Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli

Michel Carlana (1980), Luca Mezzalira (1982) and Curzio Pentimalli (1982) graduated from the Iuav University of Venice, where they currently carry out collaborative and research activities. Parallel to their teaching activity, they remain immersed in the practice through their participation in international competitions and assignments in the local area. The studio, founded in 2010, strives to make urban planning and architecture a simple and lasting thing: organic, precise and necessary. Their goal is to build the tradition of an interactive – rather than submissive – relationship with it, considering the project as an opportunity to reinterpret a place.

Among their main works, the "Magic Carpet" project, winner of the runner-up award at the tenth edition of the Europan competition, Montreux, Switzerland, the "Kulturbaum" project, winner of the international competition for the new civic library of Bressanone (Brixen, Italy), stand out, the “Chapeau” project, winner of the international competition for a sports center and renovation of a party hall in Les Bois, Switzerland, and the “Wunderkammer” project, winner of the international competition for the new music school in Bressanone (Brixen, Italy). For Electa Mondadori, they curated “Forme di Struttura”, a monographic volume on the Swiss engineering firm Conzett Bronzini Gartmann AG, published in 2011, and for Park Books they authored “Quirino De Giorgio: An Architect's Legacy”, published in 2019.

In 2011, they were selected by the New Italian Blood Awards as one of the ten most promising under 40 Italian architecture firms and in 2012 they were named Best Under-35 Italian Architecture Firm at the Young Italian Architects Awards. In 2013, they received the City Enterprise Award, and the following year won the Confindustria Territory for Actions Award with their “Sonika” project. In 2020, the studio won the DAM Architectural Book Award with the editorial project “Quirino De Giorgio: An Architect's Legacy”. In 2018, the founders were Visiting Professors at the University Iuav of Venice.