Davide Marchetti received his master’s in architecture from the University of Rome La Sapienza in 2001 and joined the Massimiliano Fuksas Office in Rome upon graduation. The following year he became a member of the Italian Architects Registry, Chapter of Rome.
In 2004, he began his own practice, Davide Marchetti Architetto. The office is driven by a consistent philosophical approach, not a predetermined style. The work is orientated towards designing and realizing built interventions, cultivating a dialog with spatial relationships, and innovating with a nexus of research and application.
The projects run a gamut of scales: from buildings to interior design, from landscape to process and ecology design. All projects can be identified by strong concepts, based on wide research translated into clear spatial designs. Continuously, we try to explore and develop new ways of thinking about architecture and the surrounding habitat in order to create models for change and innovation.
Projects are approached with a comprehensive emphasis on environmental & sustainability themes, materiality, and cultural context. As a result, the studio aims to create specifically designed and detailed buildings that are deeply contextual with equal attention to function. High quality design results from the continuity of rigorous process and intensive dialogue with the client, consultants, contractors, and inhabitants.
Davide Marchetti has taught at Cornell University continuously from 2011, as a Visiting Critic in advanced design studios. He has also been an invited critic at Pratt Institute, Syracuse University, Catholic University, University of Miami, the University of Rome La Sapienza, the Federico II University in Naples and University of Pisa School of Engineering.
Davide Marchetti believes that the education of an architect manifests through a process, both the understanding and the application of the curriculum and studio discipline, as well as in the personal exploration of influences from multiple environments. These come from many sources, such as art and literature, science and medicine, history and economy. These conditions then consequently influence the scope of multidisciplinary practice that now permeates contemporary architecture. He is interested in fostering this environment, and adeptly responding to each own individual strengths, passions, and interests.
He also feels that being an architect means also understanding the fact that not everything around us exists because of a process of structured “designing”. With that, it is important to embrace influences from many sources: designed and unscripted, familiar, and unknown.
As Paul Rudofsky wrote in his book “Architecture without architects, an introduction to non-pedigreed architecture”, “…architecture (is) produced not by specialists but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting within a community of experience…”. The acceptance of this condition will bring the profession to higher level of vitality, as we must “…see the philosophy and practical knowledge of the untutored builders as untapped sources of inspiration for industrial man trapped in his chaotic cities…”
Davide Marchetti has won numerous awards and international architecture competitions including the 1st Prize in the “Redesigning Detroit: a new vision for an iconic site” project in 2013, the 1st Prize for the New Australian Pavilion at the Venice “Giardini” Biennale in 2008, the 1st Prize for the renewal of “1° Ottobre” Square in Santa Maria Capua Vetere in 2006 (completed in 2009) and the 1st Prize for the “Attilio Pecile” square and mixed-use sustainable building in Rome in 2006.
His works have been widely published in architectural & design magazines and online reviews such as Domus web, Detail, Frame Magazine, Mexico Design, Vogue Living Australia, RUM Sweden, Ktirio Greece, Arqfuture Spain, B1 Magazine Thailand, I a&b India, Insideout Dubai. His work has also been exhibited twice at the Venice Architecture Biennale, as well as in the Heide Museum in Melbourne.