Architect
country:Italy
website: www.mcarchitects.it
Bio
Mario founded MCA in Paris in 1992 and Mario Cucinella Architects Srl. in Bologna in 1999. The practice's initially had success in international competitions, research and industrial design and has a special interest in climate responsive design and sustainability. Prior to this he worked with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop for five years in Genoa and later in Paris. He is visiting Professor at Nottingham University and lectures regularly on his work in schools of Architecture around Europe.
He was honoured with the 'Energy Performance + Architecture Award' in 2006 (Paris), with the 2Outstanding Architect"award by the the World Renewable Energy Congress in 2004 and in 1999 (Denver) and he received the prestigious"Forderüngs Prize"for Architecture by the Akademie der Künste of Berlin.
:: Profile at ArchiTravel >
http://www.architravel.com/architravel/architects/241
:: Photo information and credits:
1-9 > ARPA Research Centre - Agenzia Regionale per l’AmbienteS
photo courtecy © Mario Cucinella Architects
10-16 > Casa 100
photo courtecy © Mario Cucinella Architects
photo courtecy © Mario Cucinella Architects
27-34 > Civic Offices
photo courtecy © Mario Cucinella Architects
35-42 > Pollino National Park
photo courtecy © Mario Cucinella Architects
photo courtecy © Mario Cucinella Architects
45 > 3M Headquarters Building
photo courtecy © Mario Cucinella Architects
Most recent people interviewed (View all)
Toal O' Muire
Árpád Ferdinánd
Constantin Xenakis
Isaac A. Meir
Kim Herforth Nielsen
Most recent list of themes (View all)
on Architecture and Theory
on Architecture and Competent Authorities
on Architecture
on Architecture and Sustainability
on Educating Architecture
on Promoting Architecture
on Architecture and Events
on Guiding Architecture
on Architecture and Photography
on Architecture and Politics
on Architecture and Skyscrapers
on Architecture and Art
on Architecture and Travel
My point of view:
on Architecture and Sustainability
Interview Date: 16-06-2011
VIEW the entire interview on VIDEO! -----------------------------------------------------
The green or the sustainable design is a fashion. It is not a choice. In the next years sustainable design, energy performance, the quality of the buildings and also the large scale as the urban scale will not be an option. It will be the only way to design a building in the future. So, it is very important to understand that this moment is really the beginning of a new age. We finish a period of rationalism and high technology and we start to rethink on how to do buildings, how to do buildings in a context, how to do buildings with performance. It’s the beginning of a new process.
We should also see this in time. Fashion things are always sort, because fashion means that something is good today and not tomorrow. But this issue about green is the beginning of a long story in the future. I am very happy that have become fashion because maybe is the one right thing on fashion. Architects feel is good to be eco and we are only at the beginning.
How do you imagine a future in which sustainability pervades all forms of architecture and design, where it is unquestioned, and the norm?
We still need a lot of time before we arrive at that point where everything would be green. There is a paradox at that moment we have an ambition to be green, but in reality we don’t live in a green world. If we look at the traffic and the pollution, they are far away to be resolved.
As always, we need to start from some step. First step is in these days, in these later years, that more companies, industries and also architects and politics start to think of new ways to find a relationship with the environment which is a shifting. We are in a period of shifting. We are in a traditional area where the future is far away but we are at the beginning of a process which is very positive.
Does architecture as a profession need empowerment? In which ways should this be done?
Education is one of the major difficulties at the moment. School of Architecture are still based on a very hold program of architecture. Architects work is very different. It has changed a lot in the last ten or twenty years. School is still teaching with no environmental integration so there is no integration with the engineering work.
There is a lot of work in education. It is something that also young people can be very useful because young generation is much more aware about this problem than teachers. In many schools, students have more knowledge about what happens because they look in internet, they look in magazines, they are talking. Sustainability becomes more and more often an issue of a student and less of a teacher. There is a big job on education because we need to change the perception, the relationship between what is education and what is the profession. It is a big thing but we need to work on education.
Is the world financial crisis an opportunity for everyone to reconsider the ways that we design and construct the buildings and the urban environment?
The crisis is always useful because it is a difficult moment but also it is a moment of selection. Companies, architects and designers need to face new problems. They need to face new difficulties; there are economical difficulties, intellectual difficulties, a new creativity that leads to the environment. It is always good to have a moment of crisis because it helps everybody rethinking the time where we are living. On the difficulties of the moment t may be a very positive moment to discuss about the green future of the environment.
