Arzignano, west of Vicenza in Italy’s Veneto, is known for supplying high-quality leather for fashion goods. Plus, it is the site of the organic, modernist Church of St. John the Baptist, designed by Giovanni Michelucci and completed in 1970. But these days, something new is happening. Today the small town is host to a second office for AMAA, a collaborative architecture office for research and development, and several of its completed and ongoing works.
AMAA is led by creative partners Marcello Galiotto and Alessandra Rampazzo, who met and graduated from the Università Iuav di Venezia before founding their practice in 2012. Beyond a string of recent competition wins in Italy, the firm gained wider global prominence through its installation in the Arsenale at last year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Lesley Lokko. The piece, It’s Kind of a Circular Story, staged a salvaged piece of wall from a military base and concrete study models next to a large tablescape of offcut brass sheets from De Castelli, an Italian artisan metalworking company. Realized together with artists, the Venetian effort showcased the circular thinking—about existing buildings, cities, environments, and histories, as well as material processes—that is central to AMAA’s design process.
