Embarking on an adventure

We met at the university in Genoa, where we studied together. We would spend our free time applying to design competitions for students and eventually won some prizes. At a certain point, we decided to try turning the group of friends into a proper office. After graduating, we worked as freelance architects for a couple of years, working for and together with some Genoese offices that deeply influenced our approach to the discipline, such as Sp10, Valter Scelsi, and baukuh. In late 2010 we refurbished the office and started this adventure called “gosplan”.

The individual and the collective 

We always conceived the office as an open place where one could meet colleagues/friends. The number of people hanging out at the office is ever-changing: it depends on the different kinds of work and collaborations that are going on at the time. So we do not have an fixed opening hour in the morning or a closing time in the evening. Some are early-risers, while others prefer to work until the night comes. Those with children, bring them to the office when necessary. The only fixed routine is that during the morning we all listen to the radio (since everyone likes the show schedule), and in the afternoon everyone isolates themselves listening to their own favourite soundtrack. We are constantly looking for a good balance between collective work and individual contribution.

Constructing an aesthetic

The office is a space that we designed at the very beginning of our professional adventure and it's situated in the very heart of Genova. It's arranged into two levels: the lower is a unique wide room with all the workstations, while the upper level is a vaulted space for meetings, where our work is displayed in the form of models, pictures, publications.

The features of the office recall a “construction site aesthetic” with osb panels to hide the open kitchen and the model-making corner, resin floors and walls, reinforcing bars to hang clothes and lamps. The stairs and the bookshelves are produced by folding a 3mm sheet of polished stainless steel.

Working upwards

During the first ten years of gosplan's activity, we worked mostly as interior designers (a task that we really love) but we also dreamed of working on commissions to design entire buildings. That is now actually happening, so we can say that after ten years of working our way up, what we are currently developing is not far from our initial expectations. A gap is sadly still present between our idea of contemporary architecture and the constraints due to clients expectations, not to mention a short-sighted legislation about preservation that we often have to deal with.

Continuing an ongoing research

From the beginning, we conceived the office activity as something that would combine both professional and intellectual activity: work and research. During the first years, the research activities prevailed, due to the lack of commissions and the high number of competitions projects developed in a network of young and passionate offices. Nowadays it's the opposite: although we teach courses and we organise conferences thanks to our commitment to the foundation of the Local Architects Association, finding enough time for research is our challenge for the nearest future.