BLAST Architetti

Studio BLAST ARCHITETTI was founded in 2001 by Luca Bombassei and Simona Traversa, who were joined in 2005 by Franz Siccardi. Around 20 professionals work together in the current offices of BLAST ARCHITETTI in Milan. As of 2009, a new office has been opened in Abu Dhabi, in the Arab Emirates, and one in Bucarest, to cover Eastern European market. Starting from work on prestige apartments and villas, the activity of BLAST ARCHITETTI has gradually diversified, turning to 360° architecture, from the design of public buildings, offices, to retail and hospitality and design. Since 2001 BLAST ARCHITETTI has been in charge of the coordination of the Kilometro Rosso Science and Technology Park project – an area of 392,000 square metres very close to the city of Bergamo – in collaboration with Jean Nouvel. Within this context of architectural excellence, multi-disciplinary activities of technological research and innovation are being fostered, with the aim of creating a knowledge network capable of accommodating 3,000 people over the next five years. The Kilometro Rosso experience has enabled BLAST ARCHITETTI to direct its project design activities towards the experimentation of sustainable architecture, which has been at the heart of all the work recently promoted by the Studio Blast architects. In particular, within the Kilometro Rosso Science and Technology Park, Studio Blast has designed the Professionals Centre, which is the first architectural project of its kind within the Bergamo province with certified energy performance, and the Innovation Centre of the University of Bergamo, where courses of mechatronics and bioengineering, as well as interdisciplinary courses aimed for developers and manager will be held.

Thanks to studied composition choices and to the use of natural materials and prefabricated elements with high energy performances, combined with innovative technologic plants, the buildings reach a total energy need which is lower than a half in comparison with the one required for a traditional building with market building costs. All buildings planned by BLAST ARCHITETTI have an air-conditioning system having probes and geothermal heat pumps creating, within Kilometro Rosso, an entire compartment where no fossil fuel shall be used and completely eliminating harmful emissions into the air. Such features have allowed both buildings to reach the A Class in compliance with the CASACLIMA energy certification protocol and the CENED certification of Regione Lombardia. Thanks to the work undertaken for Kilometro Rosso, BLAST ARCHITETTI has increasingly specialised in the management of large projects of land development, characterised by an innovative entrepreneurial approach to design. The objective of the studio’s architects is in fact to integrate architectural quality, energy and environmental sustainability, paying great attention to the assessment and control of the economic aspects of any type of work. Bearing witness to this orientation of BLAST ARCHITETTI are some of the most recent projects currently under way such as the new tourist and commercial buildings and for offices in Rumania, the E-motion Park, an innovative trade format dedicated to the automotive world, and the Flag ship store in Milan and London by Skitsch®, the new design mark. Moreover BLAST ARCHITETTI is developing new concepts dedicated to the children world, i.e. the Baby caring®, play and leisure centres for children and their parents, and the Children City WOW®, a play and leisure park having pedagogic purposes in Torre Annunziata (Naples). In 2009 BLAST ARCHITETTI has won the competition launched by the municipality of Bucarest for the requalification of the complex lake and urban parks system of the city of Bucarest.