DESIGNER’s STORY
PARTISANS is an award-winning architecture studio that specializes in the integration of design and programming, invention and activation, installations and creative services. Our diverse team of architects, artists, storytellers, cultural enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs produces work across mediums and scales, combining old-world craftsmanship, new-world technologies, and deft programming to subvert expectations and create meaningful built experiences.
The studio was founded on a conviction: Architecture is not just the act of designing a building; it’s a way of seeing, thinking, and making that expands and even revolutionizes our experience of the world. To that end, we believe that the relevance of our practice is inextricably linked to working across disciplines and forging public engagement through art, thought leadership, and cultural interventions that mobilize critical thinking, imagination, and community.
We aspire to be city builders building better cities by innovating on the front lines of ideas, culture, forms, materials, and typologies. Our cause: smart, high-performance design that strives to make the impossible probable.
Alex Josephson, Cofounder of PARTISANS
Alex Josephson cofounded PARTISANS in 2012 after studying architecture at the University of Waterloo, the University of Rome, and the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA). PARTISANS is comprised of architects, designers, thinkers, and cultural enthusiasts whose work across all scales is devoted to a cause: high-performance design that strives to make the improbable possible. The studio’s projects have been featured in Wallpaper, Dezeen, Frame, designboom, and The New York Times, and won numerous awards, including the R+D Award, Azure’s AZ Awards, and the Ontario Association of Architects’ Best Emerging Practice and Design Excellence awards. The only Canadian to have ever received the New York Prize Fellowship at the Van Alen Institute, Alex was named 2016 Best Emerging Designer by Canada’s Design Exchange. He currently lectures at the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture.
READ MORE BRAND DESIGNER’s STORIES
Timeless elegance and discreet shape are the words that best define Piero Lissoni’s style. His work is characterized by a personal language, that hides a simplified complexity. Lissoni’s architecture and design projects, seemingly minimal, are the result of a thorough research of both new technologies and materials.
After graduating in 1973 she worked as an Art Director at CentroKappa (1975-1979): planning and development of the image, sales instruments, sales outlets, exhibitions and special initiatives. During this period she collaborated with Alessandro Mendini at “MODO” magazine.
Born in 1962 in Lokeren, Belgium. As soon as he was qualified as an architect in 1985, he started work in Milan collaboratine with Cinzia Ruggeri and with studio Aldo Cibic-Sottsass Associati. In 1990 he established his own architects’ studio in Antwerp.
George Yabu is one of the founding partners at Yabu Pushelberg and oversees the creation and development of all design components for each project and product within its multidisciplinary practice. In his conceptual leadership and creative direction role, George reviews and refines the details of each project and product in collaboration with the design teams.
Giuseppe Bavuso is an architect and designer who lives and works in Seregno, located in the North of Milan. His projects are characterized by the combination of minimalistic rigour and accurate technical research thanks to the use of technological and innovative materials.
M.A. Lenka Damová 1983 has been living and working in Prague. Successfuly graduated at AAAD in Prague, concretely Department of Design in Zlín. Now has been occurring as a freelance designer, dedicated mainly to interior and product design.
