Building Green Futures

Architecture for Sustainable Development

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SOS Open Mina Akhavan

We are glad to share the publication of the #sosopen lecture by Mina Akhavan, an amazing journey that starts at the dawn of pre-islamic urban settlements, and culminates with the underground pop culture of "No One knows About Persian Cats" SOS Open are a joint initiative by SOS - School of Sustainability and Mario Cucinella Architects

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Circular Economy and Sustainable Development

Fondazione Iris Ceramica Group signs a partnership with SOS – School of Sustainability to define new models of Sustainable Developmentinspired by the principles of  Circular Economy in oder to activate economic, social and environmental re-generation processes for communities and territories. The association Building Green Futures will be the pivot of the partnership between SOS and Iris Ceramica Group with the aim of investigating new integrated service solutions on which the companies of the industrial group can focus to adopt the circular economy as a business model.

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One day left to register for participate in the #SosOpen lecture by Anupama Kohli. Anupama is an architect and sustainability advocate with over two decades of experience in projects design and advisory. Her work is informed by her belief that the best design solutions are a function of the dialogue between innovation and tradition, grounded in functional realism while incorporating new interventions in the regional environments. Parallel to her professional work she has also been engaged in teaching and mentoring. Her interest in alternative development and planning shaped her professional trajectory into areas of low energy design, alternate building technologies, heritage and context sensitive design. Her early work as a partner in Anupama & Rajeev Associates, reflects this engagement with designs based on translation of regional architecture and several experimental projects. Subsequently she completed her graduate studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, specialization in energy efficient and sustainable design and planning. While at UCLA she also won the Leading Edge International Design competition for Eco Development in California. As principal of Anupama & Associates a full service, architecture design and consulting practice she continued to translate her belief in resource efficient and context responsive design into a diverse portfolio including institutional, heritage and corporate projects. The Restoration and Adaptive Reuse of the Vice Regal Lodge and Faculty of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delhi are amongst some of the projects which won her public and professional accolades. She has served as advisory consultant and member on committees of several Government of India bodies including the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. She has served as a visiting faculty at several national and international architectural colleges including at the Canadian University Dubai, Amity University Dubai and the School of Planning & Architecture at Delhi. Several of her projects have been published. 

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#SosOpen Lectures Online

With a lecture by Layton Reid, Desitecture,  SOS - School of Sustainability it has launched on March 25th the new online series of SOS Open Lectures. The next will take place on Wednesday 15 of April and will be held by Anupama Kohli, renowned Indian scholar and architect. The lecture will revolve on local responses to climate, tradition and the economy that emerging countries urge architecture to address. Those willing to participate can register here  

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Foundation Iris Ceramica Group partners with Building Green Futures and SOS School of Sustainability for a series of global events dedicated to Circular Economy

How can we reinvent the term “sustainability” and use the design tools at our disposal to transition to a circular economy? These questions were pivotal of the first roundtable discussion hosted by #Iris Ceramica Group London Showroom. Guests speakers Annabel Koeck, Associate of Grimshaw London, Clare Brass, founder of Department22,  Mario Cucinella, founder of MC A – Mario Cucinella Architects, and  Michael Braungart, founder of  Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute were moderated by Paul Finch, director of WAF World Architecture Festival. The London Roundtable was the first in a series of events organized worldwide to gather together experts, scholars and industry leaders from the building industry in the next months.

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“Making Buildings is not an Ecological Action”

Arch. Mario Cucinella was invited as a keynote speaker at the World Architecture Festival. The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is an annual festival and awards ceremony, one of the most prestigious events dedicated to the architecture and development industry. This year was Amsterdam to host all the events, where around 550 shortlisted architects present their projects. SOS, which participated in the selection, was shortlisted in two categories with the MO(O)D – A Prototype for an Office Building project, winner for the category WAFX – Climate, Energy & Carbon ​and finalist for WAF – Visualisation Prize.

The presentation made by Mario Cucinella focused on the challenges that the architects have to face in the next future to build a bridge of knowledge between the present and the past and to rediscover the synergy between architecture and nature:

“We completely forgot the relationship with nature and the empathy with climate, because we build building that have no relation with climate at all. For too many years of technologies, architects forgot the knowledge and now the climate presents the bill: an increasing of pollution everywhere. Buildings produce almost the 50% of the C02 emissions. Green Architecture will be a balanced hybrid of technological innovation and empathy with the climate. It throws a bridge towards the past, rediscovering and intimate complicity with nature.”

As already mentioned by Stefano Mancuso, director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV), humans can learn a lot from plants:

“Plants lived in the planet for 5 millions years, Homo Sapiens just 300 thousand years: the gap of knowledge of adapting to climate is huge. Plants, like buildings, cannot move and they are obliged to stay in the same place and dealing with climate: the climate change and the plants adapt themselves. Plants have intelligence, they don’t have brain, but they are intelligent; they transform CO2 in oxygen by leaves, producing humidity and shading; the roots are always looking for sources, for energy. But if you look our buildings, they’re still not so intelligent.”

Arch. Mario Cucinella invited attendees to look at the Plants and at the Past to restore that empathy between man and nature: during crisis men have always been able to produce great innovations and turn a criticality into an opportunity. Now it’s time to act and build a real sustainable future!

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The Wall: Sustainable Thinking Evolution from 21st November at the Museo Novecento, Florence A site specific project conceived by Sergio Risaliti
 curated by Mario Cucinella Architects and SOS – School of Sustainability. Florence, 21st November 2019 – At Museo Novecento in Florence, The Wall – Sustainable Thinking Evolution, is an exhibition curated by Mario Cucinella Architects and SOS – School of Sustainability and it is part of the sustainable Thinking events, organized by the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum and the Ferragamo Foundation to draw attention to increasingly current issues of sustainability in its various forms: from the environment to the urban landscape, from reuse to innovation and experimentation technology. The exhibition, dedicated to the theme of sustainability, arrives to its third evolution, the Future, after dealing with the Present and the Past, in previous appointments. “Whoever does not adopt new remedies must expect new evils, because time is the greatest innovator.” – Francis Bacon, 17th century

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Brian Ford Leading a Masterclass on Passive Cooling Design

“It is widely recognised that great benefits arise from architects and engineers working closely together from the earliest stages of the design process. Given an understanding of the basic principles, low carbon design can provide a springboard for invention and an opportunity for innovation, based on an holistic approach by both architect and en­gineer.”

Quote from “The Architecture & Engineering of Downdraught Cooling” by B. Ford, R. Schiano-Phan and E. Francis It was a unique experience have a guest lecturer like Briand Ford, one of the world’s leading experts of Integrated Design. The three days of workshop were focused on the technical innovations that integrate natural ventilation and passive cooling in building design.“Architectural design requires a very wide ranging holistic approach, which today in­cludes an understanding of environmental design principles. Thermal performance and passive cooling are part of this, and to be successful an understanding of the principles and strategies need to be embedded with­in the design and procurement process. It is not a technological ‘add-on’, but part of an approach to Integrated Design. To achieve this, leading practice promotes close collab­oration between the different members of the design team. The manipulation of plan and section, building form and fabric, the disposition of openings and the relationship between them (normally the province of the architect) have as big an impact on the fea­sibility of environmental design strategies as the specification of plant, actuators and con­trols (normally the province of the engineer).”

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Five Pills of Beauty  Workshop Reconstruction Emilia

Within the 11th edition of the Dedalo Minosse International Prize, the ALA - Assoarchitetti Foundation Inarcassa Award was assigned to the Reconstruction Workshop project thanks to which 5 buildings in Emilia Romagna were rebuilt by Mario Cucinella's MCArchitects studio.

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Plants as allies for survival: a talk at GOD IS GREEN Festival

Valentina Porceddu, architect and professor at SOS – School of Sustainability, will be guest speaker at Talk: plants as co-workers

Part of the rich program of god is green Festival at Manifattura Tabacchi in Florence, the talk will be on September 10, at 7.30 pm

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Prototypes of 3D printed Habitat

The outcome of a joint initiative by SOS School of Sustainability, Mario Cucinella architects and Wasp - with the participation of experts from the industry and the professions of architecture, Tecla is a  a prototype for a 3D printed habitat, near Bologna, Italy. Borne from a vision to provide a home for everyone at a time of exponential population increase and an associated lack of affordable housing, TECLA is a new circular housing model, created using entirely reusable, recyclable materials taken from the local terrain.

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Pollution Returns in Bologna

The challenge facing Pollution 2018 is indicating new paths for working in today’s more fragile urban settings, offering technically appropriate solutions which respect the stratification that has produced them and is capable of promoting environmental quality and comfort. The vision of the future, the evolution of our perception of the risks inherent in pollution and the need to re-establish a balanced relationship with nature will be the key elements of the event, with a special focus on the point of view of the new generations, who have an immediate relationship with technology and view nature as a variable which is dependent on human decisions or failure to act.

The young professionals of SOS School of Sustainability, founded in Bologna by Mario Cucinella, have been entrusted with the task of expressing the themes of Pollution 2018. The method adopted in the study programme and SOS’s holistic approach to issues of sustainability are useful tools for building a project combining education, research and professional practice.

This experience will take the form of a laboratory for sharing and listening, with multiple voices, with the participation of the Iris Ceramica Group, SOS School of Sustainability, Laboratorio delle Idee, students from the Bologna International School, Ascolto Attivo and experts from other disciplines, each of whom will bring their own know-how and way of perceiving and experiencing urban space to the project.

The work team has traced a path beginning with the act of accusation that characterized the first edition of Pollution and continuing in search of new tools that will permit responsible, shared, participatory use of urban space as a place for reconstructing the bonds between man and nature.

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PLEA 2015 - Passive Low Energy Architecture

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PLEA 2015 - Paper Submission Deadline Extension

The Paper Submission deadline for the PLEA 2015 Conference “Architecture in (R)evolution” which will be held in Bologna-Italy in September 2015 is now extended to 12th May 2015, at 6:00 pm (GMT +1).

This is the final deadline extention.

Please, visit http://www.plea2015.it/ for more information.

We look forward for your participation!

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SOS Project Presentation - Save the Date in Rome

It is scheduled for Fraday 27th February at 11 am in Rome, the presentation of the project S.O.S. – School Of Sustainability, the new initiative of Mario Cucinella, focused on training new professionals in the field of sustainability.

The event will be held at  Consiglio Nazionale Architetti, located in Rome, Via Santa Maria Dell'Anima 10.

At the event will participate Gian Luca Galletti, Minister for the Environment, Land and Sea and Ermete Realacci, President of the Environment, Territory and Public Comission of the Chamber and Honorary President of Legambiente.

S.O.S. is the first post-graduate professional school of sustainability in architecture.

S.O.S. 2015 courses will focus on four key issues related to sustainable architecture and product design. The four courses are:

- Architecture as a Social Business, to regenerate the urban environment

- Post Carbon Architecture, to design the next generation of buildings

- Right for a (Quality) Shelter, to sustain human development and build resilience

- Blue Design, innovation and advanced sustainability for industrial design

At 2pm will follow the open day with the students.

To attend the open day, please confirm your participation on the SOS Facebook page  schoolofsustainabilitybologna

For more information regarding the school and the courses please visit  www.schoolofsustainability.it .

S.O.S. – School Of Sustainability – Post-graduate education by Mario Cucinella

Press conference

Consiglio Nazionale Architetti

Via Santa Maria Dell'Anima 10, Rome

Sala Sirica, 1° piano

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SOS press conference - save the date

It is scheduled for Tuesday 17th Februaryat 12 am, the press conference of S.O.S. – School Of Sustainability, the new initiative of MarioCucinella, focused on training newprofessionals in the field of sustainability.

The event will be held at Bologna Urban Center, located in Piazza Nettuno 3.

S.O.S. is the first post-graduate professional school of sustainability in architecture.

S.O.S. 2015 courses will focus on four key issues related to sustainable architecture and product design. The four courses are:

- Architecture as a Social Business, to regenerate the urban environment

- Post Carbon Architecture, to design the next generation of buildings

- Right for a (Quality) Shelter, to sustain human development and build resilience

- Blue Design, innovation and advanced sustainability for industrial design

 Following the presentation, an open day with the students will follow.

To attend the open day, please confirm your participation on the SOS Facebook page schoolofsustainabilitybologna

 For more information regarding the school and the courses please visit  www.schoolofsustainability.it . 

 S.O.S. – School Of Sustainability – Post-graduate education by Mario Cucinella

Press conference

Martedì 17 febbraio 2015, ore 12

Urban Center, Piazza Nettuno 3, Bologna

Open day will follow

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PLEA 2015 - Abstract Submission Deadline Extension

Dear participants,

  The Abstract Submission deadline for the PLEA 2015 Conference “Architecture in (R)evolution” which will be held in Bologna-Italy in September 2015 is now extended to 13th February 2015, at 6:00 pm (GMT +1).

  To download the abstract template please go to http://www.plea2015.it/call_for_abstracts/ .

To submit the abstract please register your account here http://www.plea2015.it/fees_and_registration/ . No payment is required at this stage.

  We look forward for your participation.

  Best regards,

  Your Plea2015 Organizing Team

The 31th International PLEA Conference

http://www.plea2015.it/ | [email protected]