Riccardo Vannucci

BArch (Rome), 1984

PhD in Architecture (Rome), 1997

Senior Scientist, FAR   

Trained as an architect in Italy, Riccardo Vannucci has more than thirty years of experience as an architectural design consultant in Italy, the Middle East and Africa. In 2006 he established FAREstudio, an architectural practice that focuses on the strategic integration of design and construction within challenging socio-economic environments, reflecting an interest in exploring the potential of architecture to act as an agent of innovation and development. The work of the firm has been extensively published and exhibited.

A double graduate of the University ‘La Sapienza’ in Rome, Riccardo Vannucci has a PhD in Architectural Design Methods. Since 1985, he has practiced architecture in a range of contexts in Italy and throughout Africa and the Middle East. In 2006, he established FAREstudio, an architectural practice that has gained wide renown for its design and construction interventions in various African countries, undertaken in conjunction with a range of non-government organisations, United Nations agencies, and the European Community. The activities of the firm have been mostly centered on the development of small scale buildings as infrastructural components of larger programmes, by-and-large associated with international cooperation and development aid.

FAREstudio’s projects have featured in numerous publications, including Architecture Asia, Arquitectura Viva, Boundaries, Domus, Il Giornale dell’Architettura, Space, and the 2011 ATLAS Architecture of the 21° Century, Africa and Middle East, of the Fundacion BBVA. Their Centre pour le Bien-être des Femmes in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, was awarded the Health Category Award at the World Architecture Festival (2008), the Special Mention at the Gold Medal for Italian Architecture (2009), the Barbara Cappochin Biennial Prize (2009), the Chicago Athenaeum Award (2009), the Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity (2010), the Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Special Prize (2014), and it was shortlisted for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2010). In 2009 it was exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.In 2010, FAREstudio was included in the Italian Pavilion at the 12th Venice Architecture Biennale and in the Milano Triennale. In 2011 Riccardo Vannucci was invited to the Democracy Biennale in Turin. To date, he has given numerous other public lectures and seminars around the world, including universities in Australia, Albania, Chad, England, Italy, Spain, Sri Lanka and Sweden.

As rendered explicit in the name of his office and his several writings, Riccardo Vannucci believes in a concrete yet proactive approach to architecture and technology. Indeed, an essential part of FAREstudio’s design method is the systematic analysis and critique of the practices in use within the building domains where they are called on to work. This is to form a reflective position on the effectiveness of accepted solutions and, when necessary, a disrupting one in relation to the opportunity or the need for technical and/or typological innovation. In 2013-2015, Vannucci was the local partner of Australian architecture firm Denton Corker and Marshall for the design and construction of the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He keeps an ongoing working relationship with UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).