26 VIEWS
ASK THE ARCHITECT
Alberto Basaglia,
co-founder of Italian firm Basaglia + Rota Nodari Studio, answers ADF’s questions on what influences his designs, the importance of balance, and sustainability
WHY DID YOU BECOME AN ARCHITECT? When I was a kid, I made a sofa-exercise- bike for my grandmother from a bicycle wheel. She told me I was a genius like Leonardo; it’s a memory I cherish. I suppose I was pushed in my decision to become an architect from my creative mind mixed with very strong rational approach. I have always been fascinated by the idea of channelling my creativity into creating something concrete and useful.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT IT MOST? Many phases of my work are stimulating. The creative phase is the most beautiful; the first moment when I start a new project, the sheet is white, everything is possible, and my mind starts to fill with stimuli and I try to connect ideas and imagines to create the pictures. The design phase is fun too; when I look for the best technical solutions to carry out the work with the owners of the companies, and the builders. The most amazing thing though is the moment when you see the work you had imagined finally made, and above all to see it after a few years – if it is ‘ageing’ well.
WHAT IS THE HARDEST PART OF YOUR JOB RUNNING A PRACTICE? It’s really hard to find the balance between a variety of things: the idea, the project, the costs, the timing, the customer’s expectations, the user’s expectations, the market’s expectations, my expectations, etc. Sometimes I feel frustrated if I struggle to
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find a solution. Finding the right balance is the essence of my job; beauty is balance. When everything comes together, it’s a beautiful feeling.
HOW IMPORTANT IS SUSTAINABILITY FOR YOU CURRENTLY VERSUS OTHER PRIORITIES, AND HOW ARE YOU PROMOTING IT IN YOUR WORK? It is useless to deny that every human activity is against sustainability, and even more so the industrial production that I deal with in design and architecture. We as designers have the responsibility to think of solutions that make architecture and products sustainable in relation to the environment, but also economically – to replace consumer products that are not. Recently my studio designed the new headquarters for furniture maker Filippi 1971. Alongside the client, we decided to create it inside an existing building instead of creating a new building occupying a green site. For another furniture firm, Diemmebi, we designed a chair for the community sector that has the CAM (Minimum Environmental Criteria) certification, affordable and consumer-friendly. For five years we have also been collaborating with Wood From Nature To Things – a group of 50 companies specialising in the use of wood, which promotes the use of the sustainable material.
WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT SO FAR? My studio has received some awards, but what makes me most proud is to see that my design or architectural works are
Every material influences my design; they all have their own characteristics, and that is a source of inspiration Alberto Basaglia
appreciated. In the coming months, a soccer table that I designed will be included in a prize catalogue of a well- known supermarket operating in northern Italy. It is fantastic because this catalogue always features Italian design icons, and it means that your work is appreciated on a large scale. Once, during the inauguration of a building that we designed in a consolidated urban context, a man who lived there told me that he had the feeling that the building had always been there. This is something that made me proud because the building is typologically and semantically different from the context, but at the same time it compares it in a natural way and it is a design intention that was immediately understood.
Filippi 1971 headquarters building, Berbenno, Italy
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