About
I trained in Milan and apprenticed in Basel, where I learned that architecture is mostly about restraint — knowing what to leave out. My studio takes few projects a year so each gets the attention it needs. We work in concrete, oak, and daylight, and we design for the way a building ages: patina, not decay. Every project begins with a single question — how should it feel to arrive here?
Build spaces that are quiet now and still generous in thirty years.
Principles: Material honesty · Daylight · Longevity · Context
Experience
16 years designing residential and cultural architecture across Europe
Principal Architect
2016 – PresentStudio Rossi
Founded a practice focused on residential and adaptive-reuse projects. 20+ completed works.
Project Architect
2011 – 2016Herzog & de Meuron
Led detailing on two cultural buildings, from competition to completion.
Education
M.Arch — Politecnico di Milano 2009
Exchange, Architecture — ETH Zürich 2008
Certifications
Registered Architect (OAM) — Ordine Architetti Milano 2010
Projects & publications
Casa Travertino
A courtyard house in Puglia carved around an old olive tree. Travertine, lime plaster, deep shade.
Fondazione Lume
Adaptive reuse of a 1930s printworks into a contemporary art foundation. Milan.
Rifugio Sasso
A timber mountain refuge detailed to survive alpine winters and frame a single view.
Libreria Verticale
A narrow infill bookshop — four floors of oak shelving around a single skylight.
Figures
References
“Elena designed a house that feels like it was always there. Living in it is like exhaling.”