Planning, vision, expression. The art of architecture

When it comes to architecture, we are faced with a discipline that goes well beyond the simple construction of buildings and structures. It’s an art capable of creating a communicative link between the environment and the home.

In today’s blog, we introduce you to Alessandro De Santi and Marco Testi, two Italian architects with extensive experience and extraordinary intuition who will guide us through the beauty of this profession.

Hello Alessandro and Marco, welcome! We would like to start this interview with a brief introduction from each of you…

It’s a real pleasure to be here. We are two architects who, after graduating respectively in Venice and Mantova/Milan, chose to return to our roots, between the shores of the lake and the slopes of Mount Baldo.

About ten years ago, Alessandro De Santi, already a seasoned professional, joined Marco Testi. Our collaboration is solid and symbiotic: we know each other’s best qualities and complement each other to offer our clients high-quality personalized assistance.

The studio primarily focuses on real estate development related to tourism on Lake Garda and continually enriches itself with new professional experiences, including collective residences, private villas, and medium to large-scale tourist facilities. We also handle the renovation of rustic buildings and the restoration of historical buildings, both public and private. Additionally, we provide interior architecture services, landscape planning, and design.

What inspires you?

We are inspired by the threshold relationship between architecture and the landscape, the permanence of some artifacts or the temporality of others, the nature of different materials, and their response to atmospheric conditions and surroundings.

What is your method?

We always learn a lot by studying, traveling, and working, engaging with other colleagues and professionals. This continuously leads us to improve and evolve our work. We also believe in an integrated approach from the beginning of the design process through collaboration with external partners.

So what characterizes your architecture?

We couldn’t answer precisely … it would be necessary to analyze many variables. However, for us, it is important that the building has the right proportions, is in scale with its context, and has appreciable references. We believe that to be good designers, measurement and culture are necessary (both humanistic and scientific). We believe that the architect’s role is to interpret the spaces he designs with a careful eye to the needs and aspirations of those who will inhabit them. Every project must be conceived with the intention of creating functional, aesthetically pleasing environments that are in harmony with the surrounding context, offering living experiences that fully satisfy the needs and well-being of those who will inhabit these spaces, providing them with a refuge where the soul can be found in the intimate dialogue between man and the environment. All our projects are linked by a strong sense of proportion, harmony, and comparison with the territory. The integration and insertion of architectures into the place and the surrounding context is a priority for us, as well as attention to the efficiency of construction and energy solutions.

How would you summarize the present and future of your studio?

De Santi and Associates Studio of Architecture is experimentation, reflection, and collaboration linked to the architecture project. Experimentation because through research, both technical and theoretical, we design or “put forward” the future consciously, promote novelties, and offer unique solutions to realize projects that, in addition to satisfying clients and users, enrich our professional and artistic competence. Reflecting to understand the role of construction not only as a technical-economic entity but also and above all as responsibility towards the natural environment, the anthropized context, the History that preceded us and that we are obliged to continue according to qualitative logics. Collaborating because it represents the lever of the new era of constructions, increasingly complex and demanding, without which specialization and sectorization required even in the simplest assignments cannot be faced. This triple relationship translates into gestures and interventions that seek in form and construction the reasons for belonging and appropriateness of the spaces we inhabit… and then we believe they are all equally necessary to get up in the morning and be happy to take the pencil and materialize our idea of Architecture.