BIM Object Interview: Livia Geusa - BIM Coordinator & Senior Architect

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Intervista Livia Geusa – BIM Coordinator & Senior Architect 

Sono architetto dal 2012. Ho lavorato per cinque anni in una società di ingegneria dove ho avuto la possibilità di lavorare per due periodi prolungati all’estero, in particolare in Oman e in Qatar. Con il progetto della nuova metropolitana di Doha in Qatar è iniziato il mio approccio alla metodologia BIM.

Da tre anni lavoro presso Studio Costa Architecture come BIM Coordinator e Senior Architect dove ho implementato ulteriormente le mie conoscenze utilizzando Revit anche per la progettazione degli interni.

Studio Costa Architecture è uno studio di progettazione con sede a Roma, Dubai e Riyadh che sviluppa progetti di architettura a varie scale, dal masterplan all’architettura fino all’interior design.

Negli ultimi anni sono stata BIM Coordinator per progetti complessi di Interior Design sia per strutture ricettive che residenziali di lusso in Medio Oriente.

Proprio grazie a questi lavori siamo riusciti ad implementare perfettamente la tecnologia BIM in tutti i processi di lavoro dello studio, dai processi creativi preliminari fino a quelli più tecnici esecutivi.

Per quale motivo ha scelto di utilizzare BIMobject?

Seguo progetti di Interior Design in Revit dalla fase progettuale iniziale del concept fino al costruttivo, è perciò utile trovare sulla piattaforma di Bimobject i modelli di arredo che siano sempre aggiornati, dettagliati e corrispondenti a quelli che sono pubblicati nei cataloghi dei principali marchi presenti sul mercato internazionale. In questo modo il team è in grado di consegnare al cliente in tempi rapidi un progetto verosimile nelle dimensioni e proporre delle immagini che siano realistiche.

Come usa abitualmente BIMobject?

Nei progetti che sviluppiamo spesso mi confronto con progetti di ID di grande dimensione e complessità e nel coordinare il team è utile una piattaforma come Bimobject dove poter trovare modelli 3D per famiglie Revit che utilizziamo spesso come ad esempio arredi, sanitari ed elementi di illuminazione ma che siano anche siano compatibili con gli altri software utilizzati.

In che modo BIMobject è utile al suo lavoro?

Il workflow della progettazione di ID include l’utilizzo di diversi software a seconda della fase progettuale e dell’intento della rappresentazione. Poiché SCA si occupa non solo della progettazione ma anche della visualizzazione è utile poter usufruire di modelli esistenti di arredi aggiornati che attualmente sono in catalogo al fine di utilizzarli nei diversi software e infine mostrarli ai clienti direttamente nei renderings perché hanno materiali e texture incorporati.

Quali sono le opportunità che le sta offrendo BIMobject?

Sicuramente permette di svolgere più velocemente il lavoro poiché mostra contemporaneamente su un’unica piattaforma oggetti di numerose aziende produttrici per poter fare un rapido elenco dei vari fornitori presenti sul mercato e per poter analizzare direttamente un confronto tra le caratteristiche di un determinato componente tra i diversi brand. La possibilità di avere una bacheca di preferiti riduce maggiormente il tempo e la semplicità nella ricerca.

Il suo lavoro riesce ad essere più “sostenibile” per l’ambiente grazie a BIMobject e il mondo digitale?

In termini di sostenibilità sicuramente si risparmia sulla stampa di numerosi cataloghi cartacei, di difficile consultazione e che poi solitamente vengono superati e aggiornati annualmente.


Rebuild

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Now we know that new lifestyles are possible.
It’s time to rebuild our cities.
Let’s make them more sustainable, inclusive, in harmony with nature. Let’s rebuild the cities of the future today.

New Humanism for the cities of tomorrow.


U.F.A. – Unidentified Flying Architecture

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I sogni dei bambini sono libertà e ispirazione. Sognano: immaginano nuovi spazi senza limiti, più fantasiosi e adatti alla loro crescita. Al risveglio, trasformano questi spunti in gioco e sperimentano con gli oggetti reali le varie possibilità di comporre e ricomporre i volumi, creando costruzioni che impegnano fantasia e manualità, rischio felicità e rigore. Anche così…nasce l’architettura.

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New Humanism and innovative design approaches for the post pandemic era

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MAG Dubai Heatlhcare City, Park

What is the kind of world that we want to live and thrive in?

Macro-trends that defined the world of the near past have long been defined: world geopolitics; high-speed telecommunications; AI; climate change. Today, humanity has received a rough jolt; we are now catapulted towards a ‘strange’ tomorrow. So the main question, in my view, is: what impact will this new condition have on our established models of the city and our behavior as citizens?

Two main drivers will guide this process: public health– improving the level of hygiene, disinfection and maintenance of buildings, and a lower propensity to physical mobility driven by the new technologies with which everyone is learning to live.

The world will have to achieve another balance of urbanization, density, quality of life and sustainability of the model, both from an economic and environmental point of view. The city is the only model of social life and provides aggregation on a human and economic level, and perhaps also of the environment.

MAG Dubai Heatlhcare City, Plaza

It is the ‘work from home’ concept that becomes the central to this new way of thinking about cities. Interestingly, these models already exist. The Roman Palace, the Castle, the farmhouses, etc .;the work was carried out at home. Until yesterday, we lived with the obligation to move and within just a few weeks, an unknown virus has taught us that we could do without it, brutally accelerating digitization of the work place, a process that was already underway in many sectors.

The need for hygiene to be guaranteed will entail higher maintenance and transformation costs which, together with the cost of real estate and less relocation, will lead to a natural optimization of the offices, resulting in new and more advanced forms of co-working. The large multinationals will be able to organize themselves better without investing in large and expensive headquarters, but in capillary and neighbor friendly networks of multipurpose spaces, suitable for both the community during the night time and for work during the day. Small, multi-departmental offices, hyper-connected and scattered throughout the area, close to places of residence, open 24×7 for 365 days, where people can experience even more interesting relationships.

So, the physical relationship will no longer be that of ‘home to office’, but will evolve towards the most efficient, safe, relaxing, economic, sustainable, social outcome: ‘home to office space at home  to condominium to neighborhood co-working to HQ office to virtual office’.

Will our homes change? They will evolve.

Could it be the end of the skyscraper?

MAG Dubai MBR CIty, Residentila green court

The public, condominium and private green open spaces will expand greatly in the cities of tomorrow. For some time now they have been deemed essential and will increasingly be so by integrating spaces for play, leisure, sporting activities, for small community vegetable gardens and much more. The psychological sense of well-being and purity is fundamental as well as the need to have safe paths for personal mobility.

It will be important for us architects to envision future projects, to define higher quality and design standards, to imagine and guide new trends that will enable a safer, more peaceful, pleasant and beautiful way of life. But part of the commitment is also up to the legislators in accepting that the paradigm has changed and that the cultural standards founded in the 1920s are no longer current.

So, will everything change? Should we get rid of what has been done so far? Will it be the death of our urban landscapes? I don’t think so at all; humanity needs legacy and vision. Our historic cities, our existing models are the basis from which to start. In a contemporary and future key, of course, with new standards and possibilities for intervention in the existing, without increasing what we have but modifying it, replacing it and using it better.

How can we tackle and define this path that will sculpt our habits, our standards, our economic development and sustainability models, the regulatory body, and much more? Let us go into the unknown. We already possess the cultural and intellectual tools to be able to plan this change, with vision and foresight in its evolutionary historical perspective and with the foundations of our values ​​well anchored in the awareness of our ecosystem.

Only a New Humanism principle will be able to support us in this historical situation. This humanistic approach will be the infrastructure through which we can positively convey the strength and impact of technology. We may need other tools, new and unknown, to deal with unknowns that come from the immensity of nature and the evolution of AI. But the fundamental guiding principle of humanism is here to stay.

New Humanism– the Earth is craving it, Humanity is making an appeal for it and AI cannot stop it.

Residenza Tarvisium- Treviso, Terraces view


Architectural considerations for post‐coronavirus

Architectural considerations for post‐coronavirus
The fundamental relationship between home and work.

We are facing an epochal event. We have no idea of how long this emergency is going to last but we can try to understand and define what our world will look like when all of this will be finished. The world in which we want to live and thrive.

First, I would like to address the possible post-pandemic scenarios.
We have two options. The first is the catastrophic one. Many great experts tell us that everything will change, that our lives will no longer be the same and that we will have to adapt to live in a post-pandemic scenario that looks like the post-atomic environment shown in several films and books; if this is true, the world that we are used to will no longer exist: no more theaters, restaurants, squares, outdoor walks, football matches and so forth.
The second one, which in my mind is the most likely, sees the human being as a resilient creature that as well as every natural element takes its course, and , as always happens, improves itself making the most of the current situation.
After September 11th we should have stopped to travel. The same goes for all the great pandemics in history.
I believe that, instead, we will simply have to start living our daily lives dealing with a new important element: our personal wellbeing and the one of everyone around us.
Most probably we will defeat this disease. We will develop a cure. But, anyhow, we will have to deal with a big change in the way we live our daily lives, and this will be for good.
I do not want to focus on the sanitary aspects of this change. Instead I am interested in how this will affect the way we approach the design of the city, specifically commercial and residential buildings.
History is a great teacher. All the big changes in the way we conceive our cities are dictated by the need to improve the public health conditions and to fight epidemic like this.
Certainly, the main drivers will be the ever greater need to keep public health under control, and therefore to improve significantly the hygienic, cleaning and maintenance level of our buildings, and the lower propensity to physical movement aided by the new communication technologies which we are all learning to live with.
I consider it unlikely the hypothesis to reduce the density of our cities. Humanity cannot afford it. Cities like NYC, Tokyo, London, Hong Kong would no longer exist; countries like India, China (3 billion people) would not survive. Trying to imagine how our physical environment (cities, residencies, offices) could evolve toward I can definitely see better quality and dimensional standards that would provide a sustainable answer to the big economic and social challenges the entire humanity is facing in these times.
Will our homes change accordingly? I think so. At least I hope so.
We have been forced to use them more than what contemporary economy imposed us in the last years.
Tiny apartments where few members of an increasingly shrank family must spend less and less time if not to sleep. I think we should start thinking about having a dedicated space for working, a room or a quite corner, increase the dimensions and improve space flexibility to carry out safe social activities, and to grow up our children.
Rethink the entrances as a filter that can be used for safe deliveries or as decontamination space where who access the apartment can wash hands, change shoes, leave coats…
At the semi-private level, I see the need to integrate common services, on the US model, which would allow to maximize the space inside the houses by keeping the amount of private square meters unchanged.

Co-working spaces, first aid, nurseries equipped with advanced diagnostic devices to monitor the wellbeing of the inhabitants and much more.
Having semi-public outdoor areas is already a growing trend which responds to the demand of spaces for playing, cultivate a small vegetable garden, outdoor activities, relax areas and so forth.

Talking about workplaces, I strongly believe they will undergo major changes as well, especially offices. The drivers will necessary be the following:
Need for hygiene.
Greater use of remote working.

Reduced demand for business travel.
Need for greater distance between workers.
What does this translate into? Probably the need for higher hygiene standards entails higher maintenance costs, but, combined to the lower real estate costs and the lower expenses for business trips, will lead to a natural optimization of the office costs and maybe to new and more advanced forms of co-working.
Also, the typical layout will change, allowing for more individual spaces equipped for online meetings with the latest telecommunication technology and advanced audio / video systems.
Large companies will be able to set up a more efficient structure without investing in large campuses and implementing new widespread and neighborhood friendly networks of multipurpose spaces which could be used by the community during non-working hours.
Small, flexible offices, hyper-connected and scattered throughout the city, close to employees’ houses.
Probably there will be health scanners at the entrance and it will be the security that will not let us in if we are not feeling well instead of forcing people to attend work even if sick.

Another effect of the current situation will be visible on larger common areas, hallways, lobbies, vertical transportation and more restrictive occupational standards. Is this the end of high-rise buildings era?
The relationship between back-of-house and front-of-house with the increased demand for spaces dedicated to services had already undermined the economic sustainability of such kind of super-structures.

Certainly, we need to rethink the ventilation systems for our offices, both natural and mechanical which will increasingly be microbiologically controlled with the same systems already in use on some new cars, equipped with anti-bacterial micro-filters suitable for bacteriological attacks (!).
Especially in closed environments such as lifts, toilets etc. the standards should be raised to the one used for hospitals and other sanitary structures. Desks’ size will go back to 180 cm instead of the actual 140.

Even the world of healthcare will change significantly.
Smaller structures, closer to residential areas to decongest hospitals which will focus on serious cases and emergencies, multiple diagnostic facilities, increased health standards at home and in the workplaces.
Extended care will certainly have to be thoroughly rethought, having to guarantee the highest safety standards. My hope is that, instead of isolating ourselves even more than what we are now, becoming more and more addicted to our smart phones we will accept the challenge and use this pandemic as an opportunity to transform darkness into light, to improve our perspective and to rethink the way we live and design our cities, homes, offices and schools.


BIMportale Yearbook

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Link:  https://www.bimportale.com/bimportale-yearbook-2019-firm/

Studio Costa Architecture is one of the Best Italian Firms included in the BIMportale yearbook 2019! We thank BIMportale for the recognition of our work and our professional commitment to make BIM an essential tool for a quality architectural design.

A special thank to our tenacious design team and to our BIM Manager, Davide Giambelli, for supporting us in every daily challenges for a successful growth.


Riyadh Season Pop-Up Restaurants

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More than 7.650.000 visitors in a month this year at Riyadh Season 2019. What a great success!

We at Studio Costa Architecture are very proud to be part of this accomplishment delivering the interior design for the popups of these renowned restaurants.

White Rabbit is one of the best worldwide restaurants that are featured at the biggest entertainment event in the Saudi capital city…

Team: Studio Costa Architecture + FMT entertainment + Arena Middle East & Asia