Andrea grew up in Ferrara, in Northern Italy and studied architecture. Seeing that the prospects for young architects were few, he planned to go abroad and found himself in the Netherlands.
‘In Italy the atmosphere was pessimistic and stagnant. I wanted to challenge myself and learn to live in another culture. Everything is pretty well taken care of in the Netherlands.’
Andrea is not a fan of extremely large or very iconic buildings. ‘The purpose of architecture is to do people a service by building a bridge or a swimming pool that enhance well-being and the quality of life, by being functional in a strikingly clever and beautiful way. I wanted to work at ZJA because here we try to forge a logical connection between functionality, the technical aspects, and the appearance of a building. I’m always looking for the human scale, the human value, the social quality of what we build.’