Alessandro Melis | |
---|---|
Born | Alessandro Melis July 6, 1969 (age 55) |
Citizenship | Italian |
Alma mater | Università degli Studi di Firenze |
Occupation | Architect • Art Curator • Professor |
Employer(s) | Italian National Pavilion at the 17th Venice Biennale, University of Portsmouth |
Awards | Ambassador of Italian Design 2020 by ADI |
Alessandro Melis (born 6 July 1969) is an Italian architect and the curator of the Italian National Pavilion at the 17th Venice Biennale. [1] He is also currently a professor of architecture and the inaugural endowed chair of the New York Institute of Technology.
Alessandro Melis was born on 6 July 1969 in Cagliari, the largest city in the island of Sardinia in Italy. Melis received his Doctor of Architecture degree from the University of Florence in 1995.
In 1996, he founded Heliopolis 21, a multi-awarded architecture practice based in Italy, Germany, and the UK. The SR1938 Institute of the University of Pisa, [2] [3] the Stella Maris Hospital [4] [5] and the Auditorium of Sant’Anna, inaugurated by the president of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, [6] are acknowledged both in scholar publications and in popular magazines as examples of excellence in sustainable design. The recognition of Alessandro's research is corroborated by a record of over 150 peer review journal and book publications (including practice based research outputs) [7] such as the seminal monograph on Alessandro Gherardesca, pivotal researches on the Algerian El Houma, in collaboration with Yazid Khemri, Temporary Appropriation, with Antonio Lara Hernandez, and by as many citations. [8] [9] [10]
In 2017, Alessandro Melis and Steffen Lehmann created the interdisciplinary project CRUNCH: Climate Resilient Urban Nexus Choices: Operationalising the Food-Water-Energy Nexus. [11] This is a research project funded by Horizon 2020, Belmont Forum Belmont Forum, ESRC and other funding bodies. Alessandro Melis is leading the project on behalf of the University of Portsmouth, where he is professor of architecture innovation. [12] [7]
Appointed by the Italian Government in 2019, [1] he follows the previous curators Mario Cucinella (2018) and Tamassociati (2016), as curator of the Italian Pavilion.
In 2020, he is appointed Ambassador of Italian Design in Paris, by Adi (Associazione Disegno Industriale) and the Italian Mnistery of Foreign Affairs.
Alessandro Melis is the current IDC Foundation Endowed Chair at the New York Institute of Technology. Previously, he was director of the International Cluster for Sustainable Cities at the University of Portsmouth, [12] and the head of Postgraduate engagement at the school of Architecture and Planning of the University of Auckland. [13] He has also been invited as a keynote speaker at the China Academy of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the University of Cambridge, [14] TEDx, [15] the Italian Institute of Culture in London, the NZ Cycling Conference, the Foster Foundation (as an academic staff member), [16] and the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
Alessandro Melis is acknowledged, together with Telmo Pievani, [17] for introducing the concept of Exaptation in Architecture. [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] His work was the object of several exhibitions and of a recent monograph (Rome, 2020) authored by several scholars of the universities of Palermo and Bari and edited by Francesco Fallacara Chirico, titled “Alessandro Melis, Utopic Real World. [23] [24]
He has been nominated as an ambassador of Italian Design 2020 by ADI and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. [12] [25] [26]
Pisa is a city and comune (municipality) in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the city contains more than twenty other historic churches, several medieval palaces, and bridges across the Arno. Much of the city's architecture was financed from its history as one of the Italian maritime republics.
Ugolino della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico, was an Italian nobleman, politician and naval commander. He was frequently accused of treason and features prominently in Dante's Divine Comedy.
Piero Calamandrei was an Italian author, jurist, soldier, university professor, and politician. He was one of Italy's leading authorities on the law of civil procedure.
Marcello Guido is an Italian deconstructivist architect.
The Cisternoni of Livorno are a series of three large buildings in the neoclassical style at Livorno, in Tuscany, Italy. They were constructed between 1829 and 1848 as part of a complex of purification plants and storage tanks to the Leopoldino aqueduct; a fourth cisternone planned at Castellaccia was never built. The cisternoni, literally "great cisterns", provided Livorno — a city that is still today one of the principal ports of the Mediterranean — with fresh and, more importantly, clean water throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Paolo Schianchi, is an Italian architect and designer.
Maria Selvaggia Borghini (1656–1731) was an Italian poet and translator.
Alessandro Faedo was an Italian mathematician and politician, born in Chiampo. He is known for his work in numerical analysis, leading to the Faedo–Galerkin method: he was one of the pupils of Leonida Tonelli and, after his death, he succeeded him on the chair of mathematical analysis at the University of Pisa, becoming dean of the faculty of sciences and then rector and exerting a strong positive influence on the development of the university.
Borgo Carige is a village in Tuscany, central Italy, administratively a frazione of the comune of Capalbio, province of Grosseto. At the time of the 2001 census its population amounted to 229.
The Battle of Lucocisterna was fought on the 29 February 1324, during the Aragonese conquest of Sardinia, between the army of the Crown of Aragon, in command of the Infante Alfonso IV of Aragon, son of King James II of Aragon, and the army of the Republic of Pisa led by Manfredi della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico.
Arturo Tedeschi is an Italian architect, computational designer and writer. He's the founder of the homonymous architecture practice and design consulting which promotes a new kind of algorithmic-based design. His work includes techniques such as Algorithms-Aided Design (AAD), CNC milling, robotic milling, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality. Arturo Tedeschi is the author of the books: Architettura Parametrica,Parametric Architecture with Grasshopper and AAD Algorithms-Aided Design, a reference book on algorithmic modelling based on the Grasshopper platform.
Alessandro Gherardesca was an Italian architect and engineer, active in his native Pisa and Livorno.
Alessandro Agostinelli is an Italian writer, journalist and poet. Alessandro Agostinelli is an Italian writer, journalist and poet.
Ottaviano Tenerani is an Italian keyboard player, conductor, musicologist. He is the leader of Il Rossignolo, an ensemble on period instruments that he founded in 1998 together with the flautist Marica Testi and the recorder and oboe player Martino Noferi.
Temporary appropriation refers to the action in which a person or a group of people realises an activity in a public space for which it was not designed for. According to Lara-Hernandez and Melis, it is process that implies dynamism similar to what Graumann called the humanisation of the space, which is the fundamental societal defined meanings interiorised by the individual. Representative activities of temporary appropriation can be grouped in three main categories: 1) sports, leisure and cultural activities; 2) activities related to economy such as work and services; and 3) activities related to sacralisation or worship. Authors stress two main factors that encourage the temporary appropriation phenomenon, on the one hand the cultural factor while on the other the configuration or design of the built environment. The former refers to the group of symbols, values, attitudes, skills, knowledge, meanings, communication ways, social structure and physical objects that make possible the life of a determinate society. While the latter refers to human-made structures, features, and facilities viewed collectively as an environment in which people live and work. Temporary appropriation is an example of Architectural Exaptation in the urban environment.
Paola Viganò, is an Italian architect and urbanist, currently professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and at the University of Venice (IUAV).
The Misericordia Hospital is a hospital located in Grosseto, Tuscany, Italy.
Architectural exaptation is a concept in architecture and urban design that involves repurposing buildings, structures, or architectural elements for new uses that differ significantly from their original intended purpose. This practice extends beyond mere adaptation, as it involves a transformative process where the original functions are replaced or augmented by entirely new ones. It is a concept that embraces flexibility, creativity, and innovation in the use of architectural spaces and structures.
Neoclassical architecture in Tuscany established itself between the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century within a historical-political framework substantially aligned with the one that affected the rest of the Italian peninsula, while nonetheless developing original features.
Italo Gamberini was an Italian architect.