UPA @ TIME SPACE EXISTENCE
IN VENICE FOR 2023 ARCHITECTURE BIENNIAL
UPA Installation with media partnership of reFrame
Venice, with the Architecture Biennale, is the place where step by step architecture is celebrated on an international level. For a period of more than six months, the city has become the place where the most interesting architecture studios present themselves: this thanks to its main exhibition and numerous exhibitions and events connected to it.
In Venice the architecture studios present themselves from the largest, to those that are emerging, to those who have built or theorized something notable.
The curators of the exhibitions and events select the best and most interesting realities to show a cross-section of the latest trends in architecture, urban planning and design.
Probably Time Space Existence at the European Cultural Center based in Venice is the exhibition that best records the latest alternative trends to the official ones of the main exhibition organized for the various guest countries. For over a decade, this has been presenting projects, innovative proposals and utopian dreams of architectural expressions from all over the world.
At Time Space Existence the participants, through a wide selection of presented projects, models, multimedia installations and conceptual works, question the relationship between space and time, reimagining new ways of living and rethinking architecture through a wider. The result is a series of unique and multifaceted snapshots that photograph the state of the current architectural debate worldwide.
UPA - Urbanism Planning Architecture was invited to participate in this 2023 edition to represent its architecture and its design vision. The architecture firm with offices in Milan, Abu Dhabi and Baghdad, is one of the very few Italian firms invited and is the only one representing the United Arab Emirates and Iraq at Time Space Existence.
The studio took the opportunity to present the projects and the work done in over 15 years of activity: it contributed by giving an insight into the evolution of architecture and construction from the Middle East, to Europe up to the Asia of the CIS countries from 2007 to today.
The architect Paolo Lettieri with the collaboration of reFrame as media partner and as organizer of the event to be held at Palazzo Michiel in Venice on November 10th, has set up an installation in Palazzo Bembo, in Rialto, in one of the Time Space Existence locations.
The mainly multimedia installation is made up of 3 screens on which the projects, the photographs of the built projects and finally a video narrate the philosophy of the studio and the design approach of the two main architects of the studio: the architect Paolo Lettieri and the architect Aswan Zubaidi.
The upper part, the "frieze" of the installation shows the motto, "necessity is the mother of inventions" translated into all the languages spoken by people who work with UPA: from Italian, English, Arabic, to Indian, Filipino , Korean, Chinese, Russian, Turkish… to name the main ones. In total there are 18 languages: 18 and more cultures of people who collaborate with UPA every day to create new architecture.
Multiculturalism is the distinctive feature of the UPA studio.
The lower part of the installation is the transposition of the name of the studio into a bar code: a language for the machines that are increasingly present and indispensable in our work. To date we have started to experiment with the use of artificial intelligence for the first interior concepts: this is just an example of how machines will be co-protagonists of this profession in the future.
Finally, we report an excerpt of our philosophy told in the installation:
“After years of practice in different countries and with different cultures and environments, we have formed our philosophy around three cornerstones.
Passion
Our passion for timeless Italian architecture is what gives us the focus and drive to push ourselves to the limit in every project.
Expertise
With over 15 years of experience working at the highest levels, we have the experience, know-how and training to design buildings that always stand the test of time. But it's not just about beautiful architecture: we know how to design engineering solutions that are built to last.
Diversity
We think the best architecture firms draw their talent from a diverse pool of architects. With this vision, our studio is made up of talented people from a wide range of artistic disciplines, backgrounds, cultures and countries.
We make passion, expertise and diversity the key ingredients of our projects.
Each project is developed taking into consideration the culture of those who will use the building and the specificity of the “Genius Loci”.
We do not propose pre-packaged projects and we do not follow rigid styles by imposing a unilateral vision of the project.
Ours is an organic and collaborative approach to be able to design architecture that is always different and unique:
an architecture for the place and for those who will use it.”