They have built a critical architectural practice through research into the adaptive reuse (“upcycling”) of infrastructural and industrial objects — most notably the standard 40-foot shipping container.
[1] They are recognized for initiating the concept of creating architecture with shipping containers and has successfully leveraged this construction technology with several award-winning projects.
LOT-EK’s ongoing research has focused on man-made objects and systems and the way they proliferate, accumulate, overlap and interfere with the built, and natural, environment around the globe.
LOT-EK’s sustainable approach to construction through the adaptive reuse of existing industrial objects and systems has been the basis of projects at all scales.
They specialize in inadvertent elegance and unexpected beauty, in bringing together old and new, generic and specific, natural and artificial, local and global, familiar and strange, "we seek to show how the ordinary can be extraordinary".
Ada and Giuseppe traveled extensively throughout the United States upon finishing architecture studies in Italy.
Inspired by the American landscape – both natural and urban – they won a scholarship to conduct post-graduate work at Columbia University.
This allowed them to experience both the experimental academic environment of Columbia, as well as the urban complexity of New York City.
The work they produced during that year was compiled in a book, which served as the foundation of the primary idea behind LOT-EK as a design studio.
On the basis of their work, as well as introductions during their time at Columbia, Ada and Giuseppe began receiving commissions in the US.
In 1995, they decided to open another studio in New York City, and secured a loft in the then raw and unglamorous Meat Packing District.
Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano each have a master's degree in Architecture and Urban Design from the Universita’ di Napoli, Italy (1989), and have completed post-graduate studies at Columbia University, New York (1990-1991).
Over the years, LOT-EK has collaborated with various artists, designers, and institutions to create spaces that blur the lines between architecture, art, and functionality.
These collaborations have resulted in innovative installations and spaces that serve multiple purposes and engage with their communities in unique ways.
1997 SURF-A-BED, multi channel television system for Gramercy Art Fair, commission: Henry Urbach Gallery, NY