The Materials of Architecture: Cities that Regenerate, Spaces that Tell Stories

On the occasion of the 2025 edition of Cersaie in Bologna, the tradition of the THE PLAN Café continues, the Café della Stampa organized by THE PLAN. This year’s meeting, entitled The Materials of Architecture: Cities that Regenerate, Spaces that Tell Stories, featured an interview by Nicola Leonardi, co-founder and director of THE PLAN, with Vittorio Grassi, founder of VGA Architects, Gianfranco Tedeschi, partner of Politecnica Ingegneria e Architettura, and Alessandro Vitale, co-founder of DVArea.

This Café della Stampa is dedicated to the theme The Materials of Architecture: Cities that Regenerate, Spaces that Tell Stories. What is the role of the architect in urban regeneration?

V.G.: I believe private projects are increasingly becoming “urban projects.” Urban regeneration originates precisely at this meeting point between the public and the private, where private interest intertwines with the collective one. Private space must therefore engage with public space, listening to the people who live in it daily and move through it.

G.T.: When talking about urban regeneration, attention often focuses on the container — that is, the single building — forgetting the hidden fabric that brings the city to life: communication networks, pathways, and the social relationships that inhabit it. Changing the urban structure means mending that fabric, rediscovering places and relational networks to translate citizens’ needs into concrete projects. Our role as architects is similar to that of a director: orchestrating a multifactorial process coordinated by a plurality of actors.

A.V.: Practicing architecture means, first of all, deeply understanding the territory and its collective needs. It is necessary to study the context and grasp its complexity, going beyond the client’s immediate request. The city transforms and regenerates over time, and the value of a project reveals itself progressively. This is why it is crucial to build multidisciplinary teams capable of interpreting people’s needs and translating them into design solutions.

Uffici Itelyum - Vittorio Grassi Architects

How does your approach to circularity translate into projects?

V.G.: Starting from the assumption that “the most sustainable building is the one that is not built,” the concept underlying circularity must be recovery and reuse — not only of materials, but also of buildings and spaces themselves.

G.T.: Sustainability arises first and foremost from our personal awareness. For me, sustainability lies in the simplicity of a building: even a complex building must be conceived in a way that makes it simple to build and manage.

A.V.: One of the first steps toward circularity is reducing the amount of material used, combined with a clearly defined supply chain.

CRIF 21 - Politecnica

How do you interpret minimalism in interior spaces?

V.G.: The hospitality sector, for instance, has evolved over time, moving from “maximalist” hotels — full of objects, colors, and very rigid design guidelines — to increasingly personalized spaces, capable of offering unique and diverse experiences. The same has happened in the working sector, now designed to represent a brand’s identity and provide environments that recall the domestic dimension, more welcoming and familiar.

G.T.: I believe minimalism was born as a response to the excesses of decorativism. But society evolves, along with tastes and expectations: there is no longer a single model, but a plurality of demands requiring different responses. Today, the quality of interiors is measured through essential elements such as material, spatial proportion, and light.

A.V.: Aesthetic canons change over time; the extreme pursuit of minimalism has ended up sacrificing certain dimensions of spatial experience. I believe we need a return to sensoriality: designing also means stimulating the perception of spaces.

Palaindoor Atletica, Brescia - DVArea

How do you envision the transformation of spaces in the future?

V.G.: It is important to consider labor as an integral part of the design process. In this sense, innovation in materials and technologies can contribute to creating high-quality architecture.

G.T.: The flexibility of a building’s structure is a complex issue. We need structures that can be modular, even if it seems a laborious operation. The way we work has been profoundly revised, especially after the pandemic, with significant acceleration. We often find ourselves facing oversized office spaces that generate flexibility, largely as a consequence of emerging technologies.

A.V.: The transformation of spaces is above all tied to the technological sphere. Close collaboration between designers, architects, engineers, and companies that produce flexible, modular, and reusable systems — and therefore more resilient — is essential.

>>> Read also: THE PLAN Café at Cersaie  2024, 2023 e 2022