UMBRAL
Installation

Site: Aglientu, Sardegna
Project: 2024
Status: Built
Team: Memo Sanchez Cardenas, Veronica Pesenti Rossi, Carlo Farina
Collaborators: Fondazione Franco Albini  
Construction: Rubner Haus

Umbral – The Temple of Listening is an architectural installation that revisits the Blockhaus system as both a constructive technique and a cultural framework. Rather than treating solid wood as a nostalgic material, the project repositions it as a contemporary, flexible, and sustainable architectural language. Designed by Memo Sánchez Cárdenas, Carlo Farina, and Veronica Pesenti Rossi, the installation was developed through a close process of experimentation guided by Fondazione Franco Albini, drawing on the principles of the Albini Method.
Installed in the Cortile d’Onore of the Università degli Studi di Milano, Umbral presents itself externally as a compact and restrained volume. Only by entering does the visitor discover a spatial sequence articulated through five modular units of varying heights. Inside, light becomes an active architectural element, filtering through the structure and marking time, movement, and pause. Crossing the threshold is conceived as an intentional act, opening the space to listening, reflection, and shared presence.
The name Umbral – threshold – frames the installation as a condition of passage between certainty and openness. A central element anchors the space both physically and symbolically, evoking ideas of common roots, continuity, and collective responsibility. Conceived as a participatory and multisensory environment, the installation brings together architecture, light, and material into a shared experience. Built by Rubner Haus, Umbral demonstrates how an ancient construction system can generate new architectural meanings, striking a balance between structural clarity and spatial intimacy.