- Design Practices
About me
Born in Italy and growing up between the West Indies and East Africa, I studied architecture at the University of Naples and environmental design at the Architectural Association. I have started to develop my research by design agenda at the intersection of ecological design and sustainable constructions during my master at the AA and then with a Ph.D. at the CIRPS / University of Rome. I am teaching as Senior Lecturer in both the BSc and MSc in Architecture and Environmental Design. In year 2007 I have founded CODESIGNLAB, an experimental design laboratory with many realized community-oriented projects between Europe and Africa. The African Fabbers project has been recently displayed at the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2021) . The AF Atlas will be soon published by Actar.
Teaching
I am Senior Lecturer at the UoW currently teaching in both the BSc and MSc in AED-Architecture and Environmental Design. I am design tutor in the 3rd year and module leader of the prototype, fabrication and testing module at the AED-BSc, the only RIBA Part I validated undergraduate course bridging architecture and environmental studies. At the same time, I am module leader of the thesis topic module and design thesis supervisor for the AED- MSc. Prior to this I have been teaching design studio at the ENSAPM and ESA in Paris and building technology at the Milan Polytechnic. In parallel to this I have been invited to lecture widely: Sci Arc – Los Angeles, ETSAM Madrid, New York institute of Technology, AA-London, IUAV Venice etc. In parallel to this I have founded the African Fabbers School, a learning by doing and non-profit educational platform on urban ecologies and self-construction, with many live projects built with the students and the local community in sub-Saharan Africa.
Research
My research agenda focuses on design to build processes for climate sensitive and performative architectures. Such interdisciplinary approach investigates on an information-based design methodologies, bridging high and low technologies with natural and recycled materials towards community oriented projects. In the past years I have been principal investigator in several applied research projects on urban ecologies and eco-digital construction in partnership with international institutions and construction stakeholders with many realized scale 1 to 1 architectural prototypes. More recently at the UoW I am contributing to different research projects, among the others the Globally-informed City Climate Pedagogy & Practice (UoW SCUE) as well as leading theAfrican Off-grid Housing project (GCRF-UKRI) . The Off-grid Housing Prototypes project has been recently granted by the QHT and will be developed in the 2022-23 academic year. I am currently assessor of several PhD projects and I welcome PhD applications from students who have interests in the following topics: ecological design, eco-digital manufacturing, sustainable constructions, community oriented architecture and off-grid housing.
Publications
For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.