El Equipo Mazzanti

This publication, the first issue of the new ILS series, is dedicated to the projects realized by the Equipo Mazzanti studio. Founded by Giancarlo Mazzanti in Bogotà (Colombia), the studio encourages inter-disciplinary and participative planning research, thus developing the idea of "performative architecture" open to change and variations through time. An evolving process that can trigger new urban dynamics and encourage people to act in unusual ways. Equipo Mazzanti's work reflects the social changes occurring in Colombia and Latin America today, proving that architecture for education, conceived in terms of public space, is able to forge new identities for the City and its inhabitants. The book faces different subjects identified in terms of system, anomaly, and atmosphere, which structure the critical apparatus and the description of different kinds of projects in the field of education, such as schools, sports centers, and cultural buildings. The first part - system - offers a reflection on planning strategies based on modules, elements, and associative patterns, which are able to grow and adapt over time depending on future needs. The second part - anomaly - reflects on the role of architecture as social action while reviewing the principles founding the concept of "abnormality." These elements can stimulate new ways of living in the designed space by creating scenarios for unusual or unexpected relations and by fostering social changes in the context in which they operate. The third part - atmosphere - investigates the ways through which architecture produces mechanisms that influence the experience of the involved users, both individually and collectively; this planning strategy presents the different architectures as places for experimentation, change, and contrast, favoring the social condition and experience that is generated. An iconographic apparatus with plenty of drawings, pictures, and models complete the thematic illustration.