Photography: Marili Forastieri
Caterina, an architect from Venice. and Bob, an
“environmental” designer and artist, met
while at Vignelli Associates, with whom they still collaborate. Their
practice , which works in the space in between ART and architecture, (as
summarized by their logo, TRA, Latin for
“in the midst of”), finds its arena mostly in the downtown districts,
where the couple lives and works. In 1995 they moved their studio in a live-work SoHo
loft, (TRAstudio1. Their multi-disciplinary design practice,
which took the front half of the space, soon grew in size and both the painting
and the design studios were moved nearby first to Walker Street (TRAstudio2) and
presently to a floor-thru space on Franklin Street, (TRAstudio3).
Their Tribeca
studio and their SoHo loft are the theaters of their present life, the first
one being the light-filled space where they spend their day, but also their
‘second” home where they often spend the weekend playing with their son, the
second with its warmer feeling, the night space.
The comfortable aura, the luminous, enthusiastic,
layered space, the dynamic power of
color and the “lightness of order” of
their studio is typical of both of TRA’s
interiors and of Robert Traboscia’s paintings, which are routinely exhibited as
in a true artist’s loft.
The
minimalist furniture is made out of Trespa, a recycled material widely used for
exterior vertical siding, a trademark of TRA’s interiors.
The stark
industrial yet refined finishes, together with Robert Traboscia’s paintings and
TRA’s models and renderings displayed on the 12’ tall walls, describe the TRA’s aesthetic.
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