Experimental Architecture
Mariangela Vertuani
Michela is an architect and an educator, currently First Year studio master at the Architectural Association in London, and Course Leader for Spatial Design programme at Buckinghamshire University where she is also head of public programme. She curates the web platform Experimental Architecture, an online platform focusing on discovering design and spatial investigation through experimentation. It’s a research tool for architects to discover, share and learn from projects working within constraints (physical, climatic, political) and bring light to little-known architects and architecture. She writes about architecture in magazines (Monumental Wasteland, Arca, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui) and books. Her first book on the work of Stefano Pujatti (ELASTICOFarm) will be out in September for LetteraVentidue. She is interested in the cultural implication of architecture and how this can shape a space. She has worked in international practices that include Shigeru Ban and Zaha Hadid Architects. Her work has been featured in international press and her installation work has been exhibited in the Lyon Biennale and Rome Open House among others. She has been nominated juror of international architectural competitions, including FRAME awards, and she has led workshops in Italy, France, Switzerland and China.
Mariangela is an architect, and founder of COMBO, an architectural practice that focuses on the design of spaces for education and learning. She has been collaborating with Sparch Office since 2012. Her approach focuses on the initial phase of the design process, exploring the most coherent solution from a spatial point of view. Mariangela is also a mountain enthusiast and in parallel with her activity with Sparch and COMBO, she works as a ski instructor.
Experimental Architecture platform was developed as an urge to tell stories of the remarkable designers, architects, artists and creatives who have been at the forefront of positive change worldwide.
Focusing on experimentation through architecture, we want to develop in-depth research and portrait of how experimentation can create new design solutions fighting against constraints while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology. The most valuable aspect we noticed was discovering how these projects have already embedded a response to the climate crisis and how they speak to a social issue providing an alternative solution for people to engage and share experiences through space.
Our ambition is to reach a wider audience through publications and exhibitions, working with archives and museums and with a cross-disciplinary team to test how we can learn from experimental ways of working.