-scape is an
architecture studio, located in Rome and Paris, selected in 2008, by the French
Culutre Ministry, for the Nouveaux Albums des Jeunes Architectes Award.-scape is
born in May 2002, directed by four partners: Alessandro Cambi, Ludovica Di Falco, Francesco Marinelli and Paolo Mezzalama, graduated from the Facoltà di Architettura, Università di Roma Tre and Università di Firenze.
The company
-scape spa has been officialy set up in February 2004.
-scape
defines itself as a "containing box", for mixed ideas, people,
specific and multidisciplinary skills : the aim is the complete formulation of the
building process ,in its technical, economical and architecttural aspects;
those aspects are developed both in the office itself, and through a net of external consultations.
In the aim
of studying and researching on architecture at every scale (from the
“land-scape” to the “city-scape”) and in
relation to every context, -scape works on projetcs of different nature,
dimension, location.
The interest
of –scape for the different natures of
architecture comes out from the variety of the projects in which the office has
been working:
-scape
quality management system is certified in accordance with the UNI EN ISO 9001:
2000 standard.
The suffix “-scape” corresponds to an extensive idea of landscape, to an
open viewpoint between perspective and the horizon; an integral component of
the thinking of this italian quartet that
founded the firm. Ludovica
Di Falco, Alessandro Cambi, Francesco Marinelli, and Paolo Mezzalama chose
France as their second country and they speak French fl uently. After attending
the French high school, they studied at the Rome School of Architecture and
earned their diplomas under the tutelage of Alessandro Anselmi, urban
theoretician and architect of the city hall of Rezé in France, among others.
They opted to put the instruction they received in Rome and Florence – where
Alessandro earned his diploma after an Erasmus at the Écoles d'Architecture de Paris
La Défense and Paris La Villette – into practice with Parisian firms.This transalpine
training forged an outlook that blends international infl uences and taught
them to keep the rich and
sensitive heritage of their countries alive. This is how they integrate the
history, memory and traces of the past, the
better to magnify them, without throwing a rigid notion of preservation into
the mix. Their approach is not alienated by following tradition. The present circumstances
of a place are more important to them.
Neither
post-modernists nor global architects, -scape is not antagonistic to context
nor does it look to enhance the subject in isolation from its environment. This
quartet weaves a link between theory and practice, bringing both equally to the
fore. This principle leads them in continuity with the spatial-temporal
dimension of architectural history in each of their projects. As they
emphasize: “continuity is created in architecture for everyday life.” They
appreciate to work in areas that cross borders and plans, from the spatial
transformation of a duplex in Rome, to a courthouse competition in Paris, by
way of the Europan 8 competition in Riga. Given the panoptic framework in which
they work, they adhere to complementary, specialized know-how, periodically,
necessary to achieve the projected solution.
RAFAEL MAGROU, catalogue NAJAP 2007-2008