ateliers alabauth

spatial design & research 

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Archive of Ideas

a body of work in which architecture, design, exhibitions and especulation converge, and share the same research process. 



Announcements  

2025_CINTAS Foundation Fellowship Finalist in Architecture & Design.

2025_Founder & Editor PFAALL Foundation Magazine (17/11/25-present)

2025_Exhibition “The Text Space”, Isle of Youth, Cuba. 

2024_3rd prize in an open competition organized by the Municipality of Újbuda in Budapest for the design of the Mari Törőcsik Memorial. 

2024_Tutor, Echo Academies Project, Open call for Creatives, Budapest, Hungary.
 
2024_Guest contributor, 7th International Architectural Model Festival, Budapest, Hungary.

2024_Aradi, work exhibited at the 7th International Architectural Model Festival, Budapest.

2024_MŰCSARNOK, work exhibited at the 3rd National Salon of Architecture, Budapest
2024_4 Houses, work exhibited at BitAC Cuba, La Habana.

2023_Curator, exhibition “Cuban Architectures, the Third Space”, at OSA, CEU, Budapest, Hungary.

2023_work exhibited at the Salone del Mobile, Milano.

2023_Jury, Echo Academies Project, Open call for Creatives, Budapest, Hungary.

2022_Jury, International Architecture Competition, Terraviva: The Cuban Square.

2022_Moon Gallery, selected among 64 art pieces sent to the ISS

2021_The hidden nature of objects, work exhibited at ART the Hague, Den Haag, Netherlands. 

2021_Jury, International Architecture Competition, The Challenge Latinoamérica.

2019_Finalist, "Sprouting Minds" Competition. Redesigning Isola Pepe Verde’s garden in Milano, Italia.

2018_Finalist, International design competition: National Memorial to the Heavenly Hundred Heroes and revolution of dignity Museum, “Maidan Dignity museum’, Kyiv. 

2018_work exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Unfolding Pavilion, Venezia. 

2017_De Rerum Natura, work exhibited at , Galería LARVA, Guadalajara, Mexico.

2017_Contre-Jour, work exhibited at Dedar Flagship Showroom, Milano. 

2016_Re-Drawing the Theory, work exhibited at Villa Merta Masolo, Milano.

2016_30under30, work exhibited at Tulpemnamie Gallery, Milan Fashion Week, Milano.

2016_Finalist, CTBUH Competition, "Mantova Performing Arts Center", Shenzhen, China. 







© 2025 Adrián Labaut. All rights reserved. 

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LIST OF PROJECTS

Mediolani, vi ante aenobarbi cladem extitit, iconographia, 1735, acquaforte.

Comune di Milano, Musei e Istituti culturali Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli
Un’ipotetica ricostruzione di alcuni dei più
importanti monumenti della Milano romana ai
tempi dell’imperatore Massimiano.
Dario Mellone, 1985.
Comune di Milano, Musei e Istituti culturali
Civica Raccolta delle Stampe Achille Bertarelli.





MEDIOLANUM PROJECT_THE SHAPE OF THE VOID

This study describes an alternative reality: the establishment of an architectural, multidimensional retrospection. The projects arise from a fundamental conflict: the articulation and programmatic relationships of a specific generic volume in its two most important stages—the original structure and the present one, shaped by centuries of transformation.


Milan is the arena for experimentation. The purpose is to provoke a confrontation between the contemporary city and Mediolanum, and the method is based on regenerating the specific buildings of the Roman city within the current context through a direct comparison between their original forms and their modern reality.

Parallel to this, there is an investigation into the potential of the void in relation to built space. Each project is conceived as a prototype—a generic idea without design intentions. The structures function as urban condensers that merge with their surroundings, enhancing the overall performance of the whole while simultaneously reflecting the Roman building that once occupied the same place.

The aesthetic is raw, exposed, and permanently incomplete. This thesis is an experimental exercise—a spatial-temporal incongruence that, in its final stage, becomes architecture.



This projects is an attempts to integrate a theory of the Void from a scientific point of view with an analysis based on the Roman city of Milan. Initially, it is important to understand the intention and qualities of these projects: they are closer to the unfinished and the infinite than to the completed idea.

The intention of developing the studio from the perspective of the archetypical buildings of Mediolanum¹ with their specific programs serves as the basis for conceptualizing an idea with similar outcomes. The new projects are Archetypes²; thus, they do not possess a well-defined shape but instead personify specific requirements of articulation and performance, eventually becoming conscious—nurtured with the substance of conscious experience.

When relating this idea to the concepts developed by Carl G. Jung, we may arrive at a similar conclusion: fundamentally, the built Archetype is empty, purely formal—nothing but a pre-shaping possibility or an innate tendency toward the shaping of things. The archetypal structure is imagery generated and regulated by the programmatic base, which is itself invisible. It is an innate predisposition that may be an inherent component of the brain. The archetypes stimulate the individual mind to generate a vast variety of images and, subsequently, of ways of utilizing space.

The projects do not possess any fixed meaning but rather point toward a greater reality that can never be fully understood in a linear manner, as it contains possibilities that transcend the knowing mind. When the building as symbol becomes fixed, with a universally agreed-upon meaning, it ceases to be a symbol and becomes a collective arena.


The translation of these ideas into a project is nourished by the understanding of the Void³ as a body of wholeness—one that contains what we can imagine and what we cannot. It is about the white paper rather than the black ink.

To generate a project with such characteristics, it is important to understand the qualities of the Void as a physical entity, its relations with nature, and the means through which it can be converted into an efficient device. Even attempting to imagine nothingness seems like an impossible task, yet the entire universe—and the places we now transform into habitation—appeared and are contained within Nothing. This scientific translation of the Void into Architecture allows us to distinguish between, on one hand, places that represent multiple possibilities and constitute an arena for their fruition and, on the other, areas saturated with matter, manually shaped and converted into mechanisms of control and preconceived use.

In Much Ado about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (1981), Edward Grant provides an account of the major ideas about void space within and beyond the world formulated between the fourteenth and early eighteenth centuries. He presents a comprehensive and detailed description of the scholastic Aristotelian arguments for and against the existence of void space. So great was the danger of Void space to Aristotle’s world system that he formulated a variety of arguments to show that motion in a separate void space was either impossible or that its consequences were absurd and contrary to nature. At this point, we may understand in a parallel manner the motion in Void space on the one hand, and the infinite interactions that a “Vacuum space” would contain in an urban context on the other.


One of the arguments defending the impossibility of empty space relates to its homogeneous nature. For Aristotle, the fact that every part of the Void is identical to every other—this lack of differentiation—would offer no reason for a body to move in one direction rather than another. Natural motion would fail because up and down are indistinguishable in the void.

Translating this thought into the urban realm, we may identify the saturation and ordering of space as attempts to give it meaning and consequently encourage its interactive relation with the surrounding context, differentiating its parts in scale and function for a more “efficient” performance. Following this theory, people in a void would be immobilized and incapable of determining the region in which they could fully actualize their potentialities. Likewise, without resistance inside the vacuum, a body would yield equally in any direction—or perhaps in all directions simultaneously—and this is precisely one of the strengths of the “space without qualities” within the urban context.

In opposition to what we may find in a city like Milan—a city full of “obstacles,” which is the basis for this research—the Voids would represent areas of unlimited possibilities, a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society, a technique of transient passage through varied ambiences that are nothing but the points where the void interacts with surrounding matter.

The increasing possibilities of this theory materialize in the project through mechanisms that interrupt the linear use of the city—that is, its surfaces in interaction with mobility and connection. Horror Vacui⁴, or “nature abhors a vacuum,” as argued by Aristotle, is translated into the urban realm in similar terms: we tend to fill immediately the rarity of an emerging void with different devices in order to bring space closer to our understanding, often substantially limiting its quality and freedom. Yet vacuum is nature’s default state.

The strength of these ideas—and the proposal of reinserting the void into a city like Milan—lies in the undiscovered capacity of people to transform their understanding of the vacuum in relation to the external activities that it also contains, however insignificant they may seem. The project is a tool for research: in empty space, anything can happen without the interference of the contaminating, distorted physicality of the context.

These ideas also represent a radically new vision of the future of Architecture and spatial use. In the near future, space will be valued over building, and its transformability will depend on the uncertainty of new technologies.
The materialization of the projects signifies the “rediscovery” of the Void, though not a complete one. The principle of the project may be expressed differently: it is the balance between vacuum and small concentrations of energy that generate spatial and functional fluctuations. This energy is translated into mechanisms of interaction that connect different kinds of spaces, making it possible to understand the area with a more complex set of visual relations and transforming its character.


 To illustrate this, consider the Roman Theatre, which would be located today between Piazza degli Affari, Via Meravigli, Via delle Orsole, and San Vittore al Teatro. Its “reconstruction” would proceed as follows:
The area, which is currently fully occupied, will be analyzed by understanding the capacity of use of its existing elements (undergrounds, roofs, internal courtyards, and the buildings themselves). After this study, the components with potential use will be grouped to understand their collective interaction, which will be simultaneously compared three-dimensionally with the original plan and sections of the theatre that once occupied the same space.

The studio is concerned with flexibility and, more importantly, the potentials of space. The aim is to arrive at solutions whose main strength lies in the intensification of the former programs, with empty space as the fundamental component, creating areas of high social quality, flexibility, dynamism, and complexity when analyzing their structure in relation to the surrounding context. This generates functional and cultural conflict that reinforces their archetypical character, returning to the Roman city for the metamorphosis of the urban fabric into a superior organism.

The next stage relates to the identification of the Void. These zones will form the core of the project and will occupy as much space as possible, resulting in the demolition of certain structures or the reuse of existing ones. After identifying the space dedicated to the void, and taking into consideration the former plan of the theatre, the new mechanisms of interaction will be located in places associated with the same specific functional qualities, resulting in a Generic⁷ body in which the vacuum occupies the largest area.






Notes

01. In 222 B.C. the city of Milan was conquered by Romans and it was annexed to the Roman Empire, getting the name of Mediolanum.

02. Mid 16th century: via Latin from Greek arkhetupon ‘something moulded first as a model’, from arkhe- ‘primitive’ + tupos ‘a model’.

03. Middle English (in the sense ‘unoccupied’): from a dialect variant of Old French vuide; related to Latin vacare ‘vacate’; the verb partly a shortening of avoid, reinforced by Old French voider.

04. Horror Vacui (from the Latin: “fear of emptiness”).

THE AMPHITHEATRE
THE MAXIMIANUS CITY WALLS AND “ANSPERTO TOWER
THE IMPERIAL PALACE
THE HERCULEAN BATHS
THE FORUM
THE THEATRE
THE HORREUM
THE EPISCOPAL COMPLEX
THE ENCLOSURE OF SAN VITTORE AL CORPO
SAN LORENZO
THE CIRCUS
SAN GIOVANNI IN CONCA
SAN DIONIGI
THE PORTICOED STREET
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