Intervista a Sandra Giraudi La scuola:spazio di identità; Intervista Modus Architects Tra pedagogia, tipologia e contesto

This interview focuses on several foundational aspects of architectural design – the theme, pedagogy, and regulations – as well as key phases of its development into built form: the competition, the site, the construction. The result reveals both resonances and points of tension. From a design experience perspective, both studios underscore the necessity for each project to establish – and, more crucially, to discover from conception through construction – a deep dialogue with the site and the pedagogical theme, which is shaped by the community and articulated by school directors. For both firms, the competition is conceived as a necessary laboratory for original and experimental architectural thinking, while the development phases constitute the ground where this idea must be anchored, through concrete and participatory engagement with other disciplines. Crucially, this occurs with full respect for the limits of each discipline’s remit, as Sandy Attia and educationalist Beate Weiland argue in their now-seminal publication Progettare Scuole, tra pedagogia e architettura: «The more each school builds a pedagogical and didactic profile of its own (…) the more this can be reflected in the architecture that gives it form». A shared and renewed interest also emerges in the search for typological specificity, based not on abstraction or generic schemes, but on the singular conditions of each project. This search finds its most meaningful articulations in the relationship between the basic unit of the classroom and the support and circulation spaces – areas now central in educational conceptions and yet still in search of an authentic architectural expression.