International Conference on Education through the Built EnvironmentReading the Space.2nd Edition

Valentina Borsato

Graduated in Economic Studies at the University of Venice, she has worked in the industrial field dealing with planning and control activities, in cities such as Rome, Milan and Bologna. Inside the team of La Biennale di Venezia Foundation team since 2001, she was Chief Financial Officer of the Planning and Control Department and, since 2009, she has been managing also Audience Promotion and Educational activities.
Married, with two sons, she has many interests, including cinema, literature, walking and one great hobby: music.

Michele Corna

La Triennale di Milano

Design and education are my passions and the main areas of my personal training.
I started working at Triennale Milano in 2010 in the newly established internal education department, leading guided tours and workshops and planning activities for children related to the Design Museum. Now I coordinate the development of education activities aimed at all audiences related to the entire cultural offer of Triennale Milano.
My current frontier of research and work also involves Museum Accessibility.

Jan Liesegang

Born in Cologne 1968, he studied Architecture in Berlin, Copenhagen and at the Cooper Union School of Architecture, New York. After graduating in Berlin he worked for 3 years as project architect for Sauerbruch Hutton Architects, Berlin. In 1999 he co-founded raumlaborberlin. Today raumlabor works worldwide on contemporary architecture, urbanism, art and research. From 2001-07 he has been teaching architecture and urban planning at the Art Academy, Stuttgart. In 2010 he was awarded with a one-year research scholarship for the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome. 2014/16 he taught master classes at the Bergen School of Architecture. Since 2017 he is professor for urbanism and architecture at the Bergen School of Architecture. In 2015 he co published the book “building the city together” on experimental architecture and new self-organized public spaces.

Stefania Napolitano

Graduated in Architecture at La Sapienza University of Rome, with a project for the extension of the Galleria Comunale di Arte Moderna. After the learning experience as tutor in the academic courses of Museum design and Scenography, she works as architect in several Italian and international firms, to finally land in MAXXI Education department with which she collaborates in curating, organizing and conducting several learning programs addressed to different targets. She participates to the second and the third edition of the pilot project Museum among the school desks. On the occasion of the exhibition Extraordinary Visions. L’Italia ci guarda, she curates the special project “Building the community of the 21st century” as declination of the format InsideOut conceived by the street artist J.R.. Recently she has contributed to the “Kids Museum” project as participatory writing workshop aiming at involving 9-year-old students in the caption editing of a selection of masterpieces from the MAXXI permanent collection of art and architecture on the occasion of the exhibition The Place To Be. She co-curates the first international congress dedicated to education through the built environment Leggere lo spazio/Reading the Space which took place at MAXXI at the beginning of 2019.

Fiona MacDonald

Fiona is Head of Learning at the Design Museum and Co-Founder of MATT+FIONA. She endeavours to bridge design and participation in her practice, particularly from the perspective of view of young people. In her architectural training, she completed her undergraduate studies at Edinburgh University where her work was nominated for the Bronze Presidents Medal and won The Lighthouse Award.
Her postgraduate studies were at The Cass in London where her final year project was nominated for the Silver Medal and won RIBA London’s Live Community Project Award. She has taught architecture at both Edinburgh University and The Bartlett, and Interior and Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Art, UAL.
Outside academia, Fiona has become experienced in opening up the built environment to the wider community. For three years she ran the education projects at the architecture charity, Open-City, home of the Open House London weekend. Prior to her work at the Design Museum, she established the National Schools Programme for the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Marta Morelli

Head of Education at MAXXI

Marta Morelli is an art historian and a heritage educator. She obtained the Master of Arts in Learning and Visitor Studies in Museums and Galleries at School of Museum Studies of University of Leicester. She runs the Education Office at MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Arts (Rome) where she’s been working since 2005. She was a member of the Scientific Committee of Ludantia. I International Biennial on Architecture Education for Children and Youngsters (Pontevedra, Spain). She created Reading the Space. International Conference on Education through Architecture (first edition January 2019, second edition March 2021). Her research focuses on social inclusion, participatory planning and education through the built environment.

Matthew Springett

Matthew Springett is principal of London based architectural practice, MSA and Co-Founder of MATT+FIONA. He studied at St Martin’s School of Art and The Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow, before graduating from The Bartlett School of Architecture in 1998, winning the RIBA Silver Medal and Bannister Fletcher Prize. He worked with Chris Wilkinson Architects and for Sir Nicholas Grimshaw before establishing MSA in 2001.
He is an accredited RIBA Client Adviser specialising in education design. He runs an architectural design studio at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he has taught over the past 14 years.
Matthew’s office offers a creative studio environment in which collaborative working is encouraged. The practice has a long-term R&D strategy based on active ‘making’ which encourages input from all staff. As well as building design, MSA explore the broader realms of architecture through built installation projects, and have recently won and delivered projects in the United States and UK. MSA’s work has been widely exhibited including 2008 solo exhibition ‘BIGSMALL’ in London. Matthew’s work was been recipient of the Royal Academy ‘Best First Time Exhibitor’ in 2002.