Articles by Camilla Ghisleni

After years of dominance, orthogonal lines and right angles are giving way to organic designs and rounded shapes within interior design projects. This profound shift in formal language has led to the infiltration of gentle curves and amorphous volumes into design pieces, furniture, and decorative elements, a transformation that’s becoming increasingly evident. Some argue that this change may be indirectly linked to the growing interest in sustainability and the pursuit of strategies that reconnect people with nature, as seen in the consistent presence of biophilia across projects of various scales. The period of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic further heightened this inclination, prompting individuals to devise ways to incorporate nature into their living spaces, thereby enhancing well-being in day-to-day life.

In a world of extravagant textures, colors, and flavors, who would have thought that a substance that has no color, no smell, and no taste is precisely the most essential for human existence? Antagonistic in itself, water carries an ambiguity of values and meanings that confer a high degree of complexity sustained by the versatile and soluble profile that distinguishes it in a complex simplicity. In this sense, water, as a source of life, has become an object of devotion and study over time. This has fostered a continuous effort focused on understanding, transporting, and controlling this element.

When asked about his memories of the house where he spent part of his childhood, Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa says that more than sight, his memories are based on the smell of the house. According to him, each house has its own smell, which we do not always perceive when we are in it, but immediately recognize upon returning.

“The first man wanted to build a shelter that would cover him without burying him.” With some logs found in the forest, he built a square covered with straw so that neither the sun nor the rain could enter, and thus, he felt safe. The description above refers, in a simplified way, to the theory of the primitive hut developed by the abbot Marc-Antoine Laugier in the mid-1700s. The small rustic hut described by Laugier is a model upon which he imagined the magnificence of architecture. It provides an important reference point for all speculation about construction foundations and represents the first architectural idea.”

Wood is the concrete of the future. As timber construction becomes increasingly popular, you have probably heard this phrase. However, we are not talking about traditional construction techniques using timber, but rather about this well-known material combined with cutting-edge technology.

The skin absorbs matter, and the world is contemplated, touched, heard, and measured through our bodily existence. Juhani Pallasmaa, a Finnish architect known for propagating sensory architecture, defends the notion that, unlike vision, touch is the sense of proximity, becoming a main axis by covering the entire body. It is a fact that, when speaking of touch, the first image that comes to mind is usually contact with hands. However, there are other ways to feel architecture that can be developed in projects, such as the touch of bare feet on a particular surface.

“I am tolerant. But I revolt. I accuse. It is my obligation. I am alone. Behind me there’s no dictatorship, no party, no group, nor any mafia — neither a collective intellectual scheme nor an ideology. The green revolution is not a political revolution. The base sustains it and is neither minority nor elitist. It is a creative evolution in harmony with nature and the universe’s organic course.”

From Thomas Edison’s empty glass bulb to AI-controlled LEDs, hundreds of years of constant evolution have passed, which culminated in what we now know as artificial lighting. Edison could not have imagined how dependent we would become on his invention almost two centuries later. It led to a way of life where we spend up to 90% of our time in enclosed spaces deprived of natural light, such as shopping centers and offices. Places where artificial light remains constant throughout the day, without any variation of color temperature or luminous intensity are where artificial lighting practically eliminates day and night differences.

Some authors claim that the term kitsch has German origins and arose in artistic vocabulary around 1860 from the verb kitschen/verkitschen (to cheat, to sell something instead of something else). Others, such as Guimaraens & Cavalcanti (1979), affirm that the term comes from the English language, from the word sketch. In the second half of the 19th century, when American tourists wanted to buy a work of art at a cheap price, they asked for a sketch.