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Both solid and, with its curving shapes, light, the pavilion/installation created by ATI Project in collaboration with Materieunite and Politecnico di Milano’s Material Balance Research team for the 2024 Lucca Biennale Cartasia (LuBiCa) symbolizes the development of structures that can adapt to their environment and reduce the consumption of resources. Entitled Design Temporariness!, the installation is a testament to what can be achieved with design strategies aimed at creating structures suitable for today and tomorrow by merit of their sustainability, circularity, reuse of materials, and ease of disassembly. This isn’t the first time the two firms have collaborated, with ATI Project and Materieunite, a startup that manufactures eco-sustainable furniture, also creating the Generative Circularity installation, which featured at both Fuorisalone and LuBiCa in 2022. Sited in Palazzo Guinigi, in the center of Lucca, Design Temporariness! will be on show through September 29.
The LuBiCa exhibition is dedicated to cardboard and exploring the potential uses of this versatile material. To achieve its mission, the event brings together architects, designers, artists, and fashion designers from around the world to contribute in a variety of ways, ranging from creating installations to residency programs.
The theme of LuBiCa 2024 is “Here and Now: Tomorrow,” a reference to its focus on the creativity of the human mind in the present and for the sustainable development of the planet. The installation aims to represent these two aspects in concrete form through architecture, guiding visitors on a journey through both space and time.
Design Temporariness! is the product of computational design and digital manufacturing. It grew out of collaboration between ATI Project and Materieunite as part of the 2023 MaBa.Design master’s program. In fact, the design was the master’s project of Federica Pradella, who was supervised by Professor Ingrid Maria Paoletti of the Politecnico di Milano, architect Luca Ofria, and the R&D team from ATI Project. The Materieunite team looked after the engineering and production of the modules that make up the pavilion under the guidance of architect Alessandro Buffi.
Combining computational design and digital manufacturing made it possible to produce a flexible system, while improving the quality and predictability of the final result. The computational workflow included generative form-finding for exploring a wide range of design possibilities based on the selected parameters. Materials were evaluated to select the one with the best performance, while an analysis of structural performance ensured the integrity of the project. A life cycle assessment was also performed. After creating a hypothetical environment, the parameters were defined as constraints for the formal definition of the pavilion – specifically, the center of gravity, the entrance and exit, the windows and openings, and the anchoring points. This generative approach made it possible to achieve highly controllable geometries. It was also possible to explore various typologies and give solidity to the structure, while minimizing material use during manufacturing and assembly, and favoring modularity and adaptability.
By exploiting the structural resistance of the material and the friction provided by the connections between adjacent walls, the structure, a box system, is solid but light. The physical and cultural impacts of the pavilion both play a key role in defining its meaning.
Location: Lucca, Italy
Architect: ATI Project, Material Balance, Materieunite
Date (LuBiCa): 29th June-29th September
Photography by Francesco Pecini and Deborah Stefani, courtesy of LuBiCa 2024
Photography by Luca Ofria, courtesy of ATI Project
