Names to Know at the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial: AWP

**Poissy Galore – Observatory and Insects Museum by AWP + HHF**

Carrières-Sous-Poissy, France

The design of the museum and observatory tower are part of a new public park completed in 2017. The museum was designed to include public areas along with offices and spaces for raising different insect species, and the architects used a modular wood system, repeating and combining different sized and angled timber frames to frame the landscape beyond the buildings.

*Photo © Iwan Baan*

**LEONARDO DA VINCI EXHIBITION by AWP with Musée du Louvre and Prada**

Paris, France

The 2016 exhibition inside the Italian Embassy in Paris showcased paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci as well as enhancing the ambience of the embassy’s environs, the 18th century Hôtel de La Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville. Using lighting and reflective structures the architects’ blended the new architectural elements of the exhibition into the surrounding room.

*Photo © Mark Lyon/AWP UK*

**ENSTREETS ART & DESIGN DISTRICT by AWP**

Liverpool, United Kingdom

The architects developed a plan to implement a new creative district in an historical section of the city of Liverpool, which houses icons such as Stanley Dock, the Tobacco Warehouse, and the Tea Warehouse among others.

*Photo courtesy AWP UK*

**AWP’s partners; Alessandra Cianchetta, Marc Armengaud, and Matthias Armengaud.**

*Photo © Gregori Civera*

In 2003, architect Alessandra Cianchetta founded AWP in Paris with partners Marc Armengaud and Matthias Armengaud; she established the London studio in 2011. RECORD asked Cianchetta five questions about AWP’s work in preparation for the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Scroll through the slideshow above to see some of their key projects.

Architectural Record: Tell us about your practice. What differentiates you from other firms?

AWP's approach is boldly creative, strongly interdisciplinary, and international. At AWP, we have always worked across many scales and many genres, at the intersection of architecture, strategic planning, landscape, and urban design.

How do you get into the creative headspace?

I find continuous inspiration in other disciplines: art, sciences, fashion, film, landscapes, and above all, travel.

Who are your design heroes?

My “heroes” are writers and explorers, rather than architects: Joseph Conrad; Alexander Von Humboldt. Among designers I do like Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi, for her boldness; Carlo Mollino for his furniture and Polaroids; and Rick Owens, again, for his boldness.

What do you hope to contribute to the Chicago Biennial?

The most inspiring drawings and a discourse far beyond the usual limits of architecture.

The series of large-scale drawings and collages presented in Chicago are the continuation of a series I initially developed with the artist Ania Soliman for the Istanbul Art Biennial “Saltwater.” In Chicago, we bring this “thought project”––a project that “imagines a post-digital art institution with a communal imaginary, a utopia that would succeed the museum with fixed parameters”––further. The project concerns museology, architecture, urbanism, landscapes, and the multiple layers that make a city.

Most importantly, when it comes to pizza, deep dish or thin crust?

Thin crust, I am Italian!

The Chicago Architecture Biennial runs from September 19, 2017, to January 7, 2018. Read more of our coverage of the event here.