Italian architect Stefano Pujatti is the founder of ELASTICOFarm, a firm based in Torino and Toronto recognized for its focus on merging formal and material explorations through an approach that addresses global challenges by strategically leveraging local resources. In this lecture, Pujatti will discuss a selection of both built and unbuilt projects — exploring how environmental factors such as time, climate, and water influence the firm’s design process. The audience will become acquainted with the firm’s design philosophy, which is marked by an optimistic and ironic outlook that propels ideas past obstacles while welcoming doubts more than certainties.

Buildings like the SlowHorse hotel, which was short-listed at the Mies Van der Rohe Award in 2013 and won the Plan Award in 2015, exemplify Pujatti’s approach to sustainability through a masterful design that integrates natural elements like snow in the building tectonics, providing a distinctive appearance. In 2023, his factory project S-LAB won the Italian Architecture Prize by Maxxi and Triennale di Milano as best built project in Italy.

Pujatti has taught at Politecnico di Torino (2004-2014) and the University of Toronto (2014-2015) and exhibited at the Architecture Biennale in Venice for multiple years (2006, 2010, 2014, 2021). He won the INARCH-ANCE Young Designer Award in 2006 and Architect of the Year by AIAC in 2021.