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THE OTHER MODERNITY


Graduated from Politecnico di Milano, with a thesis about the city of Porto, where she studied at FAUP (in the years 2002-2003 and 2005), PhD student in Architectural Composition, Carlotta Torricelli is tutor at the Iuav University of Venice, lecturer at the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering AUIC of Politecnico di Milano since 2011, and from the next academic year Associate Professor at the University of RomaTre.

She carries out research and teaching activities in the field of architectural and urban design, focusing on the poetics of 'other modernity'.

In 2012 she was a scholarship recipient of the Italian Cultural Institute C.M Lerici of Stockholm. In 2014 she published the monograph Classicismo di frontiera, Sigurd Lewerentz and the Chapel of Resurrection; in 2018 the volume Ricostruzione Inventario Progetto, edited with G. Rakowitz. In 2021 she edited the Italian edition of Fernando Távora's book Da Organização do Espaço.

TA lab, casa a ordini sovrapposti, Villafranca, photo Marco Menghi

THE PHILOSOPHY OF TORRICELLI ASSOCIATI


I inherited the studio from my family, who passed on to me the idea that the development of an architectural project should be a craftwork carried out with care and passion and whose solution should never follow a standardised path but be defined case by case; in the tension between the abstract idea, the invention, the concept and the specific condition given by the location, the client, the request and many different factors.


TORRICELLI ASSOCIATI scuola Cesano Boscone 1979/1981 photo Paolo Rosselli

Then in 2010, within the studio, I founded the TA lab section with Sara Riboldi, which continues the design research and leads it towards new typological experiments, an atelier where themes are experimented and the relationships between theoretical reflection, specific conditions and implementation are investigated.

Sara and I are the new generation of this studio and we felt compelled to carry on an already existing working method. I believe that architecture is a craftwork, and that the transmission of knowledge must also go through that kind of process.



TA lab, casa a ordini sovrapposti, Villafranca, photo Marco Menghi

COLLECTIVE SPACES AS PLACES FOR RELATIONSHIPS


I mention two experiments we conducted in the early years, one related to the working world and its transformations, and the other to the inhabiting world.

About fifteen years ago, the coworking sector was developing considerably and we made changes in workspaces. Offices divided into individual cells became large open spaces, collective workplaces that had to be transformable and adaptable.


TA lab, Domotica Labs, photo Marco Menghi

After the pandemic, this open space typology in the working environment has been transformed again and many customers now ask us to revisit old projects.

The other experiment concerns the inhabiting world, the home, the private residence, which has mutated so much over the years.


TA lab, Casa a ordini sovrapposti, Villafranca, photo Marco Menghi

In our interventions, we pay close attention to the relationship between the conceptual idea and the living experience inside the home, and this gives uniqueness to each of our projects. We try by all means to rewrite the history of the families we work for each time, to pay attention to the human history of the spaces we remodel or build from scratch.