Architensions' First Solo Exhibition and Book Launch at Java Project Gallery

Architensions, the architecture and urbanism studio led by Italian architect Alessandro Orsini and Nick Roseboro, presents its first solo exhibition at Java Project Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, in 2016. Curated by Dakota Sica, the show features five projects from the studio's first decade, each addressing different international contexts. The exhibition coincides with the publication of 'Forma Urbana' (Libria, 2015), a bilingual volume in Italian and English. The book's preface introduces the concept of the 'five-dimensional city,' where user experience becomes the fifth dimension within a spacetime framework. Orsini, who previously worked at Steven Holl Architects, founded Architensions on the principle of rejecting the separation of architecture from urban planning. The studio's name itself reflects this integration: 'Architensions' combines architecture and tensions. The book is structured around three categories—simultaneity, acceleration, and collapse—derived from a physics analogy. Projects include a proposal for New York's High Line (collapse), an intervention in Zagreb (acceleration), and modular housing cubes in Malaga, Spain (simultaneity). The volume includes essays by Luca Galofaro, Giancarlo Mazzanti, and Yehuda Safran. Orsini critiques contemporary architecture for producing iconic objects driven by economic forces that turn cities into advertising tools.