2025 Beneficiaries

Martino De Pretto wrote

The honour of receiving this prize stays with my deep gratitude for the privilege of having been in a position to undertake my academic path thanks to sacrifices generations of my family have been making.
I believe that my lucky situation and this acknowledgement should involve a sort of responsibility towards all those who made them possible, a feeling that turns into the commitment in pursuing both my personal growth and the attention to architecture and its roles inside civil society.
The impact on changes of socio-cultural hallmarks is crucial in my thesis, which was produced jointly with Valentina Nesler under the guidance of professors Alberto Ferlenga and Antonio De Rossi.
The abandonment of an alpine hamlet becomes a cause for reflection on the relations between territory and contemporary socio-economic situation, by giving the thesis design the tasks of saving habits and techniques which shaped the alpine landscape and of reinterpreting the rural-alpine-architecture heritage.
This work having been rewarded is for me a major cause of gratitude as well as the privilege of being able to remember Marco and Gloria by means of an initiative allowing other young architects to go on with their dream.

Alice Bressan wrote

I want to express my most sincere gratitude for Grenfellove’s award. Receiving it is a major honour for me, due not only to the emblem it represents, but also to the importance it acknowledges of a theme I deeply care about: the relationship between memory and architecture.

My university path has offered me the opportunity to investigate the issues of architectural recovery and reuse, with particular regard to the historic heritage. My fellows and I focused our project on the requalification of the barchesse (rural ancillary structures) next to the Villa Contarini, in Piazzola sul Brenta (province of Padua). We envisaged a handicraft school in a position to return life and purpose to these spaces, by taking care of the historic memory of the villa itself and of the area around it.

Receiving this prize, which, albeit resulting from the memory of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, has become an icon of tangible hope, is for me a very sturdy motivation to go on along this route. After obtaining my degree, I wish I could provide the recovery of the architectural and cultural heritage with an active contribution, by making my acquired skills available to the development of projects having authentic and beneficial impacts.

The prize will substantially help me shape the ideas I’ve come up with during these past years and turn them into a firm and conscious professional pathway.

My heartfelt thanks go to the Commission and to all those who enabled this opportunity. I will hold this acknowledgement tight as an incentive to grow enthusiastically and responsibly.