Scandurra Studio: constructing meaning through architecture

In this episode of Behind, we meet Alessandro Scandurra, founder of Scandurra Studio, an architectural practice that has dedicated nearly three decades to research and experimentation.

What began as Scandurra’s early exploration of the relationship between space and individuals has evolved into a methodical yet poetic approach to architecture — one that moves fluidly between art, memory, and urban transformation. His path started in scenography, long before completing his architecture degree. Those early experiences defined his sensibility toward the spatial, perceptual, and emotional dimensions of design.

His first works investigated how people interact with architectural environments. From those beginnings emerged a practice focused on understanding the city as a living organism, where spaces are constantly redefined by the movement of people and the weight of history.

“We live in a dense, stratified, multidimensional reality,” says Scandurra. “Globalization often dilutes meaning — it confuses and flattens the sense of things. Our work aims to rebuild meaning, to identify what truly matters in each situation, and bring it to the surface.”

For Scandurra, architecture is an act of sense-making. Each project begins by listening to a site’s memory, its material traces, its social and cultural patterns — before translating them into a coherent form. The result is an architecture that reads and learns from its context but also transforms it, producing what he describes as “sensitive landscapes and emblematic objects.”

Two projects in particular embody this philosophy: Spiga 26 and Uptown District. Both engage directly with Milan’s urban structure, addressing how architecture can reconnect with its surroundings and with the people who inhabit it.

Situated on Via della Spiga, one of Milan’s most historic streets, Spiga 26 reinterprets a post-war building while revealing the traces of its forgotten past. The 1950s structure had been reconstructed on the ruins of the neoclassical Palazzo Pertusati, destroyed during World War II.

Scandurra’s intervention partially demolished and reopened the building to the city. “We brought the ground floor, which was raised above the street, back down to its natural level,” he explains. “We wanted Via della Spiga to enter the building.” Inside, a large inner courtyard allows public life to flow through, turning the private into a shared urban experience.

The project’s material language amplifies its historical dialogue: a ceramic terracotta cladding recalls the textures and tones of the original palazzo, while subtle sculptural elements evoke the caryatids once visible in archival images. “It’s a building made of memory,” says Scandurra. “We tried to reveal where it came from.”

Through these gestures, Spiga 26 becomes a contemporary reinterpretation of history — a building that does not imitate the past, but reactivates it, restoring continuity between what was lost and what can still evolve.

If Spiga 26 deals with memory, Uptown District explores the construction of a new urban community. The residential development, located in Milan’s Cascina Merlata area, consists of more than 500 apartments and over a thousand inhabitants — a microcosm of urban life designed around shared spaces.

Working within the larger master plan, Scandurra Studio envisioned a network of buildings integrated with a vast central park. “We wanted to bring greenery into the homes without losing the urban character,” Scandurra notes. The project blurs the boundaries between public and private: the park extends into courtyards, private gardens connect to shared paths, and ground floors host small functions that open to the city — cafés, studios, and communal spaces.

This spatial porosity creates a hybrid landscape, where architecture and nature coexist. “The houses are not abstract objects placed on an abstract territory,” Scandurra explains. “They are pieces of the landscape that generate a sense of community and recognition.”

Across scales and typologies, Scandurra Studio’s work expresses a consistent idea: architecture is a cultural act that reconstructs meaning within complexity. Whether through the reactivation of a historic fragment or the design of a new urban fabric, the studio’s projects reveal how architecture can both interpret and transform reality.

By reading the city as a layered narrative — one where every project becomes a chapter of rediscovery — Scandurra proposes an architecture of awareness. His buildings do not merely occupy space; they listen to it, learn from it, and return it to the community enriched with new possibilities.

In a global context where urban environments risk becoming anonymous, Scandurra Studio’s approach restores identity and coherence — proving that to build is, ultimately, to construct meaning.

The original BEHIND series comes to life thanks to the invaluable support of our trusted partners:

• Lavazza Group
• DGRS
• Desiree (Gruppo Euromobil)