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Faculty

Alessandro Orsini

Alessandro Orsini is an architect and co-founding partner of Rome and New York-based research and design practice Architensions. His investigations focus on architecture’s political, social, and environmental spatial networks with specific interests in the commons and the definition of new modes of collective living. His practice and research are intertwined with teaching, expanding collaborative modes of inquiry to respond to new definitions of ecologies and spatial ontologies.

Architensions’ work has produced an array of completed and ongoing projects at different scales, both internationally and in the US. Among them are “The Playground,” a public architecture for the Coachella Music and Art Festival 2022, “House on House,” an adaptive reuse design redefining domesticity, “San Ferdinando Vision Plan,” a project on the commons operating at the urban scale. The studio’s work has been exhibited at Modest Common in Los Angeles, a83 Gallery, and the Center for Architecture in New York City. Architensions was named the Next Progressives by Architect Magazine in 2020 and selected by Wallpaper for their 2022 Architects’ Directory and the USA 300, a list of people defining America’s creative landscape in the category of the new guard in 2023.

Alongside practice, Alessandro has been teaching design studios at Columbia University GSAPP since 2019 and has served as a guest critic in multiple architecture schools, including Yale, Pratt, Cornell, and Cooper Union. He has contributed to journals and magazines, including Vesper Journal of Architecture, Arts & Theory, Faktur: Documents and Architecture, and Studio Magazine, with essays on topics spanning from the collective, labor and leisure, and public space. Alessandro received his Master of Architecture “summa cum laude” at Roma Tre University in Rome and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University GSAPP. He holds architectural licenses in Italy (OAR) and the United Kingdom (ARB).

Recent Projects

The Playground

The Playground Parallel Rules Exhibition at A83

San Ferdinando Urban Vision

House on House

Cooperative Housing in LA

Reset Towards the New Common Exhibition

Children Playspace

Recent Publications

Faktur Issue 4

Domus 1067

One House Per Day

Public Issue 5

Vesper Journal

Obiettivo Novecento

Studio Magazine

Courses

Course	Semester	Title	Instructor	Requirements & Sequence	Location & Time	Session & Points	Call No.
A4560‑1	Fall 2025	Professional Practice	Alessandro Orsini	REQUIRED, MARCH III Architecture Required	113 AVERY F 9 AM - 11 AM	FULL SEMESTER 3 Points	10668
A4104‑2	Spring 2025	Architecture Studio IV	Alessandro Orsini	Architecture Studio	500 SOUTH M+TH(1:30 PM- 6:30 PM), W (1:30 PM - 3:30 PM)	FULL SEMESTER 0 Points	10987
A4560‑1	Fall 2024	Professional Practice	Alessandro Orsini	Architecture Required	113 AVERY F 9 AM - 11 AM	FULL SEMESTER 3 Points	10569

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Publications

Columbia Books on
Architecture and the City

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Alessandro Orsini

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