Common Ground - Venice Biennale 2012

Buro Happold

02/10/2012 Written by: Giammichele Melis No comments

Attending the preview in Venice of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition, directed by David Chipperfield, has been really inspiring.

The Biennale is without doubt architecture’s most important exhibition and the fact that it takes place in Venice can be no accident, as its curator has underlined: “Venice supplies a stage that no other city could for such an event and Italy remains the spiritual home of architecture.”

A key event of this year’s vernissage was the debate held by David Chipperfield, at which he presented both this year’s exhibition and its theme: Common Ground. The intention of the theme, as explained by Chipperfield, is to create a dialogue around the discipline of architecture that looks at what, from different positions, viewpoints and backgrounds, we share and how this dialogue might influence our ability to coordinate our resources and ambitions, thus giving more vision to our collective efforts.

For me, as an engineer working on multidisciplinary projects, this has always been a fundamental aim and, collectively at Buro Happold, we really believe that making effective use of our knowledge and the resources at our disposal is part of our mission and consequently, embedded into every single piece of work we do.

Listening to the debate at the Biennale reminded me that the importance of collaboration in the success of any project is not an obvious thing; we sometimes take it for granted. As project team members we need to work together collaboratively, sharing ideas and solutions as work progresses, making our clients an active part of the process (I’m mainly thinking of our Italian projects where this is probably a less common practice) since it’s only through pursuing a  joint effort that we can really guarantee the success of our projects.

The 13th International Architecture Exhibition, directed by David Chipperfield is open from 29th August to 25th November 2012 in the Giardini and Arsenale venues (10 am to 6 pm, closed on Mondays).