Fondazione Prada HQ — biennale showcase.

Can a series of scaled models communicate a phenomenological sequence?

Designer ● 3 months

Design Research ● Spatial Design ● Construction

Overview

Fondazione Prada is an exhibition of Prada's upcoming headquarters at the Venice Biennale. The project's key goal is to communicate the specificity of a spatial design with a wide audience.

I worked with five teammates under the leadership of Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli and Rem Koolhaas at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam, Netherlands. My key contributions centered on organizing an executive methodology enabling our team to deliver on time as well as developing model making techniques that translated the buildings unique materiality, and .

The exhibition was curated over a period of 6 months and prepared in 12 weeks. It was displayed for 5 months.

visual summary — 1 minute

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Overview Project Description The Medium is the Message Material Studies

An unusual adjacency of materials belonging to diverse economic regimes critically position Prada with regards to consumerist neoliberalism.

Project Description

Silver, Gold, Ceramic Tiles & Greige Stucco

Material choices further emphasize the distinctive assortment of historical periods. A plaster the color between grey and beige, 'greige', is used for the industrial facades, as it pairs elegantly with the roofs' ceramic tiles. A floating pavilion of silver foam houses a cinema, in contrast with the gold leaf building referred to as the haunted house.

Stucco and Gold paint are juxtaposed in this unusual yet striking composition.

Elongated volumes create textures stripes.

Silver foam casts a fresh light on the modern cantilever.

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The Medium is the Message

Miniature Art Collection

The Prada Foundation is at once a museum and a bank. The art pieces are both financial investments and opportunities for intercultural conviviality.

Frontal view with scaled artwork of an early model of the tower.

Overall view of Fondazione Prada's headquarters.

Material Studies

A Doll in a Biology Lab

These models display at scale 1:1 materials developed for Prada. They are inspired by photographs taken through a microscope. As such, they invite the dweller to consider the world from the perspective of smaller beings, much like a doll in a biology lab.