Laa Architecture

The aerial spaces, the green and the blue, the wind and the sun. It’s difficult to capture Salento’s essence in a few lines or in a single architecture. This video offers a glimpse of our exciting journey through this project. The rest cannot be told on paper or, more precisely, on screen. You must take the long way there to truly taste the magic and take it back with you.

Boutique Hotel in Salento: Drone footage thanks to Peter Rachinsky. Salento is one of the most charming areas in southern Italy, renowned for its beautiful sea, baroque architecture and hundred years old olive trees. The orig...

To be a good architect, or a decent one at least, you have to hone and develop the art of listening, a skill that is more and more difficult to find nowadays.

You must listen to your clients, what their desires and ambitions are, where their goals and needs lie. How do they live and how do the people they love. How they interact and socialise, what's their relationship with the clouds above them and the rain outside their window.

You must listen and remain silent for as long as possible, concentrating on their words, because the architecture you'll produce will be none other than the clothing that will dress their dreams.

I've been asked several times what an architect does and whether we really need architects.
"Is it not architecture an expensive, unnecessary extravagance?"

The answer is that there are multiple answers.

No, we don't need architects; they are superfluous figures who simply exist to discuss how to organise a space and select materials, reflecting on the principles of Vitruvian proportion and the historical contexts of buildings from different eras.

No, we don't need architects, as a kitchen extension is essentially a cube added to another cube, and a loft conversion is merely a triangular prism applied on another—something we commonly refer to as a roof.

No, we don't need architects, just as we don't need psychologists, relationship therapists, sociologists, or anthropologists because, at our core, human beings are simply a collection of vital organs functioning together.

Here lies the essential point, then: once a human body is mechanically able to function, what governs its perception of the world or its relationships with other human beings?

A building is like a living organism among others; it must adhere to specific rules providing the backdrop for the lives of people in a city, village, or hamlet.

While a badly executed painting may only affect those who gaze upon it, a poorly designed building can disrupt the entire community that interacts with it for years to come.

Moreover, a building serves as an envelope containing various spaces, each designated for different activities at different times of the day and across the seasons.

These spaces exist in a delicate balance, and when this balance is disrupted, it can have a profoundly negative impact on the daily lives and moods of their inhabitants for years.

So, yes, we need architects because a kitchen extension is not just a cube, a loft conversion is not just a triangular prism, and a building is not just a random object placed in a vacant plot.

What do you think about this? Are architects necessary, or can we live without them?