In conversation with Davide Macullo Architects
Albania The developing architectural landscape has continued to welcomed new architectural approaches in recent years, which deal with the layered history of the country and the striking natural landscapes. Since 2016, but active since 2020, Davide Macullo Architects contributed to this shift and built a growing portfolio across the country with an approach that avoids both nostalgic reconstructions and anonymous modernism. The studio approaches every project in response to its surroundings and is based on a number of programs – from veterinary clinics to Hillside Housing – and is based on local culture, material and the terrain, mixed with a subtle sculptural approach. “The ambitions of a project always have to react to the needs of the place we are working on.” The founding architect Davide Macullo tells design boom. “Our designs arise from their context.”
This ethos is of central importance for three of the most important projects in Swiss practice: The leaves In Vlore, Valona Hills on the south coast and the seed in the forested hills outside of Tirana. Each is shaped by a different landscape, but a common thread is an architectural language that makes openness, ecological sensitivity and human comfort. With the ongoing DREAM Hotel CuttingA project inspired by Albania's historical citadels and is embedded in its site Reside Developments expand the same logic: design with the country. This practice makes particularly useful for the architect when it reflects the place he stands on, and the people for whom it is intended. “Our goal” He says, “It is for these buildings to integrate harmoniously into their surroundings – to enrich the environment and to feel the people comfortable through their interaction with light, color and shape and at the same time to realize the curiosity of their importance.” Read on to learn more about the concepts behind the upcoming projects of the studio and for ours Complete conversation With Davide Macullo.
All pictures with the kind permission of Davide Macullo Architects
Excellent planters wrap the fragmented facade of the leaves
“Our approach is deeply rooted in the context. While each project has its own personality – shaped by the choice and wishes of the customer – it is always seamlessly integrated into its surroundings. ' Davide Macullo continues. “We are inspired by the local environment and aware that a project becomes an inseparable part of the landscape after installing a project.” In Vlore between the sea and the mountains, Davide Macullo Architects' the leaves are intended as sculptural embodiment of the duality of this philosophy.
In its concept phase, the living tower is currently being structured as two interlocking volumes that turn gently on itself and commemorate the increased combs and carved valleys of the country. This liquid gesture catches the Mediterranean light over its surfaces and alleviates, while the three -dimensional facade of the building, a complicated grille made of geometric planter, anchored the vegetation directly into the skin. The facade is further formed by prefabricated concrete slabs, which are tinted in five earthy colors and capture the chromatic shifts of the Albanian landscape over the seasons. These leaf -like projections offer passive climatic reactions: protection in interior against summer heat and inviting winter light in. For. MaculloSuch formal properties are never about pure aesthetics, but in reality they arise from a humanistic philosophical framework that deals with architecture as architecture “A bridge between the DNA of a place and its future.” Every project, he adds, is presented as “A living organism that rises with broad, strange eyes, attentive ears, breathing rooms and open arms from the country and hugs its residents with love.”
In conversation with Davide Macullo about the ongoing developments of the studio in Albania
The conical volumes of Valona Hills are located on Albania's coast
In this sense, the leaves grow into their room, a feeling that echoed in the upcoming Valona Hills program on the southern coast of Albania. These residential towers are also designed as an expansion of Albania's dramatic natural scenes and shaped by the wealth of the country's local culture. In cooperation with S&L Studio, the design of Valona Hills creates a calm Mediterranean sensitivity that comprises the openness and conviviality of Mediterranean cities and is connected to the region with references to the terrace of the region.
The clusters of the conical buildings are organic in form and materiality, whereby rhythmically into the site and invites greenery to weave over the cavities of the facades, roofs and terraces, which turns the system into a living system. Buildings are not separate units from their surroundings; Rather, they are an essential part of the environment. ' Davide Macullo tells design boom.
Valona Hills on Albania's south coast
This commitment to the creation of architectures that are taken into account through their context, which in turn enables it to shape the place, extends beyond the spatial context to include the community. Valona Hills's scheme in the foreground of public assembly rooms and deliberately reduces the density to take into account the local priorities. Throughout the design, the design turns rooms and privileges the slower pace of pedestrian life, prioritize the inspection and the extensive views in order to promote a feeling of openness and silence for its inhabitants. This is reinforced by the architectural identity of the volumes, which are modulated between firmer and empty, which are characterized by soft vertical articulations and soft curves, which are encouraged by microl landscapes of terrace gardens. “The key is always to create spaces that feel people to ensure that the built environment is coherent and is harmonized with its surroundings.” Add the architect.
This emphasis on the lightness is not accidental, since Macullo does not see the role of the architect as a form, but as someone who observes, hears and answers. “We infuse our work with a strong humanistic approach that takes place from anthropology, psychology and other disciplines.” He says. “Architecture enables us to organize our thoughts, not through prioritization of isolated elements, but by realizing that every component influences human behavior.”