Atelier first year Olgiati

Valerio Olgiati, photo Alberto Canepa
Valerio Olgiati (resp.)

BSc1. Valerio Olgiati (resp.)

Architecture is the creation of human space. In learning architecture, one does not merely learn how to read and respond to one’s context but how to exercise a discipline in its own right. It is commonly believed that architecture expresses a zeitgeist and materializes a cultural form of life. One could even say that the history of architecture is constituted by the confrontation of the human being with its beliefs and values. Today it is more and more difficult to talk about universal beliefs and common ideals which could provide a base for an architectural language.
This is why the question of how we can build today is crucial. Doing architecture today must confront this question, what architecture as a discipline in its own right is. For architecture to properly engage its task of creating space today is to do so interrogatively.
In creating human space, the architect gives rise to a sense of space and a sense for its occupant. A sense-making building is not supposed to be referential or particular but should possess a general validity.

Starting from the upcoming September 2020, under the cultural guidance and the supervision of the internationally renowned architect Valerio Olgiati, 10 different Design Studios will host about 140 young students. The Design Studios will be led by young architects and lecturers: Mario Beeli, Sebastian Carella, Francesca D'Apuzzo, Giulia Furlan, Nathan Ghiringhelli, Romina Grillo, Andra Ionel, Georg Nickisch, Sofia Paradela de Oliveira, Patricia da Silva Ribeiro.
BSc1 students will also have the opportunity to interact with Master colleagues both during the semester and during the midterm critiques, which will take place simultaneously in a combined way.

Sofia Albrigo

BSc1 lecturer

Sofia Albrigo is an Italian architect who graduated from Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio in 2016. She worked in the office of Valerio Olgiati from 2016 to 2021 where she was responsible for international projects. From 2021 to 2022 she was a teaching assistant for Master and Diploma at the Atelier of Valerio Olgiati at the Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio. In 2022 she established her own practice and started teaching as Lecturer at the first year course at the Accademia.

Mario Beeli

Docente BSc1

Mario Beeli is an architect living and working in Zurich. He studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and graduated in 2009. He is a cofounder of the architecture firm Furlan Beeli et al. The office has been selected as one of the finalist nominees for the Swiss Art Awards 2020.

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Sebastian Carella

Docente BSc1

Sebastian Carella graduated in 2011 at the Accademia di Mendrisio. From 2012 he worked in the office of Valerio Olgiati where he was responsible for projects with a particular focus in Germany and Switzerland. In 2021 he founded with his wife Camilla Pisani the architectural practice OFFICE PISANI CARELLA.
With extensive expertise in planning and executing architecture he firmly believes that architects must be able to construct the building they conceive.

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Patricia Ribeiro da Silva

Docente BSc1

Patrícia Ribeiro da Silva was born in 1987 in Guimarães, Portugal. She studied at Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade do Porto (FAUP) and made her Diploma in 2015 at Academia di Architettura di Mendrisio (AAM). From 2015 to 2020 she teached Atelier and Diploma at the chair of Valerio Olgiati at AAM, were she also engaged in teaching exchanges at Kyoto Institute of Technology in Japan (KIT) and at Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway (AHO).

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Francesca D'Apuzzo

Docente BSc1

Francesca D’Apuzzo si è diplomata all’Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio nel 2012. Dopo aver lavorato a Zurigo, dal 2014 vive e lavora a Parigi come architetto indipendente per clienti privati. Dal 2015 al 2020 é stata assistente di progettazione alla cattedra di Valerio Olgiati a Mendrisio, ospite per un semestre al Kyoto Institute of Technology (KIT) e all’ Oslo School of Architecture and design (AHO). Dal 2020 è docente di progettazione al primo anno a Mendrisio.

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Giulia Furlan

Docente BSc1

Giulia Furlan is an architect practicing and teaching in Mendrisio, Milan and London. She studied architecture at the Academy of Architecture of Mendrisio and ETH Zürich. She graduated in 2009. After working in London, Zürich and Balsthal, she co-founded together with Mario Beeli the architectural firm Furlan Beeli et al. in 2016. The interest of their practice resides both in the physical and ideational potential of architecture.
She has been teaching at the Architectural Association and at Kingston University in London.

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Nathan Ghiringhelli

Docente BSc1

Nathan Ghiringhelli (b. 1980, Lugano) studied architecture at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lugano, the Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, USA and the Accademia d’Architettura in Mendrisio. From 2005 to 2014 he worked at Valerio Olgiati in Flims. He opened his own architectural practice in 2015 and later «BY JUNG», a collaboration with Jonas Ulmer based in Biel/Bienne.
He taught construction and design at the HSLU University in Lucerne from 2015 to 2020 and he is currently lecturer for architecture and design in the first year at the Accademia d’Architettura in Mendrisio. 

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Romina Grillo

Docente BSc1

Romina Grillo si laurea all’Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio. Terminati gli studi insegna presso la cattedra di progettazione Valerio Olgiati e dà inizio alla sua attività come architetto indipendente nel 2010. Accanto all’attività professionale ricopre posizioni accademiche all’interno dell’Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, ETH Zurigo, AHO Oslo e Porto Academy. Nel 2011-12 collabora con l’ufficio OMA Rotterdam e di recente fonda col suo partner lo studio di architettura “grillovasiu”.

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Andra Ionel

Docente BSc1

Andra Ionel has studied architecture at the University of Architecture and Urbanism “Ion Mincu” in Bucharest and graduated from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. She has been a scholar of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). She has been an intern at offices in Basel, Freiburg, and Karlsruhe. She worked at SO-IL in New York City. She is currently working on projects and international competitions.

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Sofia Paradela de Oliveira

Docente BSc1

Sofia Paradela studied product design in Lisbon and Milan, graduating in 2009. In 2010 began her architecture education in Lisbon, where she also took a one year internship at Manuel Aires Mateus’ office. Pursued her studies at Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio from where she graduated in 2016. From 2016 until late 2019 she lived and worked as an architect in Chur, Switzerland, at Capaul and Blumenthal’s office in Ilanz and at Atelier Peter Zumthor in Haldenstein.
Currently, she has her own architectural practice in Lisbon, in partnership with Ricardo Conde.

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The first-year course introduces the students to the basic foundation of architecture, the architectural space itself. Students have to develop thoughts and ideas around a given subject and materialize them into a project. The topics are a Holiday house in the first semester and an Architecture office in the second semester. The tasks are open enough to allow the students to exercise their own talents.
Dwelling and working are essential activities of the human being. Our first experience of architecture starts at home and our day-to-day experience of space is arguably at the workspace. The two topics touch on eternal questions for the human wellbeing and conjure up motifs rooted in our imagination.
The topic of the Holiday house opens up important discussions about basic programmatic elements of a house such as the living room and about theoretical notions such as the relation between private and public space or the idea of shelter.
The topic of the Architecture office raises more complex questions and touches upon the validity of an architectural object in a broader sense. Through their work, architects create a human reality. The students thus have to imagine how their future work environment would look and ask themselves how they want to contribute to the world.
The site, the dimension of the project, and the program are chosen freely by the students. The process of imagining spaces without outer constraints motivates the students to build their own intellectual and architectonical framework. Projects have to be developed out of an idea. The formulation of the idea sets the premises for the experience of space.