Mirko Andolina is the Enel Foundation Italian Fellow in Architecture, Urban Design, and Landscape Architecture. His research, entitled 'Ancestral Future', explores the relationship between perception, behavior and climate in Rome's public spaces. During his fellowship, he developed an open archive focusing on the experiential qualities of public space in relation to climate in order to understand how our behaviors will shape future cities. He studied at the Politecnico of Milan, where he graduated as an architect with honours. His thesis, titled Hologramatic Territory, was developed in partnership with the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Following his experience as a teaching assistant at Politecnico of Milan, he worked at the office Stefano Boeri Architetti in Milan and at Topotek1 and MML in Berlin. In 2019, he co-founded fabulism with Giulia Pozzi, a landscape architecture practice based in Berlin and Bologna. Operating at the intersection of architecture, landscape, and urbanism, the studio develops projects across multiple scales that address climatic, social, and ecological transformations. Alongside his professional practice, Andolina has taught at the University of Kassel, the Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) Cottbus–Senftenberg, and the Hochschule Kaiserslautern – University of Applied Sciences.
How has your time in Rome shaped or shifted the direction of your project so far?
My time in Rome has had a profound influence on my research, particularly in exploring and observing how people behave in public spaces in relation to climatic conditions. Rome is a peculiar case, offering me the opportunity to build an archive of behaviors and ephemeral factors that characterize different places across the city. Climate is also a sensuous condition, shaping the way we experience and inhabit space, and this is something we must consider if we are to imagine better cities for the future.
What part of your daily routine or environment at the Academy has most influenced you and your work?
The opportunity to devote time to my research and the complete freedom I was granted were undoubtedly the most valuable resources during my fellowship. In terms of the daily routine, the shared lunchtime was one of the most stimulating moments. I found that being open to dialogue, exchange, and the cross-contamination of ideas with other fellows and scholars helped me enrich and further broaden my research.
Have any encounters – with people, places, new information – opened up new paths in your research or practice in the past months?
Wild and unexpected landscapes that I stumbled upon almost by chance made me reflect on the role of design and the process of transformation in contemporary society. More importantly, however, I met and got to know people at the Academy whom I hope will remain an important part of my life even after this unique experience.
What are you hoping to explore or deepen in the remaining months of your residency?
During the remaining time, I would like to further explore and develop the theoretical framework of my research, while also organizing the information gathered from the books and research papers I have collected from the Academy's library.