S 2 ARCHITETTI, the architectural firm founded by the creative duo Alessandro Stroligo and Lisa Santin, crafts projects infused by emotions, ethics, art, literature and music. At the centre lies the idea of considering the intangible as the basis for shaping valuable projects, starting from the sketch up to the concrete realization.

We talked about this and much more with Alessandro Stroligo, who made us part of the vision of his studio. In this narrative journey, we started from the value of intangibility, to then reach the heights of art, literature and music, that are the elements that inspire and compose the modus operandi of S 2 ARCHITETTI.

In the practical sense, it is about respecting people and their culture, analyzing the history, traditions and energy of the places, interpreting these elements without distorting them. To achieve this, a multidisciplinary, authentically sustainable and ethical design vision must be shared by all stakeholders, thus generating both structural and economic benefits. The winning formula lies in the ability to create a community of shared values that, I must say, today exists and is growing rapidly, especially as a result of the last post pandemic years.

Besides this, being ethical is above all a choice of life. Each of us can play a part in this, starting from the education of our children, transmitting positive energy and values to the people we work with, being attentive to the environment and the sensitivity of those around us. Thus, my answer is that ethics is an integral part of our time and the way we understand it, and if we apply it consistently in our daily lives, both private and professional, benefits our community and everyone we work with.

I will start with a necessary premise. S 2 ARCHITETTI is bringing forward this idea of the value of  intangibility because we firmly believe that it constitutes more than 90% of our reality. The intangible is the predominant and fundamental part of human beings and it is what influences and defines our reality, that binds us indissolubly, making use of a universal and timeless language. Therefore, everything always comes from a thought, an idea, an inspiration that draws from our mental space that we have created during our experiential path of life. From this mental space we draw our ideas and design inspirations.

Each of us is unique, because the human being is first and foremost a person with his own thoughts, beliefs and aspirations. Every architectural project is therefore the concretization of how we see, filter and interpret the world and it encloses in its entirety all that we really are. And if it is true that we constantly seek a form of harmony and balance with what surrounds us, every good project, even if not realized, contains this emotion that transforms the intangible into something tangible. 

Another important aspect is that an architectural space that results from the sharing of values between people who have the same vision is the most concrete example of how reality reflects what we are and how each of us can be the creator of this change. What makes the difference is always the awareness of this potential that we all have, and therefore begin to act together with the goal of a more ethical and sustainable future.

To contribute in this regard, S 2 ARCHITETTI has devised a protocol named VIcompliance ® - the VALUE of INTANGIBILITY compliance – , simply abbreviated VI, that enhances the aspects related to the intangible value of any object and any workplace, with the E+EEe™ system (positive ENERGY, ETHIC and EMOTION evaluation). It is the result of a personal and professional journey that we have made in the last years in which we believe firmly and consistently and that is now part of our life and modus operandi. S 2 ARCHITETTI is also a member and co-founder of AIR (Architetti In Risonanza), a group of architects from all over Italy who share the same values and professional objectives.

It is a way of designing that we have adopted for years now, especially for large-scale projects where storytelling is fundamental. We firmly believe that everything is always connected and that there are no boundaries of space and time. Art, music, literature and architecture use a universal emotional language that unites all human beings.

As for architectural design, everything always comes from the context. It generates, I must say in a very natural and spontaneous way, an idea, a concept, and for this reason every project is unique and unrepeatable. The idea, which always starts from a sketch on paper, is then inextricably linked to an artistic or cultural referential image, then developing in a form of storytelling.

Thus, I would say there are no artists, musicians or writers in particular to whom we refer because each project starts from an always different context. For example, in the case of a residential complex in Lugano named “ICON” the facade concept is inspired by a 1962 work by Ad Reinhardt that essentially represents monochromatic black squares. In the project “Ex Cetem”, in Lodi, an urban regeneration project developed over an area of 35,000 square meters, the idea of creating buildings on a human scale has instead found a clear artistic reference in The Seven Heavenly Palaces by Anselm Kiefer. In this case the idea was then developed in a concrete way with the overlapping of various urban villas that mark the verticality and slenderness of the buildings.

As for “VivaCity – Treviglio”, a project that covers an area of over 85,000 square meters, we started once again from the context and from an artistic suggestion, specifically a work by Richard Serra in order to craft a project tailored to the client. Here there was in fact a double inspiration, on the one hand the artistic work of Serra, which is the overlapping of two very simple cubes, overlaid but staggered between each other, and a literary inspiration explaining the creativeness behind the project itself.

Literature and music are also fundamental sources of inspiration in our daily lives, expressed and concretized in our way of interpreting reality, and therefore of designing. In literature we mainly look for a mental space consisting of humors, sensations, desires and emotions, which we then try to convey within our projects. This also applies to music, which often accompanies us in the initial stages of the project, as if it were the soundtrack of a beautiful movie which emphasizes and amplifies our emotions, helping us to find a balance in the design. This is our way of working, so there is not one musician or artist in particular that we are inspired by, but this whole world composed of the intangible fundamentals of our existence has a great influence on the final result of our projects.

This point is linked to the discourse on how architecture and culture are aspects related to us as human beings. It is in fact surprising to note how a world that is becoming increasingly globalized is able to have a very similar reading as we all live the same emotions, whatever the ethnicity or nation. Thus, our way of doing architecture does not change from one country to the other. Architecture makes use of a universal language that responds to the needs of the times in a world that continues to be moved in the same way, beyond the language and local culture.

Our style remains sober and contemporary and the basic alphabet we apply in the compositional process is always the same. What changes is the context that is determined by the place, the traditions, the local culture and therefore results in substantial differences in terms of regulations and design constraints. On this there is always an adaptation to the place, because we believe in the customization of architecture, as if it was a custom dress.