Park Associati
Filippo Pagliani and Michele Rossi, co-founders of Park Associati, are the guests of this appointment. The Milan-based firm, born in 2000 as a small group of collaborators, is currently represented by a large team and their interventions, focused initially on renovation of post-war buildings bearing the signature of famous architects, are actually embracing a wide range of sectors, from hybrid residential buildings, multifunctional retail spaces and restaurants to urban planning and interior design. Pagliani and Rossi are both professors at Politecnico of Milano, often lecturing, participating to conferences and debates. The porous and flexible ambience of their studio, an old former telephone factory, in the center of the Città Studi area, conceived as a large open-space for exchange of ideas and collaborations, with no hierarchal separation, offers a reflection about urban future working and domestic spaces that promise to be increasingly more limited. The conversation lingers on their respectful regeneration of important, historic presences, like La Serenissima, former Campari edifice, an approach able to ensure a life cycle of the buildings without altering their identity, anticipating already many years ago the efficiency of reuse and recycle in accordance with severe environmental issues.Two works, Salewa Headquarter and the Cube, exemplify the philosophy of the practice, that relates to each project privileging the complete autonomy of experimentation over constraints and limitations tied to a specific style.The recent winning masterplan ‘MoLeCoLA’, intending to transform and heal a deeply-neglected, degraded area of Milan will be another topic of interest, followed by a series of questions on 'INLEGNO. Cambiare prospettiva per costruire il futuro, volume just published, that synthesises a 2-years long research of Park Associati with the German engineering firm Bollinger + Grohmann, about wood and the need to change a perspective to build the future.