Emergencies and New Pandemics
The new frontiers of architecture serving the community
Friday 28 June, 19.00
The fight against Covid-19, in which the whole world participated between January 2020 and mid-2022, created the opportunity to rethink the architecture, not only of the hospitals and care centres that were popping up everywhere at that time, but also of homes, schools and community spaces. The two phases – the first, of isolation in quarantine according to public health provisions with reopening at the end of each wave, and the second, of vaccination and tracking of people as well as isolation depending on the situation – led to different scenarios, often with positive implications for existing buildings. In addition to ascertaining the adaptability of hospital buildings based on their predisposition for flexibility, very positive results were achieved by the recovery of buildings that had long been abandoned such as sports halls – which have proven indispensable for different uses aimed at Covid – and the updating of housing standards which, following speculative logic, had not been revised since the Second World War. Capitalising on the lessons learned and generating a debate that is still ongoing, it is essential to continue to stimulate new ideas in the face of the possibility of new pandemics.
SPEAKERS
Laura Andreini is a professor of architectural and urban composition at the University of Florence, a founding member of Archea (1988) and director of Forma Edizioni. She gained a degree in Architecture (1990) and a PhD (1997) from the University of Florence and, since the beginning of her career, has carried out academic and professional practice activities in parallel. In 2020, together with Nazila Khaghani (University of Tehran), she took part in the webinar series organised by the University of Florence to discuss architecture and the figure of the architect in relation to the profession and the new needs of the home and living in the post-COVID-19 phase.
Giuseppe Camporini is an architect, freelancer, and head of the Arch.G.Camporini studio, Venice. After graduating in architecture at IUAV with Gino Valle (1977), he received awards and recognition in the housing sector by participating in the exhibition “La casa, il tempo, il posto” (1994) receiving the “Riconoscimento di merito 1995” for works carried out in the province of Venice and the biennial Marcello D’Olivo award in Udine 2010. He has been President and Technical Director of the Hosplan company since 2010, specialising in major building works in the hotel, healthcare and sports sectors. He is currently involved in the construction management of the Montecchio Hospital (Vicenza).
Fabio Graceffa has been director of Medical Management at the Ss. Giovanni e Paolo Hospital in Venice since 2020 and director of the DMPO-Maternal and Child Department of the same hospital. Since graduating in Medicine at the University of Palermo (2001), where he then specialised in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine (2005), he has pursued a career in the management of various hospital facilities and health services in Sicily and Veneto. During the pandemic he was called to face the emergency on the front line at the historic hospital in Venice.
Vittorio Selle has been director of the SISP Hygiene and Public Health Service operational unit since 2005 and director of the Prevention Department of the Azienda Ulss3 Serenissima since 2022. He was deputy director of the Belluno Hospital (1992-97), medical director of the Adria Hospital (1997-2000), health director of Ulss6 of Vicenza (2000-2003), head of the Primary Care Unit for Ulss12 of Venice (2004-2005) and interim medical director of the Civic Hospital of Venice (2005-2008). Lecturer and member of the Master Board of Lecturers, between 2020-2022 he was the director of the Hygiene, Epidemiology and Public Health Service of Ulss12 of Venice, managing, designing and planning the actions to combat Covid-19 in the Venetian area.
Giuliano Gargano has been President of the Order of Journalists of Veneto since November 2021. He graduated in Modern Literature at the University of Padua, with a thesis in Italian grammar on the “Syntax of newspaper headlines”, he has been the editor-in-chief since 2017 and a collaborator since 2012 of the socio-health periodical “NES – NordEst Sanità”. He has collaborated with various newspapers, including the daily newspaper “Corriere del Veneto2, dealing with economics and trade union news and “Gente Veneta” (1998-2002). He received a special mention at the Penna d’oca award, announced by Assostampa Padova.
