Alessandro Magliani Portfolio 2012-2016
ALESSANDRO MAGLIANI Address: 8 Erlanger Strasse, Berlin, DE Mobile: +49 157 33485369 (DE), +39 366 189 2323 (ITA) Email: alessandro.magliani@gmail.com EDUCATION: 2012 - 2015
RIBA Part I BA Hons Architecture Architectural Association London, UK -Nominated For RIBA Bronze Medal (September 2015) -Published on Blueprint Magazine (October 2015) -Mentioned on the Architect’s Journal (June 2015) - Published on social media by Olly Wainwright, architecture and design critic at the Guardian (2015).
2011 - 2012
Foundation Course Architectural Association London, UK
2007 - 2011
Diploma di Maturità Liceo Classico Giuseppe Parini Milan, Italy
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: September 2015 - March 2016
Internship, Kuehn Malvezzi GmbH, Berlin, DE Worked on several competitions for projects based in Germany and Switzerland. Also helped in the exhibition design for ‘Models of the House of One’ for the Chicago Biennial.
September 2013 - Present
Art Director, Three Fingerz Musique ltd., London, UK Curated the image of the record label, including graphic works for vinyl releases and 1:1 installations for events. Coordinated the distribution of two EP releases in Berlin, London and Milan.
July - August 2014
Summer Internship, Uli Wagner LLC, New York, USA Modelled and designed bits of several projects, including a showroom and a storefront for Agnona in Milan, and early design phases of a facade for a Proenza Schouler shop in Bangkok.
SOFTWARE AND LANGUAGES Experienced: AutoCad, Rhinoceros, VectorWorks, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, SketchUp. Italian - Mother tongue English - Fluent German - Intermediate
Index 1. The City of Morphologies (2014-2015) 2. Urban Frameworks (2014) 3. Seven Monoliths (2012) 4. A Second Life (2013) 5. Parasite Chair (2013) 6. Work Experience (2015-2016)
The City of Morphologies (2015). This project investigates a possible exchange between real cities and their disciplinary projections. I offer an alternative to splintered contemporary models, and restore a broader discussion on the city as a totality and a formal project. I exaggerate the vision of a disciplinary city driven by morphological principles rather than social or political forces. The project is deeply rooted in Berlin and its peculiar formal history. Subjected to constant disciplinary projections and revisions, Berlin faces an identity crisis and a formal alienation. My project proposes to accomodate Berlin’s multiple personalities and conceptual schemes into a new total yet heterogenous model. This city is a result of sampling, abstraction and reconfiguration of real blocks through the use of morphological themes. From ‘continuous interruption’ to ‘absorbed juxtaposition’, the themes become the key channels connecting the two cities. I combine retroactive readings with speculative ones, while introducing new forces such as the ‘swamp’ – a destabilising entropic quality of the contemporary city. The thematic blocks and infrastructures are collapsed into one paradoxical urban map that allows for the previous oppositions, contradictions, and schisms to create new unexpected associations.
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Disciplinary Loop Real urban conditions are selected and reconfigured into a matrix (1). The matrix is then translated into a series of simplified diagrams, which reflect a single driving force extracted from the sample(2). The diagrams are then spatialised into a series of spaces(3), that collectively form a stylised and idealised version of the city (next page).
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The Thematic Blocks 1. Theme of Continuous Interruption: blocks with an interrupted perimeter 2: Theme of Subtle Remix: Blocks composed of remixed samples 3: Theme of Absorbed Juxtapositions: A fictional battle between solid elements vs. fractile juxtapositions
Poly-Thematic Block: A host block is simultaneously attacked by several themes, that lead to an eventual dissolution of the block
6m
River Inlet allows temporary docking
Beams provided for temporary shasing canopies
3m
Electricity and gas facilities
20 m
20 m 12 m
Urban Frameworks (2014) Design project for a flexible mixed development in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. A system of walls and beams is used to create spaces suitable for a flexible appropriation. Located along one of HCMC’s main canals, the project is created as a response to a developing city that requires a constant flexibility of space. The walls are laid out in several configurations, which allow for different programmatic appropriations. Larger ones can be used by small scale industrial plots, while smaller ones could be used for residential units.
Seven Monoliths (2012). Design project for a Self-storage located in Kennington, southern London. The design of the building is a direct consequence of its function: only the storage spaces are enclosed within the walls and everything else -corridors, elevators, staircases etc.- is pushed outside. Therefore the building does not appear as a single enclosure, but as a row of equal sized rectangular extrusions linked together by a lightweight metal structure.By locating everything that is related to circulation outside the main walls, an internal experience of the building is denied. Walk- ing on the corridors, would feel like being outside thanks to the use of a metal grid for the walkways.
A Second Life (2013)
The concepts of flatness and intangibility experimented in the previous project are taken to a more extreme level in this project of reconversion of another student’s self storage into an apartment block. The building is not only separated from its surroundings through the use of flat and unreadable façades, but is also elevated from the ground. In this way the function of the bulding cannot be read at all, even from inside the site.
Parasite Chair (2013) A project mainly focused on 1:1 fabrication of a chair prototype. The chair acts as a parasite, grabbing onto whoever tries to sit on it and drastically limiting their movement.
60 m ²
HEIDESTRASSE 50
53 m ²
D-10557 BERLIN
T +49(0)30 398 068 00
53 m ²
INFO@KUEHNMALVEZZI.COM
78 m ²
13.10.2015
1:200
Floorplans EG + KG
WOMI
Schadowstrasse/Mittelstrasse, Berlin 2015 Winning competition entry for a mixed -use development in Berlin’s Mitte neighbourhood.
Models of the House of One, Chicago 2015 Exhibition designed for the Chicago Biennial. A negative model of the House of One is paired with a performance centered around the figure of the circle.