Peja Culture Pavilion competition Honorable mention winners - Leonardo Ronchi and Katherine Jin Xiao

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the Honorable mention winners of our "Peja Culture Pavilion" competition – Leonardo Ronchi and Katherine Jin Xiao from France!

Leonardo Ronchi and Katherine Jin Xiao

Please tell us about your company (when it was founded, where it is based, how many employees, etc) Alternatively, if you do not have a company, please give us some insights on your own professional/academia background.

Leonardo Ronchi/ Graduated in Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. He worked with Sou Fujimoto Architects in Tokyo and Paris. He is a former founder the studio YM Yingzhu in Xian, currently he is Paris based and he is helping Coldefy to implement their international portfolio.

Kathrine Xiao/ Currently she is studying architecture at the Washington University in St Louis Missouri. She is a talented architectural designer with an award winning portfolio.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company/ individuals have been Involved?

Leonardo Ronchi/ In his career he has designed projects as the French Pavillion for the Expo25 in Osaka, the New Albanian Public Administration Cluster in Tirana, the HSG Learning Center in Sankt Gallen, the expansion of the New Polytechnic School in Paris and the refurbishment of the ancient Shiroyia Hotel in Maebashi.

Kathrine Xiao/ She partecipated during her experience in Coldefy Paris at the conception of the New Albanian Public Administration Cluster and a High Rise Mixed-Use Complex in Tirana

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

Architecture as a Spatial Regeneration Our idea of architectural intervention can be resumed in this title, we would suggest this short essay Leonard write years ago, and can be considered as a starting point and a reflection about architecture can be involved during these times where everything goes fast and change immediately, where the physical space is itself a portal for the virtual space (to intend in both ways: as digital or futurible and possible. "The definition of this term wants to connect directly the synergic systems which establish & constantly change our contemporary society. The political, anthropological & global ecological transformations are widely develope, the increasingly established interconnection networks through people & the improved pace of everyday life, determined by technological innovations, represent an absolute novelty in the human history. Thus, spatial composition, considered as a reflection of its period, necessarily has to relate with this irreversibly duplicated reality, since the birth & development of the virtual dimension, becoming a real amplification of reality. Therefore, ideologically merged with the architectural development, this diversification intends to be its base & able to define a new nature in a compositional-perceptual, space & time. the multidimensionality allows a process of change & an obvious spatial variation, both determined according to a variety of design methodologies, producing multifunctionalitly, diversifiable flows & interfaces able to provide immediate actions, constituting procedural inputs to a dualistic reality in the architectural design (& project) which could lead towards an utopistic appchitecture: formally defined programmatically infinite, or viceversa. As a result, the futurible design becomes a systematic development process, playing with the conceptual border between the physical & virtual, the actual & the possible, considering itself a device able to provide an unlimited number of evolutionary scenarios, constanly modifable, being the change itself, the essential process of all the existence."

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

We participate in competitions because they contribute to an architect's design evolution and provide an excellent opportunity to experiment with new solutions while challenging ourselves in different scenarios.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture competitions?

It's simply fun! do the first step!