CRistiana Favretto, 50 years old, was born and lives in San Donà di Piave (Venice). Once a week he goes to Florence, to the Pnat headquarters. He has two sons, Alessandro and Giacomo, aged 12 and 8.
In 2014, with her architect husband Antonio Girardi, the neuroscientist Stefano Mancuso and two botanists he founded Pnat (acronym from Project Nature), which combines environmental sciences and botany with architecture to innovatively design installations, technological solutions and hybrid internal and external spaces, in which the human presence coexists with greenery, biodiversity, pollinators.
6.45am
«Wake up, have breakfast and take the kids to school. Then I dedicate an hour to myself, with yoga and pilates. If I have to go by train to Florence, I’m already up at 5.30 and in these cases, working together, my husband also leaves. Luckily, there are grandmothers for the grandchildren.”
Cristiana Favretto, green architect (photo Giulio Boem).
9.30 am
«In videoconference we talk with colleagues from the design studio in the hinterland of Venice or from the Pnat headquarters in Florence. We are a close-knit group of 12 people. An example of our projects is installation The Hidden Plant Communityon display until October 13 at the Osaka Expo, which reveals the secrets of plant life to the public. Through an immersive audio and visual experience, it shows what it means to live like a tree. With geophones, special microphones, we recorded the sound of the sap rising in the trunk: listening to it you have the sensation of being inside the plant. Thanks to kinetic panels with elements that open and close, Let’s make evapotranspiration understandable through the stomata, small openings on the surface of the leaves, which is the basis of photosynthesis. Pnat is an offshoot of the University of Florence and projects like this always have a scientific as well as artistic approach.”
The installation “The Hidden Plant Community” at the Osaka Expo.
1pm
«I pick up the kids from school and we have lunch. I love cooking and after three trips to Japan I became passionate about oriental cuisine. I love Japanese shiso basil, the various types of miso that are obtained from the fermentation of rice, soy or barley. Even in Florence we have Japanese lunches, my “partner” Stefano Mancuso likes that cuisine. However, I appreciate local dishes: I like preparing sardines in saòr.”
Shiso, an oriental aromatic plant similar to basil (photo Getty Images).
2.30pm
«I dedicate myself to planning. We are working for the Municipality of Turin, the objective is to reopen the Regio Parco nursery where there is a social space to learn how to reforest. Sometimes I go to the Architecture Biennale in Venice where, at the Corderie dell’Arsenale, we are exhibiting an example of the “Air Factory”. It is a 50 by 50 centimeters and 1.80 meter high greenhouse with selected plants (of which we tested the prototype in 2024 in the United States), equipped with entry and exit sensors that they demonstrate how plants purify the air of a closed environment. We have already created office partition walls with this system in many parts of the world. The greenhouse can also be placed in homes.” Shiso, an oriental aromatic plant similar to basil.
An “Air Factory” greenhouse to purify the air indoors (photo by Takumi Ota).
6pm
«With the children I go to my parents’ house who have a vegetable garden and an orchard from which I often draw: I care a lot about a natural diet. If I can, I help my mother take care of the land. Then home: dinner, a look at the homework and at 9.30pm the children go to bed.”
9.30pm
«I finally have time for myself. For the book of the moment, Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams, set in the Far West. Or for the dystopian TV series The Last of Us. But the best day is Friday: we leave for Jesolo and we have the sea in front of us.”