IaN+

— Interview with principal Luca Galofaro

About

IaN+ was set up in 1997 and materializes around the core of its three members with different professional formation and experience: Carmelo Baglivo and Luca Galofaro, design project and theory, and Stefania Manna, engineering consultant. IaN+ is a multi-disciplinary agency that aims at being a place where theory and practice of architecture overlap and meet, in order to redefine the concept of territory as a relational space between the landscape and its human user. In each intervention, projects explicitly question the contemporary urban condition through architecture. Construction and building, seen as an open and variable arena, must usher in a permanently repeated encounter between subject and programme. Architecture is thus conceived as a method endowed with independence, like a perpetual updating of a programmatic and topological diagram.

Interview Ideas

Presentation

• An International Audience: Publishing around the world to increase awareness, networking with designers and clients to break into geographic areas.
• Spider Web Metaphor: IaN+'s philosophy of the building as a web of inter-connected nodes and networks, links to outdoor public space.
• Simplicity: Satisfying client needs by using simple, existing materials in innovative ways.

Interview

• Awakening Rome: New buildings in Rome, the rise of young firms through Roman competitions, an increase of cultural diversity and people.
• Breaking Into China: Commissions and projects in Asia, bringing Italian quality to China and why that will always be possible.
• Public Space: Creating secondary and tertiary city centers within one town to unite multiple suburban areas together.
• What is Quality: Combining notions of Italian architecture with a dedication to contextual understanding to create project-specific style.

Video/Key Quotes

1. Rome in Flux
2. Building in Northern Italy
3. A Focus on Public Architecture
4. A New Direction
5. The New Public Space
6. Maintaining Quality

What We Learned

Though a relatively new firm, IaN+ is beginning to establish their reputation both within Italy and internationally. Their focus on publishing articles for foreign journals showed us an innovative way for a young company to get exposure, as well as submitting for many foreign competitions. Luca stressed on the importance of understanding the context and relation of each project site, and how executing this properly will result in a project that reflects the quality and values of the company while being architecturally distinct. This was the second year in a row that IaN+ has been interviewed, and the company has grown in terms of competitions and confidence. Luca correlated the rise of urban and cultural activity in Rome to IaN+'s growth: they are entering more competitions than ever before, allowing them to be much more experimental and prolific.

On the topic of Rome, Luca talked about the state of re-birth and flux that Rome is experiencing culturally. On every project, IaN+ ensures the site is linked to the public or to a public area, a key idea for successful architecture in Italy (and especially Rome). While Rome may not necessarily be full of new buildings yet, the competitions and commissions are ensuring that the next few years will continue to be exciting. Luca explained that Rome must accept new buildings that look new and modern; this is essential to reflecting the society and culture that is now in Rome due to the effects of globalization.