Migliore and Servetto. For those not in the know, a man and a woman: Ico Migliore and Mara Servetto, how did your working partnership begin?

Ours is a long story that started at university and comes down to the present. We both graduated under Achille Castigioni in Turin. The dissertation was on the business image, design in communication. Then in 1983 Castiglioni took us to Milan, where we worked with him till 1989.

How much did this professional experience count in your professional careers?

Castiglioni has influenced our work of the last ten years. His tendency to focus on the detail, to conduct research.
I should say Mara and I developed an interest more in the environment, in the landscape seen as a place bound up with perceptive communicative behaviour, a cognitive approach rather than a behaviour of use.

An example of landscape?

Landscape is like entering a forest: it is the tree that makes the forest, multiplied over and over. I am interested in masses of people, in the flow of people, in proxemics.

When you create a project what do you have in mind?

When I think about a project, more than drawing scenery I write a script, where the actors are people. Even if this is the age of the Internet, virtuality does not exist in our projects. Or rather, we are anti-virtual. Physicality is important. Physicality and the interaction with the image, the image modified, light and physical.

What it is architecture?

Architecture exists to protect. We live in houses as shelter from the cold, from our fears. Architecture should reassure.

And interior design?

Interior design serves to prompt us to think, to move the individual, to awaken the senses. In a certain way, it stimulates us to confront our fears.

What are the features that differentiate Ico Migliore from Mara Servetto?

Mara Servetto is more structural, solid, very determined and strong. I have a more overall view. We balance each other well.

When you design an installation for an interior, how do you succeed in making the commercial requirements coincide with the digressions into the spheres of art, spectacle, music?

We often work with the curators of exhibitions or with people running businesses. You have to create a bit of dialectic, even a slightly stressful relationship with your client. Projects change in the course of a work, but you have to go beyond what the customer says. Quality means doing some pushing and shoving. It is important and stimulating to work with people who have different skills in different fields. It is like watching a film being made, you have to coordinate everything, the contributions made from different points of view. Team work is essential. Today quality stems from directing a group.

What do you like about your work?

I like creating places where people meet and exchange information, in a positive climate. It is also typically Italian, going out and meeting people in the piazza. I like designing for the city or for parts of the city. Using public space in a broader way, covering the urban voids, prompting people to get out, move and find out something new. The positive things in my life have come from taking a wrong turning.

For the Winter Olympics 2006, held in Turin, you two, together with Italo Lupi, curated the Look of the City. What was your basic concept? How much did the architectural features and urban layout of Turin influence your design?

Turin is the city where Mara and I were born, we know it well. Our project for Turin grew out of a compelling need that went beyond the Winter Olympics. We developed the project on different levels: the look of the city, Turin Recounts Itself through the street signs and the most important places and Turin in Fiesta. An installation that was intended to express joy. We took a lot of things from the city, we wanted to respect its grid structure and its verticality with installations soaring upwards. We chose to use red because of a precise chromatic association: it is a colour that transmits energy, it evokes the Olympics and contrasts with the white and grey colouring of the houses.