Reuse the Ruin – Summer Architecture Workshop is an intensive summer course specifically oriented to provide a full experience in architectural restoration, from the theory to the details.
It is a multidisciplinary experience, meant to give you a complete framework of the issues inherent to the restoration project through various activities: lectures and reviews by international architects and Italian University Professors (Florence); an applied workshop about the castle of Montemassi (Roccastrada), with a site inspection and a public final exhibition of the projects.
This experience gives you the opportunity to deal with the reuse of an abandoned ruin through the lens of the architectural project. You will be asked to reuse a selected ruin in Tuscany, after a site inspection.
New knowledges acquired during the lectures can be implemented every day in the workshop sessions — learning-by-doing — under the supervision of guests and tutors coming from the academic world and from international firms.
Reuse projects
Site inspection
Workshop at Villa Vittoria
Lectures at Cinema La Compagnia
Final reviews and exhibition
Program
Site inspection
The experience included a site inspection to Montemassi and Siena.
Lectures
The lectures provided a complete framework of knowledges about the architectural restoration, through the analysis of a few selected themes, explained by qualified professors and international firms of architeture
Workshop
Participants have developed a reuse project under the supervision of the tutors and masters of contemporary architecture
Final exhibition
At the end of the WS it has been held a final review with external guests and an exhibition of the reuse projects open to the public.
Mentors
Max Dudler
He was born in Altenrhein in Switzerland. He has headed his own practice, with branches in Berlin, Zürich, Frankfurt and Munich, since 1992.
He won numerous prizes, including the 2012 DAM Prize for Architecture in Germany and the Nike for the Best Urban Design Interpretation 2010. In 2004 he was appointed professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Meritxell Inaraja
She founded her office in 1995 in Vic, Barcelona.
She developed several public and private works about the reuse and architectural restoration. Her works has been exhibited at the Biennale di Architettura in Venice in 2012. Since 2009 she is member of the Technical Commission on Cultural Heritage in Central Catalonia.
Fala Atelier
Fala is an architecture practice based in Porto, founded by Filipe Magalhães, Ana Luisa Soares and Ahmed Belkhodja in 2013. They soon developed a peculiar language and identity, clearly recognisable in every project. They have been guests and visiting professors in many European and American Universities and they exhibited their work at the Chicago and Venice Architecture Biennale.
Carles Enrich
Carles Enrich Studio is a young practice, based in Barcelona, that works at different scales in the fields of architecture, urban design and landscape. His unceasing research led him to base his activity also on teaching, as an associate lecturer at the ETSAB since 2016. From 2008 to 2015 he taught at the Reus School of Architecture and at the ETSAV.
Edoardo Milesi
He is the founder of Archos studio (1990), an architectural practice based in Bergamo and Montalcino. In addition to his professional practice, he constantly participates in cultural debates about contemporary architecture. He founded the Magazine ArtApp in 2008 and the cultural association “Scuola Permanente dell’Abitare” in 2014.
Prof. Maurizio De Vita(UniFi)
Full Professor of Architectural Restoration at the University of Florence. From 2013 he is Director of the Specialisation School of Architectural an Landscape Heritage at the University of Florence. He has been Visiting Professor at the Syracuse University School of Architecture in New York.
Prof. Alessandro Merlo(UniFi)
Associate Professor of Architectural Representation and Survey at the University of Florence. He is director of the “Cultural Heritage Management Lab” and of the Master in “Documentation and Management of Cultural Heritage” of the University of Florence. He has been professor at the ETSA in Valencia and ISA in Cuba.
Studio WOK
Studio wok’s research is led by the concept of habitat, understood as quality of living. A quality that derives from a constant, active and accurate research: architecture, design and landscape are the basic elements of a practice that seeks to create dedicated projects, on both residential and urban scales, with consistency and care.
Workshop tutors:
Together with the Mentors, participants have been guided on a daily basis by Tutors from emerging architecture practices and PhD European programs.
University of Bucharest
University of Florence
University of Pisa
Workshop location
Villa Vittoria, Florence
Next to the central station, the elegant nineteenth-century building of Villa Vittoria faces the entrance of the Medicean Fortezza da Basso. Built in place of an ancient monastery starting from 1869, the Villa was one of the city residences of the Strozzi family.
Lectures location
Cinema La Compagnia, Florence
Cinema La Compagnia was an old cinema in the city center, firstly opened in 1921 and renovated during the 1980s by Adolfo Natalini. Now it hosts film festivals, conferences and meetings.
Press kit
First edition
Summer Architecture Workshop 2021
The first edition about the medieval settlement of Castelvecchio took place in Florence in July 2021. The lectures have been held at Marino Marini Museum and the workshop took place at Officina Creativa, a former convent.
