Latest articles and posts from the transdisciplinary research project on the concepts of space and place, authored by the Italian architect Alessandro Calvi Rollino.
Today I tested ChatGPT-5 in the field of topological criticism by asking it to prepare a 5-minute academic critical review of my 2014 paper From Space to Place: A Necessary Paradigm Shift in Architecture, where I first outlined the hypothesis of place understood as a systemic and processual notion (place as system of processes). I then transformed the resulting text…
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of RSaP—Rethinking Space and Place (September 2015–September 2025) — I offer a brief reflection on this journey through the study of spatiality so far and on the road ahead. For at least a century the classical meanings of the paired terms space and place have been under sustained scrutiny across many fields: from…
I would like to further explore the general question of the spatial interpretations of reality, a topic I also addressed in the final part of my article New Realism for Architects, where I argued that we are living in a reality that is completely different from those of past eras—a new reality, properly. This question is particularly relevant not only…
Given the problematic status of “space” in Western thought, it would be better to say that it is a matter of constructing a new place with a new form—a new way of building not just at or on a place but building place itself, building it anew and otherwise. EDWARD S. CASEY, The Fate of Place That was Casey’s response…
It is clear that [this void space], which is obviously nothing, cannot have an actual existence. JOHANNES KEPLER, Epitome of Copernican Astronomy 1. Reality, the Circle of Reality, the Environment, and Spatial Concepts In a previous article, New Realism for Architects, I introduced the new realist hypothesis, which recognizes that both material (mind-independent) and immaterial (mind-dependent) aspects of reality are…