Trailer Designing behaviors

Not eligible for AIA CES Credits

The masterclass recounts the architects Ico Migliore and Mara Servetto, founding members of the Milanese study Migliore + Servetto Architects.

The lesson winds around the biography of the architects Ico Migliore and Mara Servetto, starting from their Turin roots, from the story of their families and their city, with its rigorous design and an artistic scene rich in heterogeneous and multidisciplinary stimuli. The meeting between the two founding members thus joins the encounter with their references, ranging from art, cinema, theater and literature, to the works of Enzo Mari, Monty Python or Calvino, to then arrive at the Albini, Soleri or Mollino’s architecture. However, the meeting at the Polytechnic of Turin with their mentor, Achille Castiglioni, has been decisive.

Milanese by adoption also thanks to Mr. Castiglioni, from whom they learnt above all the transversality of the method and the curiosity in the approach to the creative search, that in their case is enriched thanks to a combination of analogical and digital tools, from the freehand sketch to the video animation. Frames, full and empty, light effects and dichotomies between reproductions and originals, leaps of scale and in-depth insights are just some of the tools we see emerging in the projects by Migliore + Servetto Architects. The projects as a film direction, structuring a spatial montage, this is a design method where time is "the only unit for space measurement" and where the attention of the user is focused on the wonder of experience.

In this way the masterclass reviews some of the most significant achievements of the studio, going through the different declinations of the “museum” typology, which for Migliore and Servetto go beyond the “funfair museum” or the traditional “pin-wall museum” to make room for a “narrating museum ”, as in the case of the Chopin Museum in Warsaw, Leonardiana di Vigevano or the installation for the Madonna by Piero della Francesca. Other design examples report the story of a brand identity or a city into space: exemplary are the projects for the Mondadori and dmail stores, or the installations for Moreschi - Walking Pleasure and for Coats! by Max Mara, as well as urban installations in Turin designed together with Italo Lupi.

Each project must spring from a creative force that finds a solid foundation only in a careful research filtered through the architect's ability to synthesize. Thus each work is structured on a physical, cognitive and mental path punctuated by a conscious design of human behavior, through the design of spaces and times of use. Sustainability is therefore, for architecture, not only the design of sustainable buildings but also, and perhaps above all, of sustainable behavior.

Educational objectives

• You will get to know the educational, work and teaching experience of the architects Ico Migliore and Mara Servetto, focusing in particular on cultural and architectural references and on the intellectual and methodological heritage of their mentor, Achille Castiglioni
• You will deepen the knowledge of the production of Migliore + Servetto in the field of installations and of temporary and permanent museum exhibits, the branding work for companies and urban installations taking into account two main themes: time and identity
• You will explore the theme of design narrative as a filmic direction that structures a spatial montage composed of technical devices of different types, both technological and experiential
• You will understand the importance and significance of designing "sustainable behavior" as the key to the broader concept of sustainability in architecture