Francesca Torzo (Padova 1975) studied in TU Delft, ETSAB Barcelona, Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio and IUAV in Venezia. She developped the diploma at Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio and graduated with honours by IUAV in Venezia in 2001 with arch. Peter Zumthor, prof. Umberto Tubini, arch. Miguel Kreisler, eng. Jurg Conzett. In 2001 she developped an experimental dry construction in stone together with eng. Jurg Conzett and HTW, Chur. In 2001-2002 she worked as project architect by Peter Zumthor Architekturburo Haldenstein, and in 2003 by Bosshard Vaquer Architekten Zurich.
In 2008 she started her own office in Genova.
From 2009 to 2017 she taught as assistant by Atelier Bearth in Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Switzerland.
Since 2017 she is professor at Bergen Arkitekthøgskole, Norway. She has lectured at a number of schools and cultural institutions, such as Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts de Paris Cergy, aut Innsbruck, Technische Universität München, USI Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Brickworks International Speakers Series Australia, Technische Universität Wien, Museum Alvar Aalto Helsinki, Triennale di Milano, Archi Summit Lisboa, Frieze Art & Architecture London, International lecture series KADK Copenhagen, and Architecture Foundation London.
In 2018 she is invited as participant to the 16th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, FREESPACE, curated by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara and she is appointed Chairman 2018-2019 of Maarten Van Severen Foundation in Gent.
The project Z33 house for contemporary art in Hasselt is awarded the international 2018 Piranesi award as well as the first edition of the Italian architecture prize. In 2020 she is awarded the Moira Gemmill prize.
office profile
The studio consists of a small international team of young architects with a core of few stable ones and a high turnover of the others. Collaborators are named project architect for individual assignments, but they are required to train a knowledge and an awareness of all projects running in the office. Such approach calls for an honest and straightforward engagement.
The choice of entrusting with the combination of an individual responsibility with a common dialectic is grounded on the belief that thoughts need to be daily exposed to a critical process in order to achieve a shareable clarity.
The teaching and the academic research, the collaboration with builders and the design practice challenge and influence each other in the perspective of building a public discourse, which may support the awakening of a curiosity for understanding our way of living and a confidence in taking responsibility for it.
The studio has intentionally chosen for more than 10 years a defiladed position to gain the time and the necessary quietness to focus on the work.
The process of design starts for us from an understanding of the material constrains and of the cultural context where we are called to operate. The goal is that of formulating the primary spatial relations, which have to be preserved as a narrative through the complete process. We start from a kind of “nebula”, diffused yet made of atoms and molecules. We draw over and over chasing a vision of something that does not exist yet but that hosts the world we live in and its memory. This activity of collecting, hunting and discerning demands patience and a sort of empathy with the contradictions of human life.
