake, O.K., that is fine.’ Instead, how can that mistake open another door of experimentation, or of expression, of research, or whatever. That is how we do it. So, an error happens. We cry for half an hour. After we’ve cried all our tears, we start saying, ‘Well, why not? Why can’t we go around that? Why can’t this become something that helps the project to become something else?’ Of course, the bigger the error, the easier it is to go there. The smaller the error is, the easier it is to accept it, which we don’t want.

VMA: Nobody was expecting you to be a problem solver. This idea of keeping the problem open for other possibilities is definitely interesting, instead.

Stefano: It is not that it works all of the time—it is like a theory. It is like surfing; I can tell you all the theories of surfing, but when I get into softball, there is the problem.

Liz Mazzella: In your interview with Michel Carlana, you speak about the understanding of materiality being affected over time. For instance, how it is part of your research in the design process that a project is able to adapt to the changing times. How much time do you anticipate for a design to withstand the various forces of nature?

Stefano: It depends on the nature of the project. If you are designing for a cemetery, you are asked to make it last a long time because that’s what a monument is. A cemetery is somehow… O.K., there are different traditions of cemeteries—Anglosaxon tradition and the Italian tradition which is rooted in Tuscany. Cemetery for us is, for example, a monument; it is meant to remember. It doesn’t want your body to become earth again, it just wants to keep your presence on this earth as a memory as long as possible. The Anglosaxon idea is that, if we are part of Earth, we come from there, and we go back there. So, if you are asking me to design for a cemetery, you somehow have to do something that lasts. Your examples are the pyramids or the Etruscan tombs—the things that actually lasted a long time were tombs. So, if you have a project that is temporary, or if you have a project that has actions or events changing it, you can use temporary materials; you can make the materiality of the project more sensitive. Of course, time is passing. There is not a rule for how long these types of projects are supposed to last, but I think that the idea is to make them last as long as possible. The more flexible the project is, the more adaptable it is and the more it will last. The more rigid the project is, the more fundamental, solid, and precise it is, the less it will last. This is not because of construction, but it is because of maintenance. If you have something that is very rigid, so structured theoretically and conceptually that by only changing five centimeters it will not work anymore, formally or functionally. That building will have to be torn down or changed so drastically that you would not be able to recognize it. Instead, if you have a building that leaves the door open to interpretation, that building will probably last longer; people will find a way to love it and to reuse it. Think, for example, of the old factories. Today, everybody wants to live in an old factory. There is a big lie that has been said: ‘form follows function.’ This idea of ‘why [do] you do this?’ if it does’t have a strict function that teaches all these tasks. It is useful as a tactical instrument, but it does not encompass what architecture has to deal with. If that was true, then how the program affects the building is something that is made up. If the program was that important, then we should tear down the Colosseum because its original purpose was to be used to have people eaten by lions—we cannot do that. Maybe it is fun, but it’s not. But still, the Colosseum is there because it remains important; it could become something else in itself, in its structure. So, it’s a very good question you posed, but it has a lot of answers. I think my answer would be, in short, if it is for as long as possible, do that by making it as adaptable as possible— elastic.

William Mcafee Witherspoon: In one of your interviews, you said that “ecological designs” is “about enlisting nature as part of your project”. What is your definition of nature and what aspects of “nature” do you feel is important to be included into a project?

Stefano: I hate the word “ecological” which I don’t understand. We have, as I said before, deform and changed the scheme of the earth building this thing which is the formation and at the same time we form the shape of the sky, the dimension of the sky. These are some of my obsessions. So what’s the soil made of and what’s the air made of is what I’m interested in. How might my project use the space to maybe change the air or how our projects use the soil without polluting the soil is another area. Using this doesn’t mean it’s a negative thing, that’s why Indigenous people used the earth but they didn’t spoil the earth and that’s a good teaching for us to do. They had no problem with using the earth like how you then spoil the earth. Unfortunately, our world is grown up on exploitation of the earth and of the air. That’s the way I think it is ecological. So doing that is ecological. I want to include nature. And I think to do that, I think the first thing we all have to do for the next generations in which you belong is not lying, not taking shortcuts. I don’t want to sound like a policeman but the big problems are the shortcuts, the fashionable commercially usable flags that we put out which now are going all over from the food to the clothing to everything has to be ecological. Is it true? If it were, we would have already seen the change and we have not seen the change. So that means there is something fake with that. We are all leaving this earth and polluting. We know that. Even Indigenous people were using the earth again and they were somehow polluting but in a way that the earth was able to manage to come back to itself. Leaving that opportunity is important but how to do that I don’t know. It’s one of those things that is a question that I pose to myself every time we are doing a project and I feel like I’m very hypocritical many many times.

Jordan Ramsey: People tend to view time and the elements as an antagonist to architecture. Why do you think time is seen in such a way? How do you think people can better embrace time and the effects of the elements into their designs?

Stefano: You always have to fight against something. There is no reason to fight when you know you will lose the battle. The only thing that can keep things living forever are memories. If you want a physical presence in time, you have to work with time as one of the main elements. You can plan and design something that can last for a certain amount of time and be completely intact. For example, a building made of gold will last a very long time. But, we know we can’t use gold for all buildings. We must consider that materials have different reactions to different elements. This is a design issue, but also a tool to use. The measure of time is the effect of the elements on what we do. This is how we as designers should read it.

Julia Kenny: In projects like Top Gun and the Hole with the House Around, you use voids as cores in the design. Especially regarding residential projects, how does the use of voids affect and enhance the overall experience of the project? What do the voids, ironically, add to the design?

Stefano: Well, you design the space you live in as the void. You build something that defines the spaces where people live. To move, you need to stay in an empty space, right. So, there are different ways of understanding the space. It is a matter of space and how you feel that space affects how you live and experience it. We tried to create spaces that differentiate your perception during the time of the day and through the changing seasons. So, an enclosed space—like in The Hole with the House Around—is an enclosed outdoor space that changes a lot with nature. But, it changes a lot with nature, and with summer, and winter, or whatever. It changes even during the day because there are some shady areas and some sunny areas that move through the space, shining distorted light into the house at different times. This is something that makes the experience of living in those spaces somehow unpredictable. Everyday, you wake up, and you perceive these changes into the house, into the void. In Top Gun, it is very different. Top Gun is a political project against the U.S.A. It is political because the person that was living in the house is a Top Gun fighter for the U.S. NATO base. And, she was a character. The project was designed around her, and her idea that, very naturally, she was waking up in the morning and going to bomb in Iraq. I stayed away for one week when we were designing, and I came back. I said, “Where are you going?” She said, “I am going bombing in Iraq.” so, it was like I was going to look for mushrooms; it was something like, “What are you doing? Oh, bombing in Iraq, O.K.” So, she was a very typical character for someone who does that job. She was very secure, she had her yellow corvette, her Harley Davidson. It was very much like the movie Top Gun. That is where the name came from. And so I said, maybe we have to create some questions for her. So, every step on that stair [the central staircase] is very different. In the morning, she has to take care of where she puts her feet; it is not so secure. This thing that is like a bombing into the house creates a void. The roof ’s [voids] are all like gunshots in the roof because it is all poured concrete. It creates this shape, and again, even the concrete is poured into nylon frames that show how it was once a fluid, but now is a rock. It is all speaking about insecurity. Something that is solid, but before it was not so solid. The space—the void—in the middle becomes an interesting space. She deserves an interesting space. She paid for an interesting space, and she is a beautiful person. She’s not the mean person that you might think. She is actually very sweet. But, we wanted to play with this secure attitude that she had and create some insecurity, some questions on where to put her feet.

“You know there are lots of ways to experiment. You can experiment in your room, or you can experiment with things you are doing although you know that the result is not gonna really dramatically change the final outcome.”

Ethan Pilarski: In “Le bâtiment descendant l’escalier” you talk about using materials from the area that have been lost and forgotten such as the ceramic and glass cladding you used on the building, was this a personal choice to make the building stand out or more of a revitalization effort to bring back this material to the community.

Stefano: It was an experiment. We knew we had a very colored facade on the back and we knew we didn’t want to have another color. We didn’t want this building to have a double face. You know there are lots of ways to experiment. You can experiment in your room, or you can experiment with things you are doing, although you know that the result is not gonna really dramatically change the final outcome. And if it turns out good it’s a very good thing to have done. So we consider that a partially good experiment, we didn’t achieve what we wanted to achieve, but we learned from doing that a lot of things that maybe next time we can fix it. We know why it’s not perfect, but that is what an experiment is. It’s not something you can know what will happen so the people would ask you to do something that for sure works. But if you are the one and no one asks us to do that, we decide what we want to do, what to achieve and our client doesn’t even know what we want to achieve. The fact is using different colors we wanted to achieve to not color the building but to color the light used by the building, and that happens, but it happens in a very subtle way. So it happens, but maybe it is too subtle. If you go there you can really perceive the colors during the day when the lights hit it the different ways, but if you take pictures you will never understand that. It’s so subtle how that could even become photogenic, come out in photography as an issue. There is no real attempt of reusing something that existed, just something that has been used a lot in indoor bathrooms, for example, or indoor design. And we were interested in that technique of indoor milanese apartments but to see that brought outside. Brought with the sunlight and could actually add something to the building.

Samantha Markiewicz: Looking at some of your previous works, there are so many different shapes and structures like blanketing roofs and circular rooms. Personally, I like working with these types of forms and structures too but it isn’t always the easiest. So my question is, what is a project that you felt failed and or did not come out how you wanted it to and how did this impact the design as well as your following designs?

Stefano: In architecture, there is a long process to get from the design to get to the building. There are things that are unpredictable before the building goes into construction and there are things that are predictable before the building goes into construction because we have the instruments to predict these things. We use hand drawings, plans, sections, and models. I do not think we have built a building that geometrically we did not like. Because the geometry and those kinds of features of the building are something that is predictable if you use the right tools. Like we use many tools to question our choices so we model them. If you have a doubt you make it bigger and if you have another doubt you make it even bigger. You making the change helps you to solve that problem at the root. So you do not go to building site before because you cannot go there with those kinds of [geometric] mistakes because those mistakes tell you and the client that you did not do the homework. At least you did not do the homework I intended. So, using those forms is a very personal attitude. You have to have a reason. I never have one. Sometimes I am not using those other forms. I don’t know if I will use them again, but I probably will. I don’t think that form for us a preconcept. That’s something that we can say straight lines are good, curved lines are not good, and round lines are bad. There are a lot of architects that think like that. Thinks there are things to do and things not to do. I do not think there are things to do and things not to do. I think there is everything that can be done at the right moment, in the right place, and with the right attitude and feeling. So if ten years ago you would make an arch in a building, people would look at you like you were a zombie, like oh this is a zombie coming back from 500 years ago making arches again. I am talking contemporary architecture, something that you see published in Casabella, something ten years after you see a lot of artists coming and it is like and maybe sometimes from the same people that looked so radical before. This is because there is a pre-concept. It is like this is good and this is not good. Well, we try but are not able to do 100%. We try to step out of that kind of logic, of thinking and accepting what we think in that place works. And without the preconception of ‘that is right.’ It is like that is the job and see what comes out and these surprises. Maybe let’s get surprised by as many possible things as possible. What we are looking for in our design is always to be surprised. Sometimes you get surprised at the end of the project because something happens, or someone interprets it differently, or ten years after you finish the project because someone uses the building or uses what you have done in a different way. Sometimes you get surprises in the design, in the pouring of the foundation that they actually tell you something for another project. They become something that you can get inspired from, there is a surprise there, or sometimes halfway or three quarters of the way you say, oh I would like my project to be frozen here. This is why I did this and it’s not the end, but then you finish it and you make people leave. But, maybe your project is half done, take a picture and say this is what I was looking for and then you finish the design. You finish it, maybe you polish it and make it OK. But there are moments on some projects that I would have liked to have been able to throw out. But what I am using now in my mind, is that moment is not the final project. Some other, 25 years later I go there and say oh, that is what I was looking for, which didn’t appear for many years but then the support point comes up.

Isaac List: In your project “Stoned,” you use contemporary masonry with the existing walls of the original structure, you create a blend of modern and traditional in a seamless fashion. Considering that Florence is set on preserving its history and not accepting the contemporary, do you think Florence should adopt this style of architecture?

Stefano: I think that is a question that we have to talk about monuments. Florence is actually a monument, a composition of monuments of really powerful people who lived in the city and built the city to remind themselves. They were making buildings that were there to represent the family, that were there representing their power, and so the goal of those buildings, well that, and we have to respect that, as far as we can, as much as we can, they wanted those buildings to stay, and why not, they are good buildings. There are other buildings that were built in the city which somehow were not built to stay but that they represent a moment, and so we owe to those people, to those buildings, the respect of saving them, because they represent another part of the society of that time, which is important to preserve somehow. The problem is when things become physiological, so again, you can and you can’t, there is no one way, and it is very difficult to control. Sometimes in historical cities, like Toreno, and in Paris, you find yourself working and keeping the outside of the building and transforming completely the inside of the building. Well that kind of renovation, and making inside some fake, “ancient stuff ,” that’s something that we shouldn’t do. If we can’t use that building for what it is, we have to change that building completely, or we have to adopt in a way that is a sincere way of using it. So we can use this scheme, but we have to do it to be brave enough to use it as a piece of landscape. It’s very hard. I understand the position of superintendents, all the governments, when they try to put limits. So my work would be when I get that kind of thing, when I get boundaries, to work within the boundaries but looking at it from a different point of view and trying to show that point of view and show that that point of view can open new opportunities without breaking them. It’s a very difficult question for us because we love our heritage. I don’t understand why we should work on that territory, we have so much not so good heritage to work on, or other opportunities.