Hose of Rituals
I am an Italian architect currently based in Switzerland and part of the team at Herzog & de Meuron.
I hold a Master’s degree from TU Eindhoven and over the past several years, I have worked with offices including SANAA, Christian Kerez, and Junya Ishigami.
These experiences have allowed me to engage in both conceptual and detailed phases of design, from early-stage research to construction documentation.
In 2020, I master graduated with the Thesis "House of Rituals". The research was divided into two books and concluded with a design exercise.
The first part of the work focuses on analyzing theories regarding the origin of architecture and how humanity bound its existence onto the earth through space and architecture. Through case studies, the research underlines a connection in the disappearance process of the physical dimension and how death, memory, and celebration become a tissue that connects humankind despite the geographical location and cultural backgrounds.
The work's second part focuses on how these eternal topics, linked to humans, memory and death, have been marginalized and forgotten and how, on the other hand, the phenomena of suicidal behaviour have risen, according to the WHO World Health Assembly.
Interest in the utility of architecture and answering the questions: Can space affect human behaviour, emotional sphere, and build relationships? I consequently developed the design strategy "House of Rituals".
A spatial solution based on rituals and its primary sensory experience that aim to awaken a sleeping consciousness again for two types of inhabitants: terminally ill and suicidal behavior patients
Besides practicing in Architectural offices, I am interested in further developing researches researching that entangle human life and space.
The project consists of a “House of Rituals”, projected into a hypothetical future where the right on one individual’s life is recognized and people are free to decide on their own destiny while given a valid alternative or at least a choice.
It is a place that brings together two different groups of people - Terminally hill and Suicidal Behavior patients, with different characteristics and perhaps opposing will, but who share the same destiny, death.
It is an architecture that wants to strip itself from this word, referring only to spaces and volumes that have spontaneously returned to their primitive meaning. A place that crystallized from rituals and signs the presence of mankind on earth.
The basic objective is that through space, patients can live a sensory experience that directly can reconstruct the plasticity of the perceptual system which has been fragmented by the sense of detachment and alienation given by contemporary life and cities. Thus, providing the ground for perception and trying to reconnect the individual with the primary experiences of everyday life.
The patients, will live life in the clinic for twelve months expanding their perception through space and nature by starting a journey, a pilgrimage of self-discover and relations.
It is a project that is confronted with the questions of human existence in space and time, trying to express and relates man’s being in the world.