Lessons with Mario Cucinella

For sure, it’s become my second home. We have a slew of projects here, such as the Fondazione Rovati Etruscan Museum that is soon to open, Torre Unipol in the Porta Nuova district, and SeiMilano near Bisceglie

I have a very clear recollection of my own pre-school in Piacenza: two light-filled classrooms, big windows, a garden with a low wall. You see: architecture doesn’t move, it travels through memory, leaving memories in its wake. When we are children, school is the first public space we experience on our own, the first time we join the collective; it’s a space that helps form our identity.

Rather than standardized, I’d say “ugly”. When I meet students they tell me the very idea of the closed classroom makes them shudder, the door closed and never enough light. They’d like a high-ceilinged room from which they can stare at the sky, green space, perhaps some animals... Their conception of school is, in a way, a representation of their idea of the society they’d like to build. And we’re way behind them.

Ascribing architecture a key role, pedagogist Loris Malaguzzi says, “Space can become the third educator”. The way space is designed opens up opportunities for relationships. Consider Montessori schools: the method posits the relationship between students as a formative aspect, so it makes no sense building closed-in classrooms off a long corridor. There’s a proportional relationship between learning and the quality of spaces. Consider air exchange: in a closed room, the more CO2 in the air, the harder it is to concentrate. No wonder a century ago they designed schools with high ceilings! There’s a generational issue, too. I see it in my own children: today’s kids do multiple things at the same time, they become habituated to a type of multiple attention that schools do not address. We should no longer have schools with only face-to-face classes; we need to be thinking about alternative spaces for labs, workshops.... Even outdoor spaces, courtyards – where they exist – always have a soccer or basketball court: what about the kids who don’t play these sports at recess? Who thinks about spaces for them? There’s a whole cultural evolution to which we must respond.

I often give lectures at universities around the world. Young people were always asking me the same questions: how can I train specifically on sustainable design? Where do I find information on this type of architecture? I set up the SOS to create a knowledge transfer system. I have to say, though, the transfer is by no means one way. People who are twenty-four or twenty-five years old today will be playing the game in twenty years’ time, and I’m very curious how they see the future, which is not how I see it. Schools need to accept this dialogue and, above all, train people for the jobs market. Italy suffers from a major disconnect between school and the world of work: far too many young people wind up doing an internship for ten years until they learn something... The SOS plugs right into this gap. Because it’s located at our studio, it offers tangible tools for research and development on projects, allowing students to develop relationships with our partner companies and understand what’s behind processes and products, what the choices are when it comes to regeneration, recycling, recovering and transforming materials, energy efficiency, electric mobility...

Truth is, today we are aware of global climate change, but we are also aware that something needs to be done to find solutions. Either we plan for it or we suffer the consequences. A new paradigm-busting approach to planning is an opportunity space that allows us to ditch the approach where man is always placed at the centre, and instead add in ethical value. It’s a bit like what we attempted with TECLA (an initial model for 3D sustainable housing, printed entirely from local raw earth [ed.]) which evolved out of research by SOS students.

Recent graduates and young specialists in architecture, engineering and design from all over the world. Over the years, we’ve taken in some ninety students. Within two months of completion, eighty percent of them had landed jobs at international firm.

Our full-time Master’s in Sustainable Architecture and Design lasts nine months; we also run an intensive two-week Summer Program, and Workshops to raise participants’ awareness about sustainable design. The initial part of the master’s is dedicated to theoretical modules, providing training for four jobs in great demand, in consulting, at companies, institutions and in the third sector: Sustainability Advisors, Green Building Managers, Environmental Analysts, and Circular Economy Consultants. The second part is dedicated to Project Tracks, in partnership with MCA professionals from the R&D department and SOS’s institutional partners. The topics are: Architecture as a Social Business; Post-carbon Architecture; The right to quality shelter; and Designing Products and Systems for the Circular Economy.

Do I have to answer?... I was a very “up and down” student: I did well at things I liked, and very poorly at the things I didn’t care for. The other evening, I was telling my daughter that my grades at university were absurd, they ranged from 18-21 out of thirty to full marks with distinction... no middle ground! I used to struggle when people asked me: how long is such-and-such a bridge over such-and-such a river...? Explain to me why things happen, don’t make me study data by rote!

I would definitely be out on the streets with young people, fighting for green activism. I would love to do that in life, be an environmental activist around the world. I think it’s a really worthy fight. There are people I admire very much, like British ecologist and activist David Attenborough, an impressive 94 years old, one of the greatest men alive. He is always reminding us we are part of a single ecosystem, that nature has always known the secret of life: every species thrives only if everything else around it thrives too.

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