How can bio-based materials become the foundation for architecture that is not only low-impact, but also beautiful and enduring? We spoke with Luca Compri, founder of LCA Architetti, about why sustainability and architectural quality should never be seen as opposites. In the interview, he shares his perspective on designing with natural materials and explains how projects like Casa Quattro demonstrate that contemporary architecture can be both environmentally responsible and architecturally ambitious.
Luca Compri will be speaking at the Bio-based Building Materials Conference on 26–27 August, where he will present Casa Quattro – The House of Wood, Straw & Cork.
Read the interview below with Luca Compri.
Your work often explores the relationship between sustainability and architectural quality. How would you describe your design philosophy?
The strategies linked to today’s new environmental challenges have only seemingly changed the way we think about and practise architecture.
This need has often led to a stereotyped approach, driven by a technical-energy mindset that has taken precedence over the compositional and spatial values of good architecture.
Is it possible to reconcile both goals?
Can we imagine a new language capable of expressing these values?
Starting from these premises, the research of LCA architetti seeks an effective answer by tackling and working on themes of different scale and function:
the renovation of an apartment; the design of a house made of wood, straw and cork; the construction of a home using reclaimed materials; a hotel with an extremely low environmental impact; a passive industrial building of very high environmental value.
Yet the primary objective always remains the same: to design space, beauty, poetry.
What first sparked your interest in bio-based building materials, and what continues to drive your work today?
The desire to use natural materials and to create architecture with a high sustainability value was, above all, an ethical choice. We cannot go on believing that we can keep building with materials that harm the environment and deplete the limited resources of our planet. The challenge is to create new, contemporary forms of expression using mainly natural materials — and today’s production techniques make this possible.
Where do you see the biggest opportunities—and the biggest challenges—for bio-based materials in the construction industry?
The challenge that accompanies our research is the same one that has always accompanied good architecture: the pursuit of beauty in full respect of people’s wellbeing and of the environment.
What do you think it will take for bio-based materials to move beyond pilot projects and become part of mainstream construction?
It is a process that is already under way. In supermarkets, organic food is no longer an exception but has become a valid, ever-present alternative.
The same thing is now maturing in the building sector. Protecting the environment is a necessity, and like all necessities it becomes an economic opportunity.
My hope is that business will follow a more ethical path than the one finance has taken in recent decades, contributing to the construction of a better and decidedly more sustainable world.
Is there a project you’ve worked on that you’re particularly proud of?
Casa Quattro and N Building.
We’d love to hear the story behind it and what makes it stand out:
They are two projects of opposite scale: Casa 4, a small single-family home; N Building, the largest timber industrial building in Europe — self-built and with no air-conditioning system. Yet the two projects have a great deal in common: the almost exclusive use of natural materials, the passive use of free energy sources, and above all the pursuit of quality architecture able to convey, clearly, the will to build something beautiful and sustainable.
If you could leave conference participants with one key insight or piece of advice, what would it be?
It is very easy to construct a building with natural materials and very high energy performance; what remains very difficult is to create good architecture.
What will you be speaking about at the conference, and what do you hope the audience will take away from your session?
I would like the audience to understand that beauty, too — and sometimes above all — is a fundamental element in building a more sustainable world.
Want to hear more about Casa Quattro and the ideas behind the project?
Join Luca Compri at the Bio-based Building Materials Conference on 26–27 August, where he will present how timber, straw and cork were used to create a contemporary, low-impact home – and why architectural quality is just as important as material choice when designing the buildings of the future.
