Radical Logic: On the Work of Ensamble Studio reflects on the work of the architecture office Ensamble Studio. The book, edited by Iker Gil, documents the first twenty years of the Boston- and Madrid-based office at a key moment in their career. After having designed and built a series of remarkable structures, such as the Hemeroscopium House in Madrid, the SGAE Central Office in Santiago de Compostela, The Truffle in Costa da Morte, and Structures of Landscape for Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, their Ca’n Terra House and Ensamble Fabrica projects mark the next phase of the office. Through specially commissioned interviews with the architects, essays, and photographic documentation of their work by photographer James Florio, the book provides unique insight into the ideas that drive the studio, the ambitions behind their key projects, and their ongoing explorations.
“We thought it was time to do a book about Ensamble, but we agreed that it should be different from a typical monograph. We really wanted to take a deep dive into their work. We shared the desire to slow down the process and the consumption of imagery.”—James Florio.
“To do a book like this today is almost an act of heroic romanticism.”—Antón García-Abril.
Ensamble Studio architecture informed Anna Mort and Rick Valicenti’s design methodology through their love of process, nature, time, and of course materiality. James Florio’s photographic responses to Ensamble Studio’s work captured a variety of weather and light conditions.
Mort and Valicenti’s page design process oscillated in and around an organic yet scripted assembly of book ingredients all positioned on a fairly complex yet straight forward grid armature. They used a custom programming code written by Patric King so that a handful of different san serif fonts could work as if they were one font family all the while randomizing every character keystroke.
- Editor
- Iker Gil
- Photography
- James Florio
- Designer
- Anna Mort
- Designer
- Rick Valicenti
- Custom Typographic Script
- Patric King, House of Pretty
- Copyediting
- Michelle Benoit
- Proofreading
- Ellen Peixoto
- Printing
- Graphic Arts Studio
Project link
