Studio Territorio Ticino

The Academy of Architecture has been eager to forge firm and rewarding relations within its reference area since its very foundation. As an academic institution strongly focused on design research on diverse scales, one of its objectives is to make its acquired expertise and experience available to its community by providing thoughts and suggestions on how to read the cantonal area and steer its design. This practice has often characterised the work of the Academy at different levels and been well expressed via the tool of so-called “research mandates”. These allow any local administration body to submit topics it considers key to the development of its area to the Academy. For its part, the Academy – which has already completed a substantial number of such mandates – analyses the requests received, systematises them consistently and provides general guidelines for a local project. The approach is always wide-ranging and centred on grasping all the specific needs of those governing the area before offering general visions, without entering into the substance of specific design responses. In this sense, the research mandate stands as an intermediary passage that does not replace the more established local design tools (commissions to professional practices, architecture competitions, assignments) but comes before them, seeking to make the requirements on which they are based more solid, precise and timely. In keeping with the educational objectives of the Academy, the aim is to promote an integrated design culture that, on the basis of a careful reading of the area and its vestiges, nurtures relations between different interventions, all within a cohesive and unitary overall view.

Studio Territorio Ticino will be working on the Mergoscia research mandate in the first half of 2023.

Image: ETH Bibliothek Bildarchiv

Since the year of its foundation, 1996, the Academy of Architecture has forged strong and multiple links with its local area – Canton Ticino and the cross-border areas historically bound to the Canton for geographical, socio-economic and cultural reasons. Studio Territorio Ticino has drawn up an “inventory” of these links and, in doing so, has focused its research on design studios and diploma courses, albeit fully aware of the substantial number and wealth of contributions made at the same time by theory courses. For each one we have provided only the essential details, deferring all desires for further information to yearbooks and publications on the individual diplomas. The aim is to unify and systematise a fragmented corpus of data but also – as always with the best possible approaches to all archive work – to stimulate new interpretations and determine new trajectories.

Project by Martino Pedrozzi

Students:Jonathan BelloVittoria BettiMichele BlaserOriana BordeRaphaël BrunEleonora ClericiMartin CordierDavide FinOlivier GauchatChristian HallerKarl HonningsvågJasmin HoushmandAlessandro La PortaKevin LeuValerio MaccabrunoStuart PorziSimone RamascoFederica SanelliDenis SermaxhajElena StarkeMartino TomaselliJakob UnterthurnerJezebel ValentinMicaela Vergari

Gaining a horizontal plane in wild nature is a founding architectural moment. It is via this so very rational – and so very human – act that human beings assert their otherness and identify as living beings. This work sought to reforge this original bond with the land and with the prospect of altering it. A group of students armed with pickaxes, shovels and rakes worked for two days to level the Redónd peak, adjacent to that of the Trosa, and create a perfectly flat surface approximately 7×22 metres in size. This swift and radical act – almost bringing forward a multimillennial erosive process – uncovered rocks long buried and which, having emerged at this new reference height, formulate an unexpected and unpredictable surreal landscape.

Image: Alfio Tommasini

Project by Martino Pedrozzi

Students:Alessandra AlbaneseFrancesca ColòSofia ContiniAdele CorteseEdoardo CostaIrene d’AlessandroTobia De EccherLisa FilippiRomeo FollonierEstelle GagliardiAnnalisa MassariElisa MontiRiccardo NocitiAlfred PeciCléa PerettiJason PicthallAndrea PrayerNatalia PronzatiEmma RaboliniGresa ShehuMaryia Sidorenko

This intervention was inspired by an old mountain trail used for transhumance in the Scéru mountains, in Val Malvaglia, but that no longer appears on the network of official trails. Surveying it offered an opportunity for an action with the force and intensity of a founding act: thirteen larch trees were purchased from the Lattecaldo Cantonal forest nursery and planted at regular intervals to define a straight line seventy metres long. Longitudinally, it re-establishes the presence of this forgotten trail and transversally it becomes a way to reference and measure the landscape itself. This intentional and artificial sign allows a new reading of this natural space and generates new relations within the context. The intervention forces us to face up to and reason with the long timescales of nature: planting small trees today and waiting patiently, twenty years perhaps, for the envisaged spatial effect to come to fruition and configure a new landscape.

Image: Pino Brioschi

Years of building speculation in Lugano have produced an urban fabric lacking in density – a diluted and irregular environment. This is shown by the fact that the most common residential type is the apartment block: a box set in the centre of a plot that annuls the collective space and generates spaces lacking identity around it. A sample area was adopted for the purposes of analysis: a one-kilometre-square area drawn from the urban settlement on the plain and excluding the surrounding natural sights (lake and mountains). The resulting picture was dramatically rarefied, subservient to city-plan distancing and with tenuous relationships. Within this scenario, we identified thirteen examples of housing that go against the trend and feature appropriate architecture as well as an ability to dialogue with the context. These thirteen case studies served to guide us on a stroll through Lugano to rediscover the city’s identity.

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Image: Pino Brioschi

Students:Lounès Amalou-YezliPierfilippo BaldoVittoria Baruffaldi PreisMartina BertaniLaura CereghettiAfra CostaPaolo FaillaCléo FrachebourgFabio GandollaJanosch KirchherrSilvia MarroccoAngela MonterisiMaría Mora MuniainFrancesca MuggliLorenzo PastorelloTommaso PolliTobias Quezado DeckkerDavide RossiGreta StranoTareq TamimiEugenio ThiellaValentina VianelloFilippo ZagareseMargherita Zompa

This intervention opportunity was driven by the local administration’s desire to instil greater spatial quality in the school sector. The proposal was to create a playground while reflecting on the educational worth of such a space. A four-day collective workshop in Brugnasco conceived, and developed in detailed drawings, a children’s playground where the recreational facilities – not limited to univocal and predictable content – could become spatial installations that bring the space alive and encourage original interactions with it. Four features characterised this new exploration landscape built entirely with pinewood planks: a stage, symbolising openness and expression; a patio, containing a pre-existing palm tree that turns it into a secluded and “exotic” retreat; a boardwalk surveying the existing topography; and a tower with a bell that rings in the wind. The construction phase was enhanced by periods of interaction with children, the future beneficiaries of this space.

Image: Pino Brioschi

Project by Martino Pedrozzi

Participants:Noel AnnellGiulia AnseriniLerna BagdjianMatthew BaileyLorena BassiJeangille BaudouinNuma BenciPaola BergierEmilie BeytrisonLuca BiniDario BiscaroPietro BliniRiccardo BlumerLaura BottaniJulie BovierNicola BraghieriGiulia BrenaLudovica BrizioFederico BrogginiLuca BroncaClara BrunDario BruniEmanuele CarcanoMatteo Aldo CastelliAnouk ChastonayOlivia ChimentiAfra CostaPierre Edmond CourvoisierLavinia de CarolisGaëtan DétrazVittoria Di GiuntaVincent DorfmannJoe DouglasHoi Ming DuRahel DürmüllerMichele FalcoLorenzo FantinoEloïse FehlmannGiovanni FenoglioJacopo FochiEstelle GagliardiSamuel GalmicheLeone Carlo GhoddousiNikita GiaccariLorenzo GiordanoPatrick GirominiEleonora GiuliVeronica GiurcaneanuAlix HoulonGian HugiEva HurlimannLukas HüsserMartyna Maniak-HüsserZora HüsserDjordje JefticÓlafur JónssonRebecca JordanDimitri KasparianAgathe LoebFrancesca MalventiDario MantovaniTeresa Marinoni de AthaydeCristina MatèIsolde MichelazziMaria MinicCarlo MolteniJulie MoracaMaša MoriElisabetta MuttoniLea MuttoniJorge OsatinskyAlessandro PastiAlessio PavaniFabrizio Peirce ChianeseTobias PetelerCarl PetersenLuca PiccoliEmanuele PigionattiNicolas PralongNatalia PronzatiFrancesco PusterlaPhilippine RadatLéna ReesinkAnna Giulia ReinekeAndrea RizziZoé SalomonElisa SassiBianca SchifaniClaudia ScholzAnna SerioEnrico SironiAndrea SirottiElin Laksjö SvenssonSofia TercerosAnnabelle ThüringLaura Toledo MartínNoemie TschaboldGala UrrozGiulia VerriFederica VippolisDeborah ZanoloQianer Zhu

Until the mid-1950s, the Alpe di Luzzone (2150 metres asl) existed within the context of a mountain economy characterised by the practice of transhumance and was one of the highest centres in the valley. In the 1970s, by which time the settlement was almost forgotten, a landslide resulted in its permanent abandonment. The recomposition initiative originally began in 1994 with work on the Alpe di Scéru (1968 metres asl) followed by more on the Alpe di Giumello (2057 metres asl) and the Alpe di Quarnéi (2080 metres asl). The project to “recompose” the mountain pasture areas has always availed of volunteers. The Luzzone project – which involved the Institute of Architecture of EPFL, the Academy of Architecture of USI, the Institute of Landscape Architecture of ETHZ and their 120 students – expanded on this experience, turning it into an extraordinarily compelling collective moment.

Video: Franco Cattaneo e Vasco Dones

Students:Lorenzo BarberaEleonora BoffanoLivia CapelliRachele CappelliniEmanuele CarcanoVincent CaussignacFederico CecconiAndrea CostaChiara De CrescenzoMichele FalcoHåkon FanesViola GuriniAndreas HellumÓlafur JónssonDavide LazzariAriane LieberherrRaphael LuzyMarta MarcocciClaudia Moreira AraújoLukasz PalczynskiSoline QuénetJulien ReyDavid Erik SelanderMartin ToledoBenedetta VianiGiulia Zunino

The conviction behind this work, as indeed all the other local interventions, was that onsite experience i.e. building on a scale of 1:1, can be extremely educational. On this occasion it began with a collective design workshop in Landarenca, a mountain village 1254 metres asl on the right orographic side of Val Calanca. On the four days spent there, three pavilions were designed and then built by the students themselves in the Ongaro quarry in Cresciano to provide the quarry workers with shelter from sun and rain. The intrinsically monumental nature of the Cresciano quarry – reached along a delightful ascent route reminiscent of that of the Temple of Apollo in Delphi – provided an outstanding setting for these three “templets”, constructed by manually assembling only tree trunks and threaded bars in an intentional syntactic reduction of the construction process.

Studio Territorio Ticino expresses its heartfelt thanks to Ongaro SA in Cresciano for its extraordinary generosity in the provision of space, equipment and human resources.

Image: Pino Brioschi

Image: Pino Brioschi

Image: Pino Brioschi

Image: Pino Brioschi

Image: Pino Brioschi

Image: Pino Brioschi

Image: Pino Brioschi

Image: Pino Brioschi

Students:Bruno BandieriLaura BottaniFrancesco CacciolaGiulio CandidoAlessandra FarinaLuca FimianiMichele FuschiniMederic KüchelSylvia LanteriVittoria LeonardelliCaterina MantegazzaDario MantovaniGianmarco MariniElisa MarioniManfredi MarzariFlavia MicelliTeo MorelCaterina MoroAnna MurisascoAlfred PeciEdoardo ReverberiMarco RizziLuca RodellaFederica SanelliLuigi SavareseEnrico SironiFederica Tettamanti

The focus of the second year Bachelor course was to design a small wooden refuge hut immersed in nature. Every student had to work on a specific site in the area of Mt Generoso, an extremely rich and stimulating location. As well as it being a location of a specific type, there was also a need to design for a particular user type: solitary figures with unusual occupations, think the inhabitants of the slopes, peaks, woods and lakeshores peculiar to Mt Generoso. The students focused on designing small wooden dwellings with drawings and models in a scale of 1:10, forcing them to address construction and detail issues. What is building with wood like; what techniques and references should guide them; what impact do topography, climate factors and environmental conditions have on the design, as too the characteristics and routines of an unusual client? These were some of the central considerations of the term.

Project by Martino Pedrozzi e Roberto Guidotti

Students:Bruno BandieriLaura BottaniFrancesco CacciolaGiulio CandidoAlessandra FarinaLuca FimianiMichele FuschiniMederic KüchelSylvia LanteriVittoria LeonardelliCaterina MantegazzaDario MantovaniGianmarco MariniElisa MarioniManfredi MarzariFlavia MicelliTeo MorelCaterina MoroAnna MurisascoAlfred PeciEdoardo ReverberiMarco RizziLuca RodellaFederica SanelliLuigi SavareseEnrico SironiFederica Tettamanti

This project entailed building a raft 3×10 metres and in a scale of 1:1 for short navigations on the waters of Lake Lugano. A mobile platform floating in the middle of the lake, built with their own hands, became an unexpected educational tool that combined playfulness with calculated transgression. Reconnecting conceptually with the deforestation on the Alpe di Scéru, students had a chance to execute all the construction phases of a wooden building themselves, from sourcing the raw material to its processing and onsite construction. This involved designing a structure for a particular use and context, and assembling planks to guarantee a flexible platform that would absorb the movement of the waves, as well as being a totally spatial experience. All the planks employed to build the raft were later recycled to create design models in a scale of 1:10.

Video: Natanael Guzman

Project by Martino Pedrozzi

Students:Bruno BandieriLaura BottaniFrancesco CacciolaGiulio CandidoAlessandra FarinaLuca FimianiMichele FuschiniMederic KüchelSylvia LanteriVittoria LeonardelliCaterina MantegazzaDario MantovaniGianmarco MariniElisa MarioniManfredi MarzariFlavia MicelliTeo MorelCaterina MoroAnna MurisascoAlfred PeciEdoardo ReverberiMarco RizziLuca RodellaFederica SanelliLuigi SavareseEnrico SironiFederica Tettamanti

The abandoning of the alpine pastures in Valle Malvaglia did not only have consequences on the built heritage. The very landscape underwent a continuous transformation characterised by the woods encroaching on the clearings and their upper limit rising well above 2000 metres asl. In the recent decades of abandonment, the pasture, cultivation and mowing areas in disuse have gradually rewilded, blurring the reading of the collective, if not public, spaces once given over to farming production. The larch trees on the Alpe di Scéru were beginning to touch buildings originally standing in open spaces and above the upper growth limit of the woods. The work involved restoring the landscape by removing vegetation – consisting primarily in larch trees – that had grown over the last half century and returning fresh clarity to the reading of this anthropised landscape.

Students:Diletta AprileVittoria Baruffaldi PreisFrancesca BellùCaterina BordoliLaura BrusciaGaia DelleaGian Fadri FanzunNicholas GhielminiGiusy La LicataAndrea MarcoliniSilvia MissagliaMorgane MoutarlierSarah MullerCarlotta PaolucciMartina PenatiSophie PiccoliValentina RoncoroniClara RosenbergGiacomo RossiRoc RüeggArianna SebastianiDavid StalderLeonora TestiniGiada WalzerSimon YacoubGiacomo Zanini

Reflections on the subject of affordable housing, addressed in the design studio of the second year Bachelor course, are extremely relevant in Lugano where the speculative trend of recent times has become increasingly accentuated. For some years, the local population and administration have worked to reverse this trend by maintaining and developing affordable housing available to the majority of the population. The research conducted fell within this climate of growing interest and worked closely with the city’s real-estate department. The intention was to focus on city making, developing projects with a strong social component that can forge a city’s identity. Every project had to concentrate in particular on public spaces and the urban component. There were four project sites, all owned by the City of Lugano and which had already been allocated to the development of affordable housing at various stages in the future.

Project by Martino Pedrozzi

Students:Diletta AprileVittoria Baruffaldi PreisFrancesca BellùCaterina BordoliLaura BrusciaGaia DelleaGian Fadri FanzunNicholas GhielminiGiusy La LicataAndrea MarcoliniSilvia MissagliaMorgane MoutarlierSarah MullerCarlotta PaolucciMartina PenatiSophie PiccoliValentina RoncoroniClara RosenbergGiacomo RossiRoc RüeggArianna SebastianiDavid StalderLeonora TestiniGiada WalzerSimon YacoubGiacomo Zanini

Dismantling is an effective investigation method, as exemplified by anatomy in medicine, light dispersion in optics, the chromatographic separation of mixed substances, the reduction of polynomials into factors and dismantling your own bicycle as a child. An alpine hut on the Alpe di Scéru, 2000 metres asl, was entirely dismantled with the aid of students from the Academy of Architecture. In two days’ work, this small building constructed in stone and timber was dismantled, starting from the roof and piece by piece, and its construction parts rearranged at its base. The dismantling was also an educational process involving the study and methodical analysis of the constituent parts and traditional building techniques. The work in loco was executed manually to gain a direct understanding of the material nature of the construction and how the parts had been technically produced.

Image: Pino Brioschi

Project by Martino Pedrozzi

Students:Enea ArientiFederico BassignanaFrancesco BelliniElia BianchiLisa BianchiChiara BiniAloïs BottiniNicola BusoliniNicolò ClericiRosita DamianoGiacoma Di ViesteSilvia DiazSilvia FincatoFederica GarabelliDomizia LantinMurielle LeuckerAmos MauriSara MeyerFrancesca SchiavelloAnna Lina SteinmannMartino StelzerMartina ToppoDiego Vincenz PérezAlice Zanzi

The pasture lands of Quarnéi in Valle Malvaglia (2100 metres asl) are home to the remains of numerous farmsteads, the ruins of a civilisation that exists no longer. The proposed project consisted in “recomposing” the ruins of nine of these. Recomposition manifests itself physically as a volumetric redefinition of the farmsteads, achieved by replacing the stones of the ruins inside their perimeters and adding to them, if necessary. This act safeguards the landscape as the constructions once again become points of local reference and it restores a public space by freeing it of rubble. There was perhaps also an immaterial contribution, consisting in an act of mercy towards the civilisation that came before us. The work was a concise and economical response to a concrete need to lend new meaning to the abandoned meadows and the abstract need to provide a fitting epilogue to the lifecycle of the farmsteads and the civilisation they represent.

Montaggio: Giovanni Varini

Image: Pino Brioschi