Variable Geometry: Archea Associatti

Archea Associati’s interests and research activities move from the landscape to the city, from building to design and, while focusing on architecture, the projects range from graphics to publishing – with the direction and editorial staff of the international architecture magazine “Area” – from exhibitions to applied research.

Archea practices at the intersection of art, architecture and the factory, collaborating with living artists and with artists from the past, and developing a relationship not only with a material but also with its fabricators. In a symbiotic working relationship, the Archea studio, and factories with which it collaborates, trade knowledge and invention, the factory performing invaluable research that would normally be outside an architect’s purview and financial reach.

Laura Andreini is founding partner and principal of Archea Associati, Milan. An architect and a PhD, and since 1999, she has been a research fellow at the University of Florence in the Department of Architecture, Design, History and Planning.

Over the years, her teaching work has been combined with research and professional work in architectural design, since 1988, when she and the architects Marco Casamonti and Giovanni Polazzi founded the firm.

Her research and exploration of the issues of architecture within the disciplines of architectural composition and design is expressed in her direct relationship with contemporary architecture culture, given voice through architecture journals and specialized publications.

She is deputy editor of “Area ―Architecture and Design Arts magazine” and technical editor of Forma Edizioni. At Forma she has edited two series, one about contemporary Italian architecture, “One,” the other about architectural itineraries, “On the Road.” Since 2014 she has organized cultural initiatives and events for Forma at Spazio A in Florence, including the conference series: Constructing Architecture” and “Florence, 1865-2015. A new capital: culture, custom, architecture.”

Founded in Florence in 1988 by Laura Andreini, Marco Casamonti and Giovanni Polazzi, Archea is a architecture studio in which more than 100 architects work in Florence, Rome and Milan. In 1999, the founders were joined by Silvia Fabi, coordinator of the studio’s design activities. Thanks also to the collaboration with partner companies in Beijing, Dubai and Sao Paulo, the studio has realized works of Architecture, Design, Interior Design and Graphic Design all over the world. Archea Associati’s interests and research activities move from the landscape to the city, from building to design and, while focusing on architecture, the projects range from graphics to publishing – with the direction and editorial staff of the international architecture magazine “Area” – from exhibitions to applied research. The complementarity between the different activities focused on composition in relation to the various scales of the project opens a constant critical reflection on the themes of the construction of architecture.

In addition to research in the design field, each member of the firm carries out a parallel activity in the Faculties of Architecture in Genoa, where the architect Marco Casamonti is Full Professor of Architectural and Urban Design, and in Florence, where the architect Laura Andreini holds the Chair of Architectural and Urban Design.

Over the years, the firm has been invited to important competitions in Italy and abroad, and has received numerous prizes and awards, as well as being invited to participate, with the main works created, in several editions of the Venice Biennale Architecture Exhibition.

Among the most important projects is possible to include: the Municipal Library of Nembro (Bergamo), the extension and redevelopment of the Perfetti Van Melle headquarters in Lainate near Milan, the new Antinori Winery in Chianti Classico in San Casciano Val di Pesa, Florence, the Yanqing Grape Expo near Beijing, the Li Ling World Ceramic Art City in China, the Colle Loreto residential complex in Lugano, the recovery and transformation of the former Wines Warehouse of Trieste in Eataly, the recovery and transformation of the Central Market of La Valletta in Malta and the new National Stadium Of Albania, in Tirana. Currently under construction are, among others, the Forevergreen commercial and residential tower in Tirana (Albania), the Changri-La winery in Penglai (China), the residential complex San Donato and the renovation and transformation of the Ex Cinema Astra 2, both in Florence (Italy).