The words that shape space

How is space designed nowadays? To try and answer this question, we need to go to the roots of our profession. Design, for us, does not begin with the drawing of the first line, but rather with the definition of what that line is supposed to represent: univer­sal principles, capable of guiding a decision before it is ever translated into a space. In the projects by Piuarch, this process takes shape through a series of keywords, concepts that suggest a direction and that, in an almost literal sense, help us to design a space. 

The first word is beauty, and to explain it, I would like to cite Gio Ponti who, in a beautiful book, Loving architecture, com­pares architecture to a crystal: a pure and multifaceted form, capable of expressing its inner consistency. This image continues ideally to accompany us with its extraor­dinary evocative power. Our belief is that beauty in architecture does not lie in a sim­ple striking image, in the immediacy of per­ception, but instead emerges from the com­bination of multiple elements. The quality of the details determines the overall harmo­ny: the materials, the reflections, the light and the shifting geometry. Our aim is for this focus to be expressed in the everyday experience of the architecture that we de­sign: in opening a door, in recognising pro­portion, and in the observation of a detail. 

The second word is identity. Creating a characteristic space entails constructing contexts in which people can find them­selves and feel a sense of belonging. It is ra­re for profound harmony to emerge when values are imposed from above. Instead, we believe in a process that involves listening to and interpreting the heritage of a place, its history, its stratification, and what it has represented for all those who have in­habited it. Every project generates a pro­cess of transformation that embraces the past and re-imagines it in light of the fu­ture, preserving its values and interweav­ing them with new aspects. This process of contamination allows us to create a pro­foundly shared identity. 

The third word, relationship, is perhaps the one that has most guided us and the work of Piuarch in recent years; a matrix to be found in all the firm’s projects. We see this as the relationship between people and space, between space and landscape, and be­tween individuals. It is the element that al­lows a place to take on vitality and meaning: existing not as a simple container of func­tion, but rather as an environment that fos­ters encounter, facilitates collaboration and favours spontaneous forms of exchange. Through our work, we examine a space through its capacity to generate relation­ships and create community before seeing it in three-dimensional terms. This is where, for us, the profound quality of a space lies. Beauty, identity, relationship: these are the words that guide our way of designing space. Our wish is that, in the branches of EY, our current focus, the quality of the en­vironment can also be read in light of these three principles, as an expression of coher­ence and recognisability that accompanies the design from its genesis to the daily lives of its inhabitants.

Opening image: Gino Garbellini, Founding Partner Piuarch