NEVER SEEN . MILAN DESIGN WEEK 2024
AMAA
PARA-SITE, photo by Simone Bossi
In some cases, interventions are invisible, in other cases, they are sculptural and deliberately calling for attention to generate unexpected hierarchies, to reveal tensions between old and new, to strengthen their dialogue. Extensions sometimes are designed as architectonical para-sites.
On a compositional and aesthetic level, they attach to the existing as they are not designed to work on their own; on a functional and programmatic level, they augment its potential by being direct annexes to it.
Para, from Greek, means "near, next to it, beyond". These additions are thought to work alongside what is already there —simultaneously part and not part of it, feeding off it, whilst still visually appearing as extras.
An architectural project with zero cubage in addition to the existing is thus able to give a new face to a former industrial site and thereby contribute to its regeneration, with economically sustainable resources and without wasting soil.
Despite a unitary conception, the red concrete addition clearly involves the existent and find dialogue precisely in the tensions established with history. The space, thus freed from its previous function, offered itself as a modern cathedral such that it could be colonized. The old building is thus a participant in which everything appears for what it is: structure.
AMAA was founded in Venice in 2012 by Marcello Galiotto and Alessandra Rampazzo. In 2015 they also established AMAA workshop in Arzignano (VI). The professional practice has always been combined with academic research and with an uninterrupted collaboration with academic institutions. AMAA has been awarded many national and international prizes, among which the first prize in 2020 Young Italian Architects competition with ‘Final Outcome’ project, later published in Casabella n.911/912. In 2022, Atipografia contemporary art gallery renovation project, ‘Threshold and Treasure’, was published in AREA 185 and Domus 1074, and was recognized as a finalist at 2023 Premio Italiano di Architettura MAXXI/Triennale. The project for the Verdi Theater in Terni was exhibited at ‘10 architetture italiane’ curated by Ghidoni, Molteni and Pizzigoni at Triennale Milano. In 2023 AMAA was invited to the Biennale di Venezia curated by Lesley Lokko.
